Anthony Burgess began working on "A Clockwork Orange" in the late fifties. Burgess had done much traveling abroad during this period and returned to a damaged, post-war England. The "new British phenomena" was youth gangs, who were terrorizing the streets of London. This cultural change inspired Burgess to begin writing his next novel, "A Clockwork Orange," whose title he borrowed from cockney slang. The "teddy boys" that he saw in coffee shops were dressed in the "heighth of fashion" for 1950's England. His description of their outfits was strikingly similar to Malcolm McDowell's apparel in the film’s record store scene. "These youths were dressed very smartly in neo-Edwardian suits with heavy-soled boots and distinctive coiffures," said Burgess. This is a nearly identical description of McDowell's outfit in the aforementioned scene. However, this must have been more of Kubrick's interpretation of the novel. In the book, for this scene, Little Alex wore his "day platties" which "were like student wear: the old blue pantalones with sweater with A for Alex." This outfit's description is more like Richie Cunnigham than a Victorian-clad gang member.

The evolution of gangs in England was the war between two rival factions. These two distinct groups were the Mods and the Rockers. The Mods, also referred to as "rude boys" and would later develop into the "punkers" and "skinheads" in London, were the somewhat, clean-cut thugs who wore suits and jackets, drove scooters, and listened to modern music of the time. The Rockers, however, were the biker throwbacks to the fifties, clad in leather and traveling in motorcycle packs. Laughably, the cover of the original pressing of the novel depicts the droogs like the Rockers, but they would never be confused that way after Kubrick’s film. Quadraphenia, a film inspired by the Who's album of the same name, documents the strife between these two groups of London gangs in the sixties. These gangs, along with their earlier counterparts, the "teddy boys," strongly influenced the creation of the droogs.

Droogs is a one of the terms that came from the extensive nadsat vocabulary that Burgess developed for his novel. Initially, he started writing his book with sixties slang. However, halfway through he realized this would not capture the essence of the futuristic language he was striving towards. While on holiday in 1961, Burgess and his wife vacationed in Russia. While relearning the Russian language, Burgess stated that he "had found a solution to the stylistic problem" of his new novel. The name nadsat came from the Russian suffix -teen and droogs would spawn from the Russian word drugi, which meant "friends in violence." When he had finished, Burgess had developed about two hundred words for his nadsat vocabulary. Burgess said, "as the book was about brainwashing, it was appropriate that the text itself should be a brainwashing device." He did not wish the book to be published with a glossary because he felt " a glossary would disrupt the programme and nullify the brainwashing."

Burgess's travels to Russia also influenced his book in other ways. Russia, at this time, was also having problems with youthful street hooligans called the stilyagi, which stood for "style-boys." They were hoodlums like the Mods, Rockers, and "teddy boys," but they were existing in a cold, communist police state. He felt the combination of English and Russian elements, comprising the two most powerful factions of the world, would help to assure Alex Large as a strong, "unpolitical" character

"A Clockwork Orange" was released in 1962 and received poor reviews. Later in the year, the novel would be published in the United States by W.W. Norton Inc. Norton's vice president, Eric Swenson, wanted the book to be published without the final 21^st chapter. Burgess did not want his book to be distributed like this, because he purposely had divided his novel into three sections of seven, which would yield twenty-one chapters. To Burgess, twenty-one was the number that represented the "symbol of human maturity." This final chapter also showed Alex's move towards maturity by casting aside childish things, in this case violence, and moving into adulthood. It also showed that all people, irregardless of their history, values, or situation, could change. However, the financially struggling Burgess needed the advance and agreed to release the novel with only the first twenty chapters. The book did far better in the States than it had in England. "It was gratifying to be understood in America," said Burgess, "humiliating to be misread in my own country."

After the book's release internationally, a rash of copycat violence began to infiltrate many nation's cities. Gangs were adapting the vocabulary and imitating the crimes that were found in the novel. In some places, as with the film’s later release, "A Clockwork Orange" was banned. But one of the cornerstone philosophies in film and media is that all publicity is good publicity.

In 1971, Burgess went to a private screening of the film, A Clockwork Orange. He was familiar with Kubrick's work and fond of films like Paths of Glory, Lolita, and Dr. Strangelove. He hoped Kubrick could transform the futuristic look he had intended for in his book. He felt 2001: A Space Odyssey was proof that Kubrick had the ability to do so. Now, it was just a matter of seeing what Kubrick could come up with for A Clockwork Orange. Burgess realized the work was genius. It was not adapted exactly from the novel, but he felt Kubrick had done a tremendous job.

Prior to starting A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick had just finished 2001 : A Space Odyssey, and was planning to do a film about Napoleon. However costs prevented the film from ever moving past planning. The Napoleon-theme is of interesting note between Kubrick and Burgess. After the release of A Clockwork Orange, Burgess went to Kubrick's home for dinner. They discussed the film, music and Kubrick's desire to create the Napoleon movie. This discussion inspired Burgess to write his next book, "Napoleon's Symphony," which was Ludwig Van Beethoven's third symphony. Beethoven had originally written this for Napoleon, but because of changes in the political tide of that day, Beethoven renounced his dedication and the symphony became the "Eroica." Thus, Burgess's "Napoleon Symphony" was born.

There are a great deal of differences between Kubrick's film and Burgess's novel. The greatest difference is the film's ending which, like the book's U.S. edition, did not include Burgess's 21^st chapter. The film ended with Alex's recovery and the last line, "I was cured all right." Kubrick, an American who had moved to England, was not familiar with the original release and had only read the U.S. edition. Kubrick did not see the last chapter until he was almost done with the screenplay. In a 1972 interview with French writer Michel Ciment, Kubrick said that the last chapter was "unconvincing and inconsistent with the style and intent of the book." He said he never seriously considered using the last chapter. Apparently, Kubrick was unaware that it was the publisher that cut the chapter from the U.S. release. Kubrick said, "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the publisher had somehow prevailed upon Burgess to tack on the extra chapter, against his better judgment, so the book would end on a more positive note." Kubrick could not have been any more wrong about the conditions surrounding the book's U.S. release.

As the film's opening titles roll in, the viewer hears the first sounds of the Moog synthesizer played by avant-garde composer Walter (a.k.a. Wendy) Carlos. The opening theme, "Music on the Death of Queen Mary" composed by Henry Purcell, begins the audience's journey into this chaotic drama. Kubrick's choice of Carlos as the soundtrack's director of musical arrangement helped to further the motif that Burgess had hoped to convey in his novel. The pieces that Carlos created sounded nothing like the current music of the times. He, or she, transformed classics like Rossini's "Barber of Seville," Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," and Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March" into futuristic, synthesized anthems that would ring in the ears of moviegoers for years to come. After the U.S. release of the film, the soundtrack did tremendously well in sales. To date, it remains one of the most successful soundtrack releases in film history.

Kubrick believed that a culture’s appreciation of classical music did not make them better nor worse than others in that society. He commented on the correlation between Alex's obsession with rape and Beethoven. "I think it suggests the failure of culture to have any morally refining effect on society," said Kubrick. "Hitler loved good music and many top Nazis were cultured and sophisticated men but it didn't do them, or anyone else, much good."

When Burgess wrote his novel, his theme for the anti-hero, Alex Large, was of a young man obsessed with classical music. In the movie, the character played by McDowell was obsessed exclusively with Beethoven and his ninth symphony. However, in the book, Alex's loves varied between Bach, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and many other famous composers. The movie does not mirror the music selection order of the book. For example, near the beginning, when the droogs return to the Korova milkbar and Dim "raspberries" the young devotchka singing, she is performing a piece by Friedrich Gitterfenster called "Das Bettzeug." In the movie, she was singing "Ode to Joy" from the fourth movement of the Beethoven's ninth symphony. Later in the film, Alex "rapes" the two young girls to "The 1812 Overture," but in Burgess's novel, Alex listens to the ninth while committing his carnal crimes.

Another musical difference can be found after Alex undergoes the Ludivico treatment. In the movie, it is the music of Beethoven, namely the ninth, which makes him sick. However, in the novel's third section, not one piece by Beethoven is played. After leaving his family's flat, it is Mozart's "Symphony Number Forty in G-minor" that makes him ill. Then, the selection that drives him to jump through F. Alexander's window is "Symphony Number Three" by the Danish veck Otto Skadelig. In the film, Alex states that it isn’t other music that makes him sick, merely Beethoven’s ninth. Of interesting note in this scene is that Kubrick dropped a camera from a window, to crash down on the cement below, to capture Alex’s flight through the air.

The first noticeable difference between the film and the novel is the outfits of the droogs. In the novel, the "heighth of fashion" was black tights with "the old jelly mould." Each droog had his own identifying "mould" : Alex's of a spider, Pete's a hand, Georgie's a fancy flower, and Dim's was a clown's face. They wore jackets with built-up shoulders, called pletchoes, and off-white cravats. The character's film counterparts were exact negative images of the novel's description. The film's establishing shot slowly zooms out from Alex and reveals the droogs dressed in white outfits, no jackets, black hats, and non-descriptive, external crotch protection. The only similarity in costumes between the book and the film is the "horrorshow boots for kicking." Also, in the book, there is no mention of Alex's infamous fake eyelash, nor the bloodied eyeballs attached to his shirt's wrists.

The film, like the novel, has three distinct parts. They are the initial rampage of the droogs, Alex's incarceration and treatment, and his release. The first section of the film, as savage and repelling as it was, did not compare to the violence found in the book. Full confrontations between the droogs and their victims did not appear in the film. Likely, this was due to time constraints as the film may not have been as effective if it were four hours long. One of the missing scenes from the book is important to its success. The first tragic encounter is the beating of the "doddery starry schoolmaster type veck" In this scene, they pull out his false teeth, crush them under heel, pummel him in the face, and send him on his way. After this scene, they go to the Duke of New York, and then later come across the vagrant, whom they also beat. Now in the film, it is the vagrant who later recognizes Alex and attacks him with a mob of old homeless men in the street. However, in the book, it is the educated man who recognizes Alex in the library, and attacks him with a mob of educated people. Irregardless of who is beating Alex, both scenes are effective, and Kubrick merely changes the end to keep from including an extra scene with the "doddery veck." These scenes also lead to another significant difference.

In both the film and the movie, the millicents come to "save" Alex from his beating. In the film, the two officers are Dim and Georgie, who take Alex into the country. They beat and nearly drown him. In the novel, there are three millicents, Dim, Billyboy, the leader from the opposing gang in the beginning, and another named Rex, who knew nothing of the droogs' history. Rex was the driver, who waited, while the other two bashed Alex senseless. The reason why Burgess may have had Billyboy as the second policeman is because in the 21^st chapter of the book, Alex learns that Georgie is dead. He is told this when he stumbles across his former accomplice Pete. Kubrick may have substituted Georgie because he was unfamiliar with the final chapter and wanted to maintain some consistency in the film.

The gang fight between the droogs and Billyboy's crew was far more violent in the book. First, the girl Billyboy's gang was raping in the book was only about ten, and the actress in the film was far more developed than a ten-year old. Even though the fighting in this scene was very intense, with windows crashing and chains whipping, the book was far more brutal. The droog's britvas opened up most of Billyboy's thugs with lethal precision, an element that was not explored in the film. The film’s scene is more comical and less lethal than the book. Also of note is that the book has the matchup being six against the four droogs, while in the film there are only five against the droogs.

"HOME" also saw differences in the film version. Kubrick made the scene's rape comical by adding Alex's rendition of "Singing in the Rain." Also, the film has no mention of the book the writer, F. Alexander, is working on before the droogs burst in. Ironically, it is titled "A Clockwork Orange." In the film, Alexander's wife lets them in their home, while in the book they burst in. Also, the masks of the novel’s assailants are of pseudo-famous entertainers, while in the film, they are phallic nose disguises. The scene ends as Alex begins to rape F. Alexander's wife, while the book follows her ordeal through all four droogs and their final departure. Then later in the novel, when Alex returns to F. Alexander's house, there is no large bodybuilder present, as in the film, and it is not Alex's crooning of "Singing in the Rain" that enlightens the writer of Alex’s true identity. It is his use of the nadsat slang that starts working F. Alexander's mind, and finally the mentioning of Dim that confirms his growing suspicions of Alex's true identity.

At the end of Alex's first night of depravity, he returns home and listens to music in his room. The book is more detailed about his personal experience with the music, while the film concentrates visually on his room's décor accompanied by the second movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony. However in the book, his playlist included Plautus, Bach, and Mozart. The images included in the film are startling and create an effective montage. They include his drawer full of cutter, his snake crawling between the legs of a cartoonishly erotic painting, which was done by Kubrick's wife, the scowling picture of Beethoven and the dancing Jesuses. Then Kubrick does another montage of violent film scenes, including various natural destructions from old film stock. In both the film and the novel, he awakens and tells his mum that he won't be going to school because of a "pain in his gulliver." Then, in the book only, he has a foreshadowing dream of his droogs betraying him. This was likely passed upon by Kubrick due to time constraints.

A sequence that was far different than the novel involved the two young girls Alex meets at the record store. Of interesting note in this first scene at the record store is Kubrick's placement of the 2001 : A Space Odyssey soundtrack at the counter where Alex meets the girls. In the film, Alex returns home with the devotchkas and has an orgy. Kubrick filmed this scene in skip-frame high-speed motion and played the "1812 Overture." He did this to satirize the traditional use of slow motion for sexual scenes, common in most films. The girls, Marty and Sonietta, appeared to be far older in the film than they were written in the book. Burgess stated in his novel that "these two ptitsas couldn't have been more than ten," yet the actresses in the film were far more developed. The movie showed the scene to be a consensual romp, but in the book, Alex got them drunk, shot an unnamed substance into his arm, and raped them senseless to Beethoven's ninth. They awoke from their stupor, angered and violated, and fled. Burgess's description is a far darker perspective than what the film portrayed for this scene.

The scene where Alex states "I led my three droogs out to my doom" sees the confrontation with the cat woman. She was far older in the novel than she was portrayed in the film. "She fulfills the same purpose as she did in the novel, but I think she may be a little more interesting in the film," said Kubrick. "She is younger, it is true, but she is just as unsympathetic and unwisely aggressive." In the film, Alex kills the cat lady with a large phallus while in the novel, Alex brains her with a bust of Beethoven. As Alex struck the cat lady, Kubrick inserted an animated montage in the film to symbolize her death. Then, as Alex attempts to leave with his droogs he is attacked by Dim. In the film, again for comic relief, Kubrick's choice of weapon for Dim is a milk bottle, which ties in wonderfully with the cat-lady theme. But, in the book, he is simply chained by Dim and kicked mercilessly by his treacherous disciples. The police, who arrive shortly after, also give Alex a fair beating before they bring him to headquarters.

The second part of the tale involves Alex's imprisonment and rehabilitation. In the film, his prison number is #655321, spoken quickly as "six-double five-three-two-one" by the ominous head of guards, Chief Chasso. An additional 6 is found on his identification number in the novel, which is #6655321. Kubrick added the scenes where Alex checks into the prison, Staja Number #84F, which were not found in Burgess's book. These scenes are a change in the film's surreal texture and revert back to a more proper English society. However, they are carried comically and remind one of an old Monty Python sketch.

While in the Staja, there is an entire sequence that was omitted from the film. Alex is crammed into a cell made for three, with six inmates. In the film, during the inspection that changes Alex's life, the Minister of the Interior asks "how many men to a cell" and is answered with four. A seventh was thrown into the cell with Alex Company, and after attempting to rape Alex, was beaten to death. Kubrick felt this scene was not an important element of the film and cut it due to time constraints. The brief looks at Alex's cell in the film portray a seemingly spacious area with many personal possessions, unlike Burgess's vision in his novel. Also of note is that in the film, the Minister is the one that chooses Alex for the Ludivico treatment, while in the book it is the prison's governor.

The prison courtyard was not included in the novel. This is the scene where the inmates walk around the white, chalk circle and then are lined up when the Minister of the Interior passes his inspection. This scene has great imagery and relays a feeling of hopelessness. In the book, the governor passes by the cells of the inmates. From his cell, Alex voiced his opinion, rather than the prison courtyard used in the film.

The films that Alex viewed during his Ludivico treatment were far more violent and descriptive in Burgess's novel. In one film, a pale, white face had its eyes carved out, then teeth wrenched from its mouth. Another saw an old woman's store destroyed by a group of hooligans. They set it ablaze and she was burned alive inside. A truly brutal film he endured was of Japanese torture, where soldiers were nailed to trees and castrated. The Nazi propaganda films shown in Kubrick's movie were far tamer than the graphic descriptions provided by Burgess.

The room where Alex watched the films was different than the one in the novel. In the novel, the room was smaller with the projector coming from another room where the doctor's observed his progress. He was strapped to a chair that was described as being similar to a dentist's chair. In the film, Alex was in a standard movie theater with the doctors seated in the back row. This is a minimal difference but worth mentioning.

In the third part, the scene with Joe the lodger, played by Clive Francis, was nothing like the character in the book. Joe was described as being in his 30's or 40's in the novel, yet in the film he is much younger. Joe was far more aggressive in the book, while he was a bit tentative in the filming, shying away from Alex when he first raised his fist. Also, Alex goes to check his room in the book to see all his flags and pennants were gone which were never featured in the film. When he asks where his personal belongings went, the film simply states the police took them for victim's compensation. The book humorously explains further that the money went to the care and feeding of the now ownerless cats.

The one thing that remained constant in both the film and the movie was the character P.R. Deltoid. Deltoid, played by Aubrey Morris, was adapted wonderfully from the novel. His mannerisms, speech, and appearance seemed as if they walked from the pages of the book into the studio. Morris did a tremendous job portraying Alex's probation officer and captured the essence that Burgess intended. Yet the strange, intimate scene on the bed of Alex’s parents is somewhat disturbing.

Another great triumph of the movie was the elaborate set created for the Korova milkbar. Even by today's standards, it appears futuristic and ultra-modern. Filled with white, plaster nudes, including Lucy the synthemesc tap, the milkbar was partially inspired by an exhibit Kubrick had seen of female figures as furniture. The movie's production designer, John Barry, created the set using stills of nude models posing in different positions. Of the number of different combinations that they tried, Kubrick joked, "there are fewer positions than you might think." Burgess did little to describe the décor of the milkbar in his novel.

One of the most brilliantly shot scenes in the film is the droogs encounter with the drunken vagrant. The tunnel they filmed in was perfect for the scene along with the effectively dark approach of the droogs at the entrance. This shot has great mise en scene and gives the audience a brutal foreshadowing of the events that will soon unfold. There is a strong feeling of dominance and helplessness.

A quote that was repeatedly stated in the book never found it's way to the film. It starts all three sections, along with the 21^st chapter, and can be found in various other locations in the text. The prison priest does ask the prisoners "what's it going to be" in his sermon but not as stated in the novel. However, Alex's defining question of "what's it going to be then, eh?" never found its way into the script. I think this is an analogy of Alex's life. The violence and mayhem, like in the modern world, deals with the youth's inability to find something of significance to place in their life. Their lack of direction may be an indirect cause of why many of the ghastly deeds of the world may occur. Kubrick should have had Alex uttered this question at least once.

One of the most interesting and important characters in the book was Pete. He had a fair amount of lines and opened Alex's eyes to the world without violence in the 21^st chapter. Yet in the film, Pete, played by Michael Tarn, did not have one line. As crucial of a character as he was in the book, Kubrick felt it unimportant to give him any speaking parts. He merely sits silently in the background and follows behind the gang.

One of the most difficult tasks for a filmmaker is turning a book into a picture. As many differences as there were between the film and the novel, Kubrick did a brilliant job of adapting Burgess's words to the screen. Many of his alterations and omissions were due to time constraints and consistency, but he still captured the true essence of the tale that Burgess had intended. No one else would have been better suited to visualize this story than Stanley Kubrick.