10 Times They Were Worried What Movies Would Do To You
4. A Clockwork Orange Would Incite Violence
From the legendary Stanley Kubrick, 1971's A Clockwork Orange - adapted from Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name - has courted plentiful controversy over the decades.
A tale of "ultra-violence", sexual assault, classical music and milk, the film's twisted central figure Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang of droogs wound up being cheered on for their heinous antics of debauchery in some quarters. For film censors and concerned parents across the globe, this was exactly what was feared ahead of A Clockwork Orange hitting cinemas.
Those worried about the content of Kubrick's picture conjured up scenarios of teens and young adults mimicking the chilling acts of Alex and his pals. Sadly, those concerns were somewhat warranted.
Whilst there's no way of knowing for sure if A Clockwork Orange was the sole reason for people choosing to unleash violent attacks in the UK around the time of the film's release, such acts of aggression - and several murders - were labelled as copycat assaults which drew inspiration from this '71 feature.
Such was the backlash against A Clockwork Orange in the United Kingdom, Kubrick himself made the decision to remove the movie from all British cinemas. It was only after the filmmaker's death in 1999 that the picture would be made widely available in the UK.