- We start with a nice sweeping shot of nature. The sun is just peeking over the horizon and everything seems nice and peaceful. You can even hear a hawk in the distance.
- Some nice music starts playing and you hear what sounds like it could be a Native American drum.
- A car appears in the distance and drives by.
- Next thing we know, we're looking at a bunch of people who are lying in old-school hospital beds in a crowded room. A primly dressed woman arrives at the medical facility and comes down a hallway. The hospital orderlies greet her as Nurse Ratched and she says good morning to them.
- One of the orderlies goes into a room and takes the restraints off of a man. It looks like we're in a mental institution. The orderly asks the chained man how he feels and the chained man answers, "Rested."
- In another room, a woman sorts pills. She calls out "medication time" over a PA system and a record player starts playing classical music.
- The patients line up to get their pills from a woman behind a large glass window.
- One large man named Chief doesn't respond when an orderly asks him to step forward. The orderly takes him by the arm and pulls him to get his pills.
- Outside the facility, another man (played by Jack Nicholson) gets escorted from a grey car up the steps of the building.
- When they get him inside, they take handcuffs off of him. The character responds by laughing like a crazy person and jumping up and down. He's clearly happy to have those cuffs off.
- We find out a second later that his name is McMurphy. The orderlies take him to the area where people are getting their pills while the nurses go over what's in his travel bag.
- McMurphy walks over to the large Native American man named Chief and tries to talk to him. But another patient says the man won't respond because he's a deaf mute. McMurphy does some offensive gestures to see if he can get the Native American man's attention, but the guy just stares blankly at him.
- McMurphy introduces himself to Billy Bibbit, the guy who told him that Chief was deaf and mute.
- He then starts interfering with some patients' card game, showing them cards from a deck of his own that's filled with nude photos of women.
- Despite people's objections, one player named Martini leaves the game to follow McMurphy away. McMurphy is already looking like a sort of pied piper.