Based on a novel by Anthony Burgess, the Stanley Kubrick film shows "a world in which all older people stayed indoors with their televisions on," McDowell told the News. "And that's basically what happened.

"It's just the young people out there doing drugs — and he foretold all this before the drug explosion."

The film, like the book, depicts a dystopian future filled with "ultra-violence," gangs of "droogs" and depravity at every turn. The four main characters — including McDowell's lead character Alex — spend their free time in a bar where they drink drug-laced milk in preparation for an evening filled with violence, mayhem and even rape.

The book was released in 1962 and shooting for the film began in 1969, "so this is really before huge gang violence and drugs happened," McDowell said.

With some of the most iconic scenes set behind bars, the prison system looms large in the world of "A Clockwork Orange" — much like in modern America.