So What have A Clockwork Orange and The Beatles got in common?
As you see this Blog you may well ask what is this doing here, well please read on and all will become so very clear, as clear as mud it seems in parts,…… but the question and story is so very real.
The original book of A Clockwork Orange was first published by Anthony Burgess in 1962 and immediately opened several lines of questioning as regards morality and scope of the book and its contents. Interest however was very rich and the film rights were sold by the author for a then good sum of $500 US Dollars almost immediately, (today that would be worth around $5,200 Dollars).
As strength and wind got behind the movie project, The Rolling Stones were first in line for the film, with Mick Jagger very keen to play the role of Alex, (finally done with reverence by Malcolm Mcdowell). Ken Russell was to be the director of the said movie.
During the early 1970s records were made that The Beatles were also considered for roles within the film. The two bands were rotated in many peoples heads throughout the 1960s. All this occurred before Stanley Kubrick got involved with the project.
Enter at an early stage, writer Terry Southern who had written a script with the Beatles as the main cast, apparently building on their acting success in A Hard Day’s Night. This seemed to be the agreed approach until, the film’s executive producer Si Litvinoff passed a letter to prospective director John Schlesinger in February 1968, and with it a petition signed and fully supported by The Beatles and Mick Jagger, that the role of Alex was to be played by Mick, and the other Stones to play his gang mates in the movie.
The Beatles were then slated to write the film’s soundtrack and the resultant album was to be issued on Apple Records, their new Record Company. This, however. was never to be done due to the pressure brought to bear by The British Board of Film Classification, who stated that they would not grant any viewing certificates for the film, so the rights for the movie reverted finally to Stanley Kubrick.
The project rumbled on without any strong movement until the film IF was released starring Malcolm Mc Dowell, who played his role superbly exuding his violent nature, but also expounded intelligence on the screen. Some time later, Terry Southern gave a copy of his plot (still wrapped around The Beatles), and script to Stanley Kubrick, who apparently, after completing another project, liked everything about the film project so took it on.
By the time filming had begun in September 1970 and finished in April 1971, The Beatles had split as a group, so the avenue to having them write and record the soundtrack was lost completely.
However, filming was slated to begin on several occasions during late 1968 and 1969, and it was also planned to use mainly London locations. Thamesmead and other nearby areas were earmarked, so could one could ask the question, That could it be that the studios used to start rehearsals for the Get Back Project, in January 1969, could they have originally been booked for A Clockwork Orange soundtrack sessions? It certainly does bear thinking about, does it not?
Yes, we can now speculate with a lot more concrete timings, but it still remains conjecture until further information is added to this pot.
However strange this story must appear to many fans, I am 100% assured that it is not wishful thinking, or 100% conjecture, but a huge amount of fact that sadly never came to fruition. I add another caveat to this whole scenario in the fact that Lennon’s solo music really explored vastly different areas to mainstream music that The Beatles so richly dominated worldwide at the time. Some of the tracks on the White Album could have easily been used as background music to some of the explicit and disturbing scenes in the film. Along with Two Virgins as a candidate, the barriers and differences were at times not to far apart.
Finally, some of the film projects undertaken by John and Yoko via Apple films are so very surrealistic, avant garde in concept, that they indeed would have fitted very well in A Clockwork Orange. So although we did not get A Clockwork Apple, what we ended up with was a film that provoked at the time, and still does this very thing today.
Author of Inside No 3 a picture History of Apple.
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