Today, 45 years after its release (on December 19, 1971), the futuristic fable -- about an ultraviolent thug (Malcolm McDowell, in his star-making performance) who becomes even more soulless after behavior modification therapy -- seems more and more prescient about the way we live now.
McDowell says he understood the musical legend's hard feelings over the way he'd ruined Kelly's song in "Clockwork" and didn't blame him for the snub. It was only in 2011, 40 years after the film's release, that McDowell says he learned from Kelly's widow that the song-and-dance man's grudge wasn't against McDowell himself but against Kubrick, for allegedly stiffing him on royalties from the film's use of his recording.
