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I haven't seen 'A Clockwork Orange'. The subject matter doesn't agree with me. Horror or comic strip violence doesn't tend to bother me too much but the realistic, sadistic stuff tends to. But I've seen Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove' and '2001: A Space Odyssey'. They were very good. I didn't really understand 2001, but it was a very well made sci-fi movie (even by today's standards).

Cinematographer David Watkin was very talented. If you watch the Beatles 'Help' movie, I doesn't look like a sixties film, it looks like it was shot today. It's not really a favourite film of mine, but I think it's a good example of how a talented cinematographer can make a film look so realistic, clear and fresh. Gilbert Taylor was a very good cinematographer, too.

Oh, come to think of it, I've seen 'The Shining' as well. Now that's a scary film! And talking about CO being withdrawn and other movies banned, I've seen 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. I saw it on video when it was allowed to be released in the 90's. I was surprised by, after all the hype, how little violence and gore there was. Instead, it was quite a good little film with some very dark humour in it. ('Look what your brother's done to the door!'). The sequels were awful, though, just bog standard slasher films. Best avoided.

Speaking of the work of cinematographers, a good idea for a thread would be one about writers of film scores. Some movies wouldn't be half the film they are without their music. 'Blade Runner' for example....

Kubrick banned the film in the UK because he received death threats, not because he thought it would cause copycat crimes or society to fall apart. Whether the person issuing threats though otherwise is unknown.

As someone else said Alex is a likeable character, about the only likable one in the film. That is unlike the book where his character is repulsive. For example the sex scenes in the book are child rape but in the film the feature nubile women in their twenties. The writer and government critic Frank Alexander was played by Patrick Mcgee in the film in particularly creepy mode to make him an unsympathetic victim despite being attacked and his wife being gang raped.

To a large extent Kubrick glammed up Alex's role and obscured the meaning.