O Lucky Man!

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a short fragment outside the plot but clearly related on repeated viewings. Grainy, black-and-white, and silent short, a title "Once Upon a Time" leads to Latino laborers picking coffee beans while armed foremen push rudely between them. One worker pockets a few beans ("Coffee for the Breakfast Table") but is seen by a foreman. He is next seen before a fat Caucasian magistrate who loses some saliva as he removes his cigar only to say "Guilty." The foreman pulls 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 lifts, descends, and we see the thief draw back in a silent scream. The scene blacks out, the word NOW appears onscreen and expands quickly to fill it.Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is the most promising new sales recruit at Imperial Coffee, a multinational coffee company and distributing factory located somewhere in the UK. His easy manner and winning smile bring him to the attention of the training manager Miss Rowe (Rachel Roberts). When it is learned that a senior salesman in the company has gone missing, Miss Rowe proposes that Mick be recruited to take over his coveted north-east sales sector.After his first successful sale to a large hotel, Mick is invited by the hotel's manager (Arthur Lowe) to attend a private sex club, where Mick makes many valuable contacts, including high ranking government and police figures. On returning to his lodgings, he is contacted by Imperial Coffee and is informed that his sector will be expanded to include all of Scotland, requiring his immediate departure. A tailor (Ralph Richardson) who occupies an adjacent room, gives Mick a suit of golden material as a parting gift. The tailor gives him the following advice: "Try not to die like a dog."En route to Scotland, Mick becomes lost and finds himself at the gates of a military facility. He is apprehended by a military detachment and, despite his protestations of innocence, is taken into custody. He is briefly interrogated and tortured by two men in plain clothes (Philip Stone and Michael Bangerter) who apparently believe him to be a foreign spy. To avoid further torture, Mick signs a confession and answers several questions relating to his movements as a spy. When a siren sounds, the two interrogators quickly flee the scene, and Mick is shortly after freed from his restraints by a tea-lady (Dandy Nichols).Mick flees the facility as it gradually engulfed by fire. He makes his way back to his car, which is now also in flames. He retrieves his golden suit from the car shortly before it explodes. Mick makes his way through a blasted and burning landscape. When the clothes he is wearing are ruined by a downpour, he changes into his golden suit. After he has done so, he finds himself in an idyllic pastoral landscape and drinks from a fresh-water stream. He discovers a Christian church where a congregation is singing. Hungry and exhausted, he enters the church and collapses in a pew. When he awakes, the church is empty, but a large quantity of fresh produce has been collected at the altar. He is about to feed himself when he is warned by the vicar's wife (Mary MacLeod) that the food is for God. However, she takes pity on him and feeds him from her own breast.His strength renewed, Mick joyously makes his way back to the road, accompanied by two children. When he reaches the motorway, he decides to head back to London. A car stops for him and asks if he would like to make some quick money by participating in a medical experiment. Mick agrees and is taken to a private clinic run by Professor Millar (Graham Crowden), who performs experimental transplant procedures. Millar informs Mick that his physiognomy is of a rare sort that would be of particular value to their research. Whilst awaiting surgery, Mick sneaks from his room and encounters a post-op patient whose head seems to have been transplanted onto the body of a four-legged animal. On seeing this, Mick flees the clinic in terror.He is next picked up by group of musicians in a van. Inside the van, he discovers a young woman, Patricia (Helen Mirren), hidden under a blanket. He immediately falls in love with her and stays with her on his return to London. Over breakfast, Patricia reveals that her father, Sir James Burgess (Ralph Richardson), is a wealthy copper magnate. Mick decides to insinuate his way into Sir James's company on the pretence that has important information to report on his daughter's welfare. During his interview with Sir James, a disgruntled senior employee (Graham Crowden) commits suicide by jumping from Sir James's office window. Sir James's assistant, in attempting to prevent the suicide, also falls to his death, and Mick is immediately recruited to replace him.Mick's first assignment with Sir James is to attend negotiations with Dr. Munda (Arthur Lowe), president of the African nation of Zingara, who is trying to convince Sir James to establish copper mining operations in his country. As part of the negotiation, Munda requests large quantities of a chemical weapon called "honey" to ensure that Sir James's operations will protected from local insurgencies. Mick oversees the delivery of the "honey" by the British Air Force to Zingara.A dinner party is held at Sir James's home to finalise the business transaction with Munda. Mick encounters Patricia receiving a marriage proposal by a pathetic English aristocrat (Michael Medwin). Although Mick is incensed, she informs Mick that she may indeed accept the proposal. Sir James offers Munda a large quantity of gold bullion for the right to set up operations in Zingara, but, since the gold must be exported to Zingara illegally, Sir James organises it so that Mick is framed for the crime involved in its delivery. Mick is arrested at the party and brought to court, where he is found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment.The prison system in which Mick is incarcerated prides itself on its compassion and its willingness to attend the spiritual and intellectual rehabilitation of its inmates. At the end of his sentence, Mick expresses that he is fully transformed as a human being. Shortly after his release, he encounters a Salvation Army band and offers a large donation from his own limited funds. The band leader (Philip Stone) initially praises Mick's generous spirit, but condemns him when Mick announces that he no longer believes in "sin", and that he regards humanity as a united brotherhood. The band and their followers fall to their knees to pray for Mick, who otherwise remains upright and walks away.Mick becomes aware of a disturbance in a nearby neighbourhood. When he investigates, he discovers that a local woman, Mrs. Richards (Rachel Roberts), has barricaded herself in her flat, where she is promising to commit suicide. In an attempt to save her, Mick scales the outside wall of her flat and appeals to her through the window. He assures her that she has every reason in the world to continue living, and he recites various inspirational poetic works to convince her to change her mind. Mrs. Richards, however, remains implacable. Mick falls three storeys to the street below. He is awoken several hours later by a policeman who informs him that Mrs. Richards has completed her suicide.Mick next encounters a mobile soup kitchen. Although he is hungry and destitute himself, he does not accept any food, but rather volunteers to assist the proprietor (Vivian Pickles) in her work. The proprietor eagerly accepts Mick's offer and, giving him a large pot of soup and several paper cups, directs him to distribute it to a community of tramps gathered around a bonfire. As he is distributing the soup, he encounters Patricia, now destitute, cradling an unconscious man in her arms. She recognises Mick and informs him that she accepted the marriage proposal, and indicates that the unconscious figure she is cradling is her husband. The rest of the tramps quickly become hostile towards Mick. They disdain his patronising charity and pelt him with stones.The next morning, Mick encounters a man handing out invitations to an open film audition. Mick attends the audition, where he is singled out by the director (Lindsay Anderson). The director asks him to strike a number of poses for a still photographer. However, when the director asks Mick to smile, Mick asks "Why?" and argues that one cannot smile without a reason. The director assaults him in frustration, and Mick struggles to smile with difficulty. Yet, when he finally succeeds in smiling, he is brought to a state of near ecstasy: surrounded by many figures from his own past, happy and reconciled, he dances to upbeat music within a collective brotherhood of humanity.

Tags: allegory, psychedelic, cult, satire, comedy

Review:
I know there are a few other members of this menage, David Sherwin for instance or the amazing group of superb British character actors from Mona Washbourne to Helen Mirren but the incomparable presence of McDowell inhabiting Anderson's universe makes this "O Lucky Man" one of the happiest movie adventures of my movie going life.
It represents a blossoming of the themes introduced in "if..." (the previous film in Anderson's trilogy) and a playful, even strangely upbeat reworking of those ideas."if..." was an explosion of the subconscious, repression fermenting into fantasized revolution; in "O Lucky Man!" the repression has matured into deep, abiding social, political, and economic corruption-- but the fantasies have matured as well.
(But the film is not, I think, cynical; the road to enlightenment may be hard one but the film makes it clear that it's not unreachable.)Surrounding Malcolm McDowell's indefatigable Candide of a hero, the supporting cast flows in and out of their multiple roles like a comic repertory company, in which the same actors show up in scene after scene shuffled into a new assortment of scoundrels, con-artists, victims and sages, climaxing (don't worry, I'm not going to spoil it) in a beautiful, subtle joke which has to be seen to be understood.From the silent-movie pastiches through Price's terrific songs (the music is used admirably) through wild, spontaneous moments of parody, uninhibited symbolic flourishes, and a few small scenes of genuine poignancy, "O Lucky Man!" deserves to be recognized as one of the great films of the 1970s, and perhaps of all time.
Lindsay Anderson + Malcolm McDowell + Alan Price = O, Lucky Me!What films do we include in our top lists?
"O Lucky Man!" (1973), directed by Lindsay Anderson (with Ralph Richardson, Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren) is a constant source of joy when I watch it again and again.
Off I go with Mick Travis (McDowell) in his crazy surreal journey up and down, back and forth, "around the world in circles" along with the Alan Price's band that provide the music commentaries in the traditions of a Greek Chorus or Brecht's Theater (whichever you prefer).
The surreal quality of of Andersons allegorical perspective of life in England at the time was reflected in one of the films great lines, "Try not to die like a dog?" Having seen the film several times since (and turned some friends onto Lindsey Anderson), I was truly surprised at how this film has, not only, not dated, but actually has more relevance now than it did some 27 years ago.
A coffee salesman takes a rambling tour of 1970's Britain.There comes a time when you think you know something about movies: What is good, what is bad, how things should go, how things should work, etc., etc.
Thank goodness a movie comes along now and again that says "no you don't - you know nothing!" Oh Lucky Man!
I never wanted to walk down a time tunnel to 1970's Britain and this film is probably the last tie I have to that ugly and desperate decade.Oh Lucky Man!
While not every scene works and not every tune pleases, it is cinema from another world that we never quite had - but might have had if only the money men of Hollywood hadn't made their ugly mark on the world.If you think film is about anything more than simple entertainment Oh Lucky Man!
The commonalities or unifying elements throughout, aside from the character, are constant social commentary, often rather harsh; the fact that the whole film is a series of apparently random experiences, each by happenstance leading to the next, and an ultimate conclusion; and the fact that in the end the events change the character.I won't say that this is one of my top choices of films to watch on a regular basis, at least not if I just want to relax and have a good time, but it certainly is interesting and strangely compelling.
He wonderfully portrays his character Travis and Travis's transformations.At the same time, the viewer also constantly encounters numerous points, images, events, etc., that work themselves into the viewer and make the viewer think, even if not right away.The film also has a great soundtrack that I think really helps the film.
He followed that up with "O Lucky Man!", in which Malcolm McDowell's character Mick Travis enters the labor force.
You're sure to love it, not least because of the great soundtrack.*This is the second time that Malcolm McDowell appeared alongside a "Star Wars" cast member.
I suppose this is to introduce McDowell's character as a coffee salesman early in the film, but see how it cuts away from this to the rock band led by Alan Price plays, in a studio, the opening title song for the film.
But on the other hand with the whimsy and dark comedy, sometimes bizarre (the "Pig-Man" at the laboratory Mick walks in on, the breastfeeding bit, the in-jokes on Clockwork Orange), sometimes political (the torture scene with the fascists), it's also an existential drama of sorts.Of sorts I mean that you come to this conclusion when the film ends.
That's the other curious thing: McDowell makes us really care about this guy Mick Travis, even when he seems to be heading towards real greed "at the top", which makes it easier (or just more fun) to take in awkward and surreal scenes, like when the man jumps from the window and the boss calls for a 15-second moment of silence.
As it's a trip through British society as a whole, rich and poor, science and military, music and women, we need someone to bring us along, and McDowell is perfect to do it.O Lucky Man is a long trek though at three hours, which sometimes passes by like nothing at all and only a couple of times drags (the long scene of the slide-show for the African businessmen is one of these), and it is very much of its time and place (one or two of the songs are dated, though on the whole Price's songs are excellent and even moving).
Lindsay Anderson's kind-of-sequel to 'If...' puts everyman Mick Travis, again played brilliantly by Malcolm MacDowell, into a surreal world in which he takes a journey (inspired by Candide) through scenes and situations which have an impact on his life.A large cast support McDowell, many playing multiple roles.
Actually, his Travis doesn't have that much dialogue, yet McDowell dominates the film every inch of the way.We'd better try and get as much solid information as possible when we made important decisions, and not get fooled by "surface shine"--or we might end up like Travis.
He finds Patricia, who appears and vanishes in the plot time and again, a part out of which Hellen Mirren squeezes the most, and a remarkable performance.He, the same actors coming out once and again playing various roles and Alan Price's music band playing on the background with lyrics related to the matters developed make up the thread of the film.In addition, there's a whole idea driving the plot that unravels during the film, which can keep you intrigued for days, trying to work out what the final message was actually..
Make no mistake, at almost three hours long the running time borders on the masochistic, and it has no real narrative to speak of; the film is a loosely structured surreal musical that critiques seemingly everything from the criminal justice system and corrupt politicians, to some stuff that seems to border on the Freudian.
However, one fact remains, the journey you take as you follow Travis on his adventure is one you will struggle to leave prematurely.If you've ever seen 'If', also starring Malcolm McDowell and with the brilliant Anderson directing, you will have some idea of what to expect (indeed, though not a sequel in the normal sense McDowell plays the same character he did in 'If').
But if you want to watch a darkly surreal satire / comedy / fairytale / exploration of almost anything, if you take the time to pick apart the layers of this film, washed down with plenty of irony, it's a must see.
At that point his identity as a coffee salesman seems, for some reason, to simply disappear, and for the next two hours (yes, this is slightly over three hours long!) the movie takes on a darkly satirical note, critiquing pretty much everything: capitalism, religion, socialism, intellectuals - "the system" in general.
In this political satire for British imperialism, for the second time Lindsay Anderson casts his favorite Malcolm McDowell, whose insane gaze even when he is sane could be the major reason to make the film worth watching.
There are too many other reasons for falling short to mention here, but not the least of them is that it features the high-water mark of the career of Malcolm McDowell who was at the peak of his international fame between the two Lindsay Anderson films and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (although also very good later in Time After Time).
was a good social message but mixed film, this is a disoriented plot that has confused comments on society.The cast give roundly good performances McDowell is good and a host of British faces take on multiple roles in support including Brian Glover, Arthur Lowe, Helen Mirrem and other faces familiar from If...Overall a confusing and occasionally daft film who's message is only clear a couple of times.
From that moment on, though I still love "watching movies", I've been aware that a film can be something else than just a nice way to spend a couple of hours.Why I like it?
Malcolm McDowell is great in the title role and the whole film flows like butter..
Lindsay Anderson is undoubtedly the greatest film director in Great Britain, and of his famous trilogy ("If..." ,"O Lucky Man!","Brittania Hospital" ) the "Lucky Man" is the best:it is not only a bold and grotesque picture of our society today,but a warning of the worse to come...
A social satire that works more in the form of an absurdist deluge, "O Lucky Man" suffers like its protagonist from an excess of ambition and an absence of common sense.When we last saw Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), he was shooting up an English boarding school in "if..." Now, a few years later, he's trying to make it in the rat race as a salesman for the Imperial Coffee Company, with the whole of north England as his beat.
But "O Lucky Man" is a hard film for me to love.It is a brilliantly shot film, with a solid rock score by Alan Price that sounds a bit like Badfinger did.
It's bizarre hearing McDowell in the DVD commentary talking about how director Lindsay Anderson kept railing about tightening up the story's construction; the final result on screen is as slapdash as one can imagine, with Travis sent in every possible direction without apparent motive.One quibble: Why is he playing Mick Travis again?
While the film does have its strong points (Malcolm McDowell, a young, lovely Helen Mirren, and a live-filmed score) this movie's only current value is as a hoary museum of every self-indulgent caricature generated by the agonal throes of the 60's zeitgeist..
Malcolm McDowell stars as coffee salesman Mick Travis in the second film in the trilogy of films from Lindsay Anderson, following 1968's If, and followed by Britannia Hospital in 1982.
'O Lucky Man!' was hit-or-miss for me, and it's my least favorite film from Lindsay Anderson's Mick Travis trilogy.
It was a substantial distraction, given that it appears quite often in Greek Chorus style and contributes a lot to the tone of the movie.Malcolm McDowell's Mick Travis character is the same person in name only, across the trilogy (which begins with 'If...' and ends with the underrated 'Britannia Hospital').
His smiling, vacant coffee salesman here seems to have little to do with the angry youth from the first film, and despite the epic length of 'O Lucky Man!,' the movie is an episodic satire without much resonance.
It's very funny, at times -- my favorite sequence concerned a medical experiment for which McDowell is offered money -- and highly ambitious, superficially similar in some ways to 'A Clockwork Orange,' but in the end, it's too broad, aims at too many targets, and doesn't have the cinematic flair to match the energy of its satirical free-for-all..
I can't really say more without getting into spoiler territory, but the ending pretty much ends up justifying your suspicion that you've wasted your time watching a bunch of people have fun in front of a camera, instead of filming a movie..
I really do rather love this film - it's my version of chocolate, or a bottle of wine - when I've had a day so bad that I want to bury myself, I stick O Lucky Man on.Whether it's the hippy groupie Helen Mirren, who comforts us (I mean Michael, the 'Lucky' Malcolm MacDowell) but then returns as a posh daughter of an exploiting tycoon but is then on the streets in another twist of fate, or the lovely and great parade of every English character actor of the period, again not just dressing up as one person, but appearing as another, later.Or maybe it's the rubbing shoulders of the rather bizarre with the comforting normality and homely - MacDowell driving round the country in an old rep-mobile, a Ford Anglia, should be boring and not work, but it does.
Surreal, often hysterically funny, sometimes surprisingly sad, full of sly political and social satire, and jammed with wildly brave film-making choices, along with one of the great movie song-scores of all time by Alan Price.
Its Candide meets 1970s Great Britan as a young man rambles through life in a series of absurd adventures, with the great supporting cast (Ralph Richardson, Helen Mirren, etc.) having the time of their lives playing multiple roles.The three hour running time may sound daunting, but it flies by as we watch our hero Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell, whose real life pre-acting experiences were the jumping off point for the story) slowly become wise to the ways of the world through a series of bizarre encounters, arrests, love affairs, and everything else that can befall a young man on the road.
years ago and don't remember anything about it beyond my disappointment, but I still gave O Lucky Man a chance.A dark satire of England (as best I can tell), the movie follows the adventures of a likable and enthusiastic coffee salesman who meets a series of corrupt caricatures.
Malcolm McDowell (Mick Travis) stars as an innocent young man in this epic comedy.Armed with ambition and a work ethic he hits the road and finds that desire alone can't bring wealth and status!
with the claustrophobia of public school/mind control systemand brutalized us'n'them mentality it breeds, O Lucky Man finds Malcolm McDowell and Lindsay Anderson moving outwards into the "real" world and encountering the wonderful range and breadth of: lies deceit corruption and amorality that's available for us to try, or try to avoid, if there's a difference.
Pretty much the same (or very similar) cast, with Malcolm McDowell playing Mick Travis again.
Those were heady and frothy politically charged decades and films so often mirrored only those times.Lindsay Anderson was already a well known and respected theater director when he directed Malcolm Mcdowell in "If".
The film "O Lucky Man" is based on an idea of Malcolm's.
"If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely, you are a lucky man!" sings Alan Price at the start of this sequel to 'If....', which reunited director Lindsay Anderson, writer David Sherwin, and actor Malcolm McDowell, reprising his role as 'Mick Travis'.
It is a little uncomfortable now to watch Rachel Roberts playing a suicidal housewife - the actress took her own life in 1981.Travis is no longer the rebel we saw in 'If....', but more of an innocent abroad, reacting to events rather than helping to shape them.Alan Price's songs pepper the course of the narrative, serving as a wry commentary on the action.'If....' caught the mood of the time, but 'O Lucky Man!' works for different reasons.
Like in this film, when Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is given the golden suit by Monty (Ralph Richardson), and told "you'll find it surprisingly warm." Anderson makes it feel like Arthur just pulled Excalibur out of the stone, and does it more with the pauses in the action and dialog than with anything that specifically happens.I first became aware of "If...." through Monty Python's skit about the exploitation director, and then I later saw it because I read that Kubrick had cast McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange" based on his performance.
In a way it's too bad, because I would have liked it at the time, but it was actually a perfect thing for me to be able to take up the story of Mick (or Michael as he's called in this film) Travis when he's in his "eager young man" days just like I was at the time.
I have to admit that I re-approached Lindsay Anderson's Michael Travis trilogy, ("If....", "O Lucky Man" and "Britannia Hospital") with a certain amount of trepidation.
Add to these elements a cleverly diverting ending in which Malcolm McDowell auditions for his role in the film and you have one of the most perversely brilliant works by someone who, like Bunuel, was a real maverick..
The film seemed to draw a lot of energy from Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" mainly through Malcolm McDowell's performance – he even gets beaten up by homeless people in both movies.In "O Lucky Man!" he plays Mick Travis, a naïve young coffee salesman who is sent to the four corners of Britain uncovering everything the filmmakers thought was wrong with the country and society in general.Viewed 45 years later "O Lucky Man!" seems a pretty heavy-handed satire, especially the sequences involving Sir James Burgess (Ralph Richardson), the Africans and Honey.