One of the fascinating pieces of trivia below is true*, the other is false. Do YOU know which is which?
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
1) When Malcolm McDowell met Gene Kelly at a party several years later, the older star turned and walked away in disgust. Kelly was deeply upset about the way his signature from Singin’ in the Rain had been portrayed in A Clockwork Orange.
2) During filming of the Korova Milk Bar scene, Stanley Kubrick was dismayed to find that under the scorching-hot studio lights all of the milk curdled in seconds and looked like cottage cheese. Desperate to find something else that would work for the shots, Kubrick went through all manner of milk-like substances, including coconut milk (too thin), yogurt (too thick), clam chowder (too hot), vanilla ice cream (too cold), egg whites (too runny), and horse semen (too salty), until finally someone advised him of a trick used in cereal advertising as a milk substitution: Elmer’s glue, which looked perfect on film. However, while it looked great, Malcolm McDowell had to do 93 takes where he drank an entire 8-oz. glass full of glue, which froze him in place, with all of his body’s vital functions literally stuck in time, and he would remain in that state for 16 days. Furious at the lost filming time, Kubrick hired a young Andre the Giant to come to the set and bearhug the glue out of McDowell’s body in exchange for the lead role in Barry Lyndon (which Kubrick later reneged on). Andre squeezed the frozen McDowell with all of his might for well over an hour until finally a 4-foot long glop of glue slithered out of McDowell’s backside, and everyone remarked how phallic it looked, so they repurposed it for the “Singing in the Rain” scene. McDowell was left unable to speak, think, or move for the rest of his life, so filming was completed using a complicated human marionette system and having Andre the Giant dub all of Alex’s lines. And this is why in the theatrical release of the picture Andre the Giant appeared in a PSA after the end credits warning against the dangers of excessive glue drinking, which should only be enjoyed in moderation.
Hard Ticket to Home Video 