Hang on, it's a bit confusing...

[www.theguardian.com]

What are we bid for a petition? Nothing? What if we tell you the petition dates from 1968 and calls for Mick Jagger to be cast in the role of Alex in the film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange? And what if we further add that it is signed by all four Beatles?


A petition, on sale through online auction site Paddle8, dates from February 1968 and was directed at novelist Terry Southern, who was working on the screenplay for the film. David Hemmings was expected to take the lead role.

“We, the undersigned, do hereby protest with extreme vehemence as well as shattered illusions (in you) the preference of David Hemmings above Mick Jagger in the role of Alex in The Clockwork Orange,” the petition read.


Jagger sought Clockwork Orange role

Anita Pallenberg (as Anita the Heater), Donald Cammell (as Don the Drom), Peter Blake, Marianne Faithfull, James Fox and others also signed the petition.

The petition has a reserve price of $14,000 (£9,000), but is expected to sell for between $18,000 and $25,000.

At one point, Jagger owned the film rights to A Clockwork Orange, having bought them for $500 from a hard-up Burgess, before selling them to film producer Si Litvinoff. Litvinoff approached John Schlesinger to direct the film, starring Jagger, with the Beatles to provide the music.

A Clockwork Orange was eventually filmed in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick, who also wrote the screenplay. Malcolm McDowell took the role of Alex.

great movie

Burgess relates meeting with Mick in his memoir. He said he liked the man if not his music.

mcdowell was perfect, but mick wouldve been pretty good.

There are a few movies I shouldn't watched when I was a youngster ....this is one of them...glad Mick didn't play the role of Alex......everytime I see that guy Malcolm McDowell I think what a....... a-s-h -h-o-l-e

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Slick
mcdowell was perfect, but mick wouldve been pretty good.

Just my opinion but McDowell was perfect and Mick wouldn't have been half as good.

Glad Mick didn't get the role as it probably would have been inferior.
But having the rest of the Stones involved in the movie, and the Beatles doing the soundtrack, it might have been worth it..

Mick Jagger's 'Clockwork Orange' Petition Signed by Beatles Up for Auction
Letter signed by Rolling Stones singer's friends protested the casting of David Hemmings as Alex in film adaptation.
By Daniel Kreps October 15, 2015

StonesBeatles

A letter signed by all four members of the Beatles petitioning for Mick Jagger to play the lead role of Alex in the film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange has hit the auction block. Paddle8 will offer up the unique item, which carries an estimated selling price of $18,000 to $25,000.

As the story goes, in February 1968, Jagger's famous friends – including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg, among others – sent the autographed petition to Dr. Strangelove screenwriter Terry Southern. Southern was working on the big screen adaptation of Anthony Burgess' dystopian, ultraviolent novel and the letter implored that Southern cast the Rolling Stones singer, and not Blow Up star David Hemmings, in the leading role of the film.

"We, the undersigned, do hereby protest with extreme vehemence as well as shattered illusions (in you) the preference of David Hemmings above Mick Jagger in the role of Alex in The Clockwork Orange," the typewritten, all-caps letter reads. The front side of the petition is signed by Pallenberg, Faithfull, French filmmaker Christian Marquand and others, while the back of the letter finds the signatures of all four Beatles.

Jagger – who originally bought the Clockwork rights from Burgess for $500, only to sell it for a large profit to producer Si Litvinoff – had his own vision for A Clockwork Orange: Not only would Jagger and the Rolling Stones portray Alex and his "Droogs," the Beatles offered their services for the film's soundtrack. "This film should break ground in its language, cinematic style and soundtrack. [And] the Beatles love the project," Litvinoff wrote in a letter to potential Clockwork director John Schlesinger, The Guardian writes.

In the end, neither Hemmings or Jagger would land the role of Alex: After the British Board of Film Censors banned Southern's script, Stanley Kubrick eventually secured the rights to A Clockwork Orange and cast Malcolm McDowell in the Alex role after seeing the actor's debut performance in 1968's If… According to Paddle8, Kubrick's concerns about Jagger's decadent lifestyle also cost the singer the role. While the Beatles didn't provide the soundtrack, their Magical Mystery Tour does make a cameo when Alex peruses his local record shop in the 1971 film.

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See The Beatles' Petition for Mick Jagger to Star in 'A Clockwork Orange'
By Joe Lynch | October 16, 2015

StonesBeatles II


Before Stanley Kubrick got his hands on Anthony Burgess' idiosyncratic dystopian tale A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove screenwriter Terry Southern was looking to adapt the book (per Rolling Stone) for the big screen using Blowup star David Hemmings.

As anyone familiar with cinema history knows, that didn't come to pass -- Kubrick ended up writing and directing a 1971 version of the book starring Malcolm McDowell in one of the screen's most legendary performances.

But if The Beatles had gotten their way, movie history would be significantly different.


After Hemmings was rumored to be Southern's preferred lead for the film, Mick Jagger lobbied him hard for the role, pulling together a petition signed by every member of The Beatles, Marianna Faithful, actress/model Anita Pallenberg (who had relationships with Rolling Stones members Brian Jones and Keith Richards) and others.

In Jagger's vision of A Clockwork Orange, he would play Alex, the Stones would be his droogs and The Beatles would provide the soundtrack. That petition -- an unusual piece of obscure history -- is now up for auction via Paddle8, which expects the tattered oddity to fetch $18,000 to $25,000.

In the end, music's first major transgender figure -- Wendy Carlos -- scored Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, creating one of the most indelible electronic scores ever. Not long after this late '60s petition, Jagger would star in two mostly forgotten 1970 films: Ned Kelly and Performance (the latter, however, is well-worth seeking out).

Another forgotten piece of A Clockwork Orange history: When published in Britain, Burgess' challenging novel actually had a somewhat happy ending detailed in a final chapter that was cut for the American version, as the publishers specifically wanted to give his book a more sinister tone for U.S. release. It was the less-hopeful ending that found its way to Kubrick and the big screen.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Kubrick did the right thing : Jagger was too old for the part and audiences would have seen the sinegr of the Stones not Alex.

I thought this was the perfect movie soundtrack--having the Beatles do it might have been great, but not nearly as appropriate.

When this movie came out, we was so blown away my friends and I stayed on in the cinema and watched it twice more, and then went back the next day and watched it another four times. Not sure what that says about us, but . . .

Then I got the book and the soundtrack album.

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Slick
mcdowell was perfect, but mick wouldve been pretty good.

i can absolutely understand how a clockwork orange attracted mick jagger to consider himself for the role of alex and can picture the rolling stones as alex's droogs -- the concept works beautifully, especially for the image being promoted for the band at the time.

mcdowell is disturbingly fantastic in the film - i cannot imagine it with david hemmings at all.


but picture the stones in the white jumpsuits walking along the river! who would have been thrown in by alex i wonder....