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O Lucky Man!

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This article is about the 1973 film. For the 2009 film, see O Lucky Man! (2009 film).

O Lucky Man!
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLindsay Anderson
Screenplay byDavid Sherwin
Story byMalcolm McDowell
Produced byLindsay Anderson
Michael Medwin
StarringMalcolm McDowell
Ralph Richardson
Rachel Roberts
Arthur Lowe
Helen Mirren
Dandy Nichols
Mona Washbourne
CinematographyMiroslav Ondříček
Edited byDavid Gladwell
Music byAlan Price
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • 20 June 1973 (1973-06-20)
Running time
184 minutes[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

O Lucky Man! is a 1973 British comedy-drama fantasy film directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Anderson's if.... (1968). O Lucky Man! is the second film in the Mick Travis trilogy, all starring McDowell as an everyman character, concluding with Britannia Hospital (1982).

Some critics consider this film one of the best British films ever.

Plot

[edit]

The narration opens with a short story outside the main plot. A grainy, black-and-white and silent title appears as "Once Upon a Time", presenting a land filled with peasant laborers of an unnamed country. They pick coffee beans while armed foremen push rudely between them. One worker (McDowell with black hair and a mustache) pockets a few beans for himself ("Coffee for the Breakfast Table") but is discovered by a foreman. He is next seen before a fat Caucasian magistrate who slobbers as he removes his cigar only to say "Guilty." The foreman draws his machete and lays it across the unfortunate laborer's wrists, bound to a wooden block, revealing that he is to lose his hands for the theft of a few beans. The machete rises and falls, and the laborer draws back in a silent scream. The scene blacks out and the title "NOW" appears onscreen and expands quickly to fill it.

During his life journey, Michael Arnold "Mick" Travis slowly learns the lesson (reinforced by numerous songs in the soundtrack by Alan Price), that he must abandon his principles in order to superficially succeed in life. Nevertheless, unlike the other characters he meets in his path, he must retain a detached idealism that will allow him to distance himself from the evils of the world. Initially, Travis is motivated only by money and material wealth. He progresses from a coffee salesman (working for Imperial Coffee in the North East of England and Scotland) to a victim of torture in a government installation and a medical research subject, under the supervision of Dr. Millar.

In parallel with Travis's experiences, the narration shows 1960s Britain slowly retreating from its imperial past, but managing to retain some influence in the world by means of corrupt dealings with foreign dictators of the countries who had recently fought for their independence. After finding out his girlfriend Patricia is the daughter of Sir James Burgess, an evil industrialist, Travis is appointed Burgess' personal assistant. Allied with Dr. Munda, the dictator of Zingara (a fictional African country) who has created a brutal police state that nevertheless manages to be a playground for wealthy people from the developed world, Burgess sells the regime a chemical called "PL45 'Honey'", which the dictator sprays on rebel areas (which effects resemble those of napalm). When the public outcry reaches the international level, Burgess connives at having Travis found guilty of fraud, and the latter is imprisoned for five years.

Five years later Travis has finished his sentence, become a model prisoner, and converted to humanism. He is quickly faced with a bewildering series of assaults upon his new-found idealism. While stopping at a slum in London's outskirts he finds out that Patricia and her wealthy husband —whom Patricia married for financial stability while cheating on him with Travis— have lost all of their money and are living in extreme poverty. Travis' misadventures culminate in him being attacked by down-and-outs he had been trying to help.

Becoming despondent and after some time wandering the streets, the now destitute Travis inadvertently becomes involved in a casting call for a film production (with Lindsay Anderson himself playing the director of the film). He is given various props to handle, including a stack of schoolbooks and a machine gun (both reminiscent of Mick Travis' first chapter in the trilogy, if....). The director believes he has found the protagonist for his new film in Travis, but when asked to smile for his screen test Travis, failing to understand what is being asked of him, is befuddled, and repeatedly asks why he should smile since he feels he has no reason to do so. Suddenly, the director slaps Travis with his script book, and Travis, having an epiphany, slowly begins to smile. After a cut to black (a device used throughout the film) it is implied that Travis has become a successful actor and wealthy celebrity. He is then shown dancing at a raucous party, which includes all of the film's cast celebrating.

Cast

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Many of the actors play several roles.

Production

[edit]

The film originally began as a script written by McDowell about his experiences as a coffee salesman in his late teens and early 20s. Anderson was unhappy with this treatment, and David Sherwin worked on the script. Sherwin though was undergoing personal problems at the time, which necessitated Anderson writing a few scenes himself, a skill he did not feel he had. Anderson found working with Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondříček much less rewarding than he had on if..... He also doubted his own skills as a director during the film's making, and felt that the film had insufficient preparation. The role of Patricia was recast during production. Originally, Fiona Lewis, best known for appearing in several horror films around this time, played the role.[2]

Britannia Hospital (1982) completes the trilogy of films featuring Mick Travis,[3] which also sees the return of Dr. Millar.

Soundtrack

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Christgau's Record GuideB−[4]

Alan Price said Lindsay Anderson wanted to make a documentary about Price and his band touring England, but the cost of licensing songs they performed was too high. As Sherwin and McDowell developed the script, Anderson decided Price should write the score and sent him the script, indicating where he would like songs to appear. Price wrote nearly all the songs before filming started.[5] Anderson conceived of Price's role as a kind of Greek Chorus, both commenting on and finally appearing as part of the action.

The soundtrack was released as a vinyl album, by Warner Bros. Records, in 1973.[6] In the U.S., it entered the Top LPs & Tape chart on 11 August 1973, and spent 14 weeks on the chart, peaking at no. 117.[7]

The score won the 1974 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.[8]

Track listing

[edit]
  1. "O Lucky Man!"
  2. "Poor People"
  3. "Sell Sell"
  4. "Pastoral"
  5. "Arrival"
  6. "Look Over Your Shoulder"
  7. "Justice"
  8. "My Home Town"
  9. "Changes"
  10. "O Lucky Man!"

The song "O Lucky Man!" has lyrics that mirror the fable from the Pasolini's film Uccellacci e uccellini – The Hawk and the Sparrows. “Takers and fakers and talkers won’t tell you. Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you. When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell- You’ll be a lucky man!” says the bird.

The song "Changes" (based on the tune to "What a Friend We Have in Jesus") was later a chart hit for Price in April 1988 when it was used in a television advertisement of the same name for Volkswagen Golf cars in 1987, starring model Paula Hamilton. The song "Sell Sell" was recorded by Widespread Panic for their twelfth studio album Street Dogs and has been performed by the band on several occasions beginning on 19 February 2012 in Aspen, Colorado for the final night of their Wood Tour.[9]

Charts

[edit]
Chart (1973/74) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[10] 34
United States (Billboard 200) 117

Reception

[edit]

Some critics consider this film one of the best British films ever.[11][12][13][14]

Reviewing for Creem in 1973, Robert Christgau said, "How does an acerbic, good-humored music journeyman like Price (find: This Price is Right, on Parrot) fall in with a pompous, overfed con man like Lindsay Anderson? By playing the Acerbic, Good-Humoured Music Journeyman Symbol in a pompous, overfed movie. Two or three deft political songs do not redeem an LP that runs under 25 minutes despite filler. It figures—the movie is an hour (or three hours) too long."[15]

Reviewing the film for BFI in May 2024, Stephen Dalton said:

An anarchic joyride through the tragicomic horrorscape of early 1970s Britain, Lindsay Anderson’s maximalist musical satire O Lucky Man! has lost little of its disturbing, lurid, carnivalesque power in the half century since it was released. Part bawdy farce, part picaresque road movie, part sprawling state-of-the-nation sermon, this boldly experimental three-hour pageant stars Malcolm McDowell alongside a stellar ensemble cast of British screen stalwarts. ... A heady cocktail of Brecht and Buñuel, Lewis Carroll and Monty Python, Jean-Luc Godard and Ken Russell, O Lucky Man! still contains plenty to delight, shock and disgust 21st century audiences. Admittedly some elements have dated exceptionally badly, especially the Carry On-style depiction of women as pliant nymphomaniacs, and the jarring spectacle of beloved Dad’s Army star Arthur Lowe in full blackface (a decision that would have been unremarkable in 1973, when The Black and White Minstrel Show was still a high-rating BBC fixture). Despite this, the film’s rich combination of cynicism and romanticism, jaunty music and bitingly absurd humour, can still feel fresh and spiky today, with its proto-punk contempt for bourgeois good taste.[16]

Release

[edit]

The film was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.[17]

  1. ^ "O LUCKY MAN (X)". British Board of Film Classification. 25 April 1973. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  2. ^ The preceding paragraph is drawn from Paul Sutton (ed) Lindsay Anderson: The Diaries, 2004, London: Methuen, p256-306
  3. ^ "allmovie.com O Lucky Man! overview". Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  4. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: P". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved 10 March 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  5. ^ Price, Alan (score) (30 October 2007). O Lucky Man! (DVD audio commentary track). Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.
  6. ^ "Alan Price – O Lucky Man! – The Original Soundtrack". Discogs. 1973. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  7. ^ Whitburn, Joel (1996). Top Pop Albums 1955-1996. Record Research Inc. p. 623. ISBN 0-89820-117-9.
  8. ^ "1974 Film Anthony Asquith Memorial Award | BAFTA Awards".
  9. ^ "Everyday Companion Online – Sell Sell". everydaycompanion.com. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  10. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 238. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  11. ^ "The 50 Greatest Films of All Time – Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  12. ^ "The Best Films of all Times". Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  13. ^ "O Lucky Man by John Linton Roberson". Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  14. ^ "Yale Center for British Art". Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  15. ^ Christgau, Robert (November 1973). "The Christgau Consumer Guide". Creem. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  16. ^ "O Lucky Man!, revisiting Lindsay Anderson's anarchic 1970s trip down the rabbit hole". BFI. 14 May 2024.
  17. ^ "Festival de Cannes: O Lucky Man!". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
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