Why was A Clockwork Orange not legally shown or available in the United Kingdom between 1973 and 2000?
The book and the film were extremely controversial in England, due to the violent and sexual content of the story. Warner Bros. and Kubrick were very cautious with the initial release of the film in the U.K., playing it in only one theater for over a year before opening it wider, once the initial controversy seemed to have died down. However the film still caused a major stir, and effectively was blamed by the British media and anti-violence advocates for all sorts of real-life violent acts throughout the country between 1972 and 1973. Because of this, Kubrick asked Warner Bros. to pull the film from theaters. Thereafter Kubrick and the studio enforced a ban on showings of A Clockwork Orange in any format in Great Britain that lasted until 2000. In an interview after Kubrick s death, his wife Christiane related that one of the reasons for this was that he and his family had received several death threats because of the film.
