A Report from the Original 1970's Release

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2014)

I was 16 or 17 and going to boarding school in Pennsylvania. I had to take the train into Philadelphia by myself in order to testify about some theft that happened at my school (someone stole my stereo!). I had some free time and I sneaked into a theater for the first afternoon showing of this film. There had been some publicity in Time Magazine with racy pictures, so I had heard about the film. I was amazed that I was able to get in because it was rated X and I had never seen an x-rated film before. I was shaking with guilt and anticipation. There was practically no one else in the theater.
As soon as the first note of the soundtrack started and the orange titles began to appear rhythmically with the music I was riveted. I couldn't believe how musical this film was and how the music and images worked as one. Images I had never, ever imagined popped onto the screen. The make-up on Alex, the costumes with the cod pieces, the naked milk figures. Suddenly a naked woman appeared. I had never seen a naked woman in a moving picture before, only in Playboy and Penthouse magazine! Then all of the violence. And all of it choreographed so perfectly to the music. It was a completely foreign world...but so incredibly stimulating! My heart was pumping with absolute joy. I had never seen anything so exciting in my life. The dancing Jesus, the snake and the vagina, the bouncing penis sculpture, the Beethoven statue smashing a face, the scissor stripping of the woman, Singin in the Rain...I was absolutely intoxicated.
By the end of the film my life had been changed. This was the first entertainment that I had ever seen that stimulated all of my sense and moved me to the core. For years after I replayed the movie over and over in my head (this is before VCR's) using a book with the script and black and white pictures from the film and the soundtrack LP.
Now, over forty years later, I still like the film very much but it is not in my top ten. It really tapped into my adolescent mindset back in the 70's, but as I grew older and focused more on the story and message it was not as interesting. However, to me this film was pioneering, particularly when it comes to music videos which it anticipated and which developed many years later.
My first love in life now is classical music. Only music can move me the way Clockwork Orange did when I was a teen. The music in Clockwork Orange helped give it it's power over me and sent me on a lifelong journey into the world of classical music. Kubrick was brilliant when it came to using classical music...but in a way it is cheating. Without classical music, 2001, Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon would not be as great as they are. So I thank Kubrick, Beethoven, Purcell, Rossini, Elgar and Wendy Carlos for A Clockwork Orange.