Explosive 'real-life Cuckoo's Nest' doco that mental asylum bosses kept hidden for years
dailystar.co.ukREAD MORE: Kids' TV hosts now - Noel Edmonds bust-up, bitter feud and CBeebies co-star marriageThe documentary was filmed at Bridgewater State Hospital, in southern Massachusetts, in 1966 and scheduled for released the following year.Named after a talent show put on by staff at the asylum, the film was an unsettling watch.The hospital had originally been opened as a charitable facility offering shelter to people in the community, but was later converted to a workhouse for inmates with short sentences.By the 1960s, it housed the criminally insane and those whose sanity was being evaluated before court hearings.And in scenes akin to those in Milos Forman's 1975 movie adaptation of Ken Kesey's 1962 book, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, patients were mistreated, mishandled and taunted by guards.Wiseman's film painted the institution negatively, highlighting inhumane conditions.It showed a patient telling a doctor that his condition wasn’t improving due to his environment while pleading to be let out.He is seen insisting to the medical professional that he is sane and that his issues are in fact being caused by the institution and medication he's being made to take, which he says is causing him more harm.However, his concerns are dismissed by the doctor.
When the patient leaves, the doctor tells his colleagues in the room that they need to give him “larger quantities of tranquilliser” to stop him “falling apart” despite his pleas.Another heartrending scene shows a doctor force feeding an elderly patient, who has a tube stuck up his nose as the doctor, who is smoking a cigarette, prepares soup.But the focus quickly turns to the contaminated liquid feed which has ash falling into it.In another scene the same patient's body is.
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