The “absolutely rubbish” movie Malcolm McDowell will always regret turning down
Malcolm McDowell first appeared on screens back in 1968 when he landed a leading role in the classic British psychological drama If…, but within three years, he’d bagged the role of a lifetime as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, allowing him to work with one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick.
It would be the director’s next film following the success of his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had vacuumed up a large chunk of money. Kubrick’s next feature would have to be a lot more cheaply made. So, A Clockwork Orange was crafted on just over $1million compared to the $10.5m spent on his previous film, with shooting taking place in and around London.
The movie shot McDowell to further acclaim, although he somehow missed out on an Academy Award nomination. The actor gave a great performance, though, embodying the senseless evil of his character with equal doses of comedy and, at times, sympathy. Roles in movies like O Lucky Man! and, of course, the controversial Caligula, followed, but there was one movie that he turned down and later regretted.
McDowell was offered the chance to work with the one and only Alfred Hitchcock, one of cinema’s most important figures and a pioneer of the suspense genre. Fresh off the back of A Clockwork Orange, the actor was close to starring in Frenzy, but McDowell wasn’t sure that the project seemed all that promising. Talking to Page Six, he called the script “absolutely rubbish”, yet he now regrets not getting the opportunity to actually work with Hitchcock.
Reflecting on the fact that he turned down a role in the film, he said, “Now, in retrospect, I should have just done the damn movie. I mean, just to work with him… There are a few things I really should have done, you know. But you know, at the time, I think the decisions I made about my career were because I knew what I could do and I knew what my limits were, and I knew that I wouldn’t be good in certain parts.”
So, McDowell probably made the right decision, because there’s no point in starring in a movie that you actively think is going to be bad. It’s a shame he never got to work with Hitchcock, but at least he had Kubrick ticked off early on.
Frenzy was one of the few British movies that Hitchcock made following his transition to Hollywood, and it received good reviews from critics, despite the fact that McDowell was convinced that it was a bad script.
Perhaps he couldn’t see the potential laid out in front of him, or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Hitchcock had been on a slight losing streak with previous efforts like Torn Curtain (during which Hitch infamously feuded with Paul Newman), which had fared poorly with critics.
It’s quite admirable, really, that McDowell would turn down Hitchcock so early on in his career. Clearly, he was in it for the artistry, not just to work with big names for the sake of it.
