Video: 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' trailer

(Wednesday, November 19, 1975, 12:10 p.m. EST) — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a psychological comedy-drama film about a small-time criminal who fakes insanity in hopes of doing easy time in a mental hospital, opened today at the Paramount Columbus Circle theater at 15 Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.

Video: 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)' (31 clips)

Directed by Miloš Forman, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher.

Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Sydney Lassick, William Redfield, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif play supporting roles, with the latter two making their feature film debuts.

Originally announced in 1962 with Kirk Douglas starring, the film took 13 years to develop.

Filming finally began in January 1975 and lasted three months, on location in Salem, Oregon and the surrounding area, and in Depoe Bay on the north Oregon coast.

The producers shot the film in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual psychiatric hospital, which is also the novel’s setting. The hospital is still in operation, though the original buildings in the film have been demolished.