On this day in movie history - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975 movie & novel):

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

directed by Miloš Forman,

written by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman,

based on the novel by Ken Kesey,

was released in the United States on November 19, 1975.
Music by Jack Nitzsche.

Cast:

Jack Nicholson, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco, Dean R. Brooks, Alonzo Brown, Scatman Crothers, Mwako Cumbuka, Danny DeVito, William Duell, Josip Elic, Lan Fendors, Louise Fletcher, Nathan George, Ken Kenny, Mel Lambert, Sydney Lassick, Kay Lee, Christopher Lloyd, Dwight Marfield, Ted Markland, Louisa Moritz, William Redfield, Philip Roth, Will Sampson, Mimi Sarkisian, Mews Small, Delos V. Smith, Tin Welch, Brad Dourif, Aurore Clément, Bill Gratton, Anjelica Huston, Ingeborg Kjeldsen, Audrey Landers, Tom McCall, James V. Shore, Saul Zaentz.

Recommended reading:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

By Ken Kesey.

Paperback.

First published 1962.

Published by Picador.

ISBN 13: 9780774033442

ISBN 10: 0774033444

ASIN: 0774033444

Description:

An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s.

In this classic novel, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Nurse Ratched, backed by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Nurse Ratched uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story’s shocking climax.

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

“BRILLIANT!” – Time.

On this day in movie history - The Shootist (1976 movie & novel):

The Shootist

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale,

based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout,

was released in the United States on July 21, 1976.
Music by Elmer Bernstein.

Cast:

John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart, Richard Boone, Hugh O'Brian, Bill McKinney, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Rick Lenz, Scatman Crothers, Gregg Palmer, Alfred Dennis, Dick Winslow, Melody Thomas Scott, Kathleen O'Malley, Jack Berle, Johnny Crawford, Chuck Dawson, George Dunn, Duke Fishman, Christopher George, Jonathan Goldsmith, Leo Gordon, Charles G. Martin, Jim Michael, Ernesto Molinari, Ricky Nelson, James Nolan, Nick Raymond, Henry Slate, Bob Steele, Ralph Volkie, John Zimeas.

Recommended reading:

The Shootist

By Glendon Swarthout.

Introduction by Miles Swarthout.

Filmed as The Shootist (1976), directed by Don Siegel.

Published by Bison Books.

First published 1975.

ISBN-10: 0803238231

ISBN-13: 9780803238237

Description:

"Such style...such a strong central idea...the showdown is an unremitting as the build-up." – Sunday Times of London.

"This is an extremely well-written Western and gives the reader vivid insight into the workings of the mind of a wanderer and gunman." – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sunday Advocate.

"The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout is the taleof the Old West's version of the modern 'hit man'. It is a splendid story, well-told and with a really satisfying ending." – Charleston, South Carolina Evening Post.

The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a man of principle and the only surviving gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El Paso in the year 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died, there to be told by a doctor that he must soon confront the greatest shootist of all: Death. In such a showdown, against such an antagonist, he cannot win. Most men may end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a man-killer has a 3rd option, one which Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner.

As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the end of his rope, an assortment of vultures gathers to feast upon his corpse--among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, an old love, a reporter, even a boy. Books outwits them, however, by selecting the where, when, who, and why of his death, and writing in fire from a pair of Remingtons the last courageous act of his own legend. The climatic gunfight itself is an incredible performance by an incredible man, and by his creator, Glendon Swarthout.

The Shootist will rank with such classics as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident, but it is much more than a Western. When, in the final afternoon of his life, J. B. Books crosses a street and enters a saloon to make something of his death, we cross, we enter, with him. He is us.

From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the chiffonier, then hung his Price Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out, revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, single-action .44 Remingtons, obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the other pearl.

Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen, and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in corner room was no stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze tales to know that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner...

On this day in movie history - Bronco Billy (1980):

Bronco Billy

directed by Clint Eastwood,

written by Dennis Hackin,

was released in the United States on June 11, 1980.
Music by Snuff Garrett.

Cast:

Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Scatman Crothers, Bill McKinney, Sam Bottoms, Dan Vadis, Sierra Pecheur, Walter Barnes, Woodrow Parfrey, Beverlee McKinsey, Doug McGrath, Hank Worden, William Prince, Pam Abbas, Eyde Byrde, Douglas Copsey, John Wesley Elliott Jr., Chuck Hicks, Bob Hoy, Jefferson Jewell, Dawneen Lee, Don Mummert, Lloyd Nelson, George Orrison, Michael Reinbold, Tessa Richarde, Cha Cha Sandoval-McMahon, Valerie Shanks, Sharon Sherlock, James Simmerman, Roger Dale Simmons, Jenny Sternling, Chuck Waters, Jerry Wills, Diablo Dean, Scott Atkins, Alison Eastwood, Kyle Eastwood, Scott Glatt III, Merle Haggard, Danny Jensen, R.C. Keene, Juliette Lewis, David Reed, Thomas Iloe Rose, Arlis Tranmer, George Wendt, Gayla Wilson-Corbin.