One of the most gruesome scenes in Hollywood history caused real injury to its actor – and left him temporarily blinded.
Legendary director Stanley Kubrick had Malcolm McDowell actually suffer while filming A Clockwork Orange, based on the hit novel by Anthony Burgess. In one horrific scene, his character Alex is subjected to aversion therapy to help ‘cure’ him of his violent, psychopathic tendencies.
In the book, which is written in futuristic slang, the scene is described: “I had truly done my best, morning and afternoon, to play it their way and sit like a horrorshow cooperative malchik in the chair of torture, while they flashed nasty bits of ultraviolence on the screen.”
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But on-screen, it was important to make the scene look real, which involved using real lid-locks, the same kind used in eye surgery. To make things worse, the actor was wearing a straitjacket and needed his eyes anaesthetised during the painful procedure.
(Image: Everett/REX/Shutterstock)
The star recalled in 2019: “During our preparation, Stanley showed me a picture of an eye-operation patient with lid-locks on and asked me if I could have that done to me: ‘Hell, no!’ I said. So he brought in a doctor to anaesthetise my eyes. But most eye operations are done with the patient lying on their back, not sitting up watching videos.”
The lab coat standing next to Alex in the film was actually a real doctor, who applied eye drops to McDowell’s eyes every 15 seconds.
(Image: Everett/REX/Shutterstock)
He revealed the clamps kept “sliding off” his eyelids and ended up “scratching his cornea” – leaving him in so much discomfort he ended up repeatedly banging his head against the wall. But he confessed: “Stanley was mainly concerned about when he would be able to get his next shot.”
McDowell went temporarily blind after shooting, and Alex’s screams of “Stop!” are made all the more haunting when you realise some of them might have actually been real.
(Image: Warner Bros/Hawk Films/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
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It wasn’t even the only injury McDowell suffered on set, as he also suffered cracked ribs during a brawl with another actor – and nearly drowned when his head was held underwater in another scene.
Actress Adrienne Corri was bashed around in the film by Malcolm, confessing: “Hereally hit me. One scene was shot 39 times until Malcolm said: ‘I can’t hit her anymore!'”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
