Michael Arnold "Mick" Travis is a fictional character played by Malcolm McDowell in three films directed by British film director Lindsay Anderson and written by David Sherwin. Travis features not so much as a single character with a character arc, but as an everyman character whose role changes according to the needs of the storyteller. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In if.... (1968), his first appearance – and McDowell's film debut – Travis first appears as a disaffected public school boy whose anti-establishment attitude and experiences lead to armed insurrection at the school. [3] The film was made at Cheltenham College, Lindsay Anderson's old school, and many of the scenes drew heavily on his experience in the Officers Training Corps at Cheltenham, which he had joined in May 1937. It also draws heavily upon Tonbridge School, where the two screenwriters both went, and several characters, including the abusive chaplain, are based on real people who taught at Tonbridge.
In O Lucky Man! (1973), cowritten by Sherwin and McDowell, Travis becomes a picaresque character, often compared to Voltaire's Candide , in a satirical drama that starts with Travis' first job as a mobile coffee salesman and, after many adventures involving arms-sale scandals, experiments in human-animal genetics by the mad scientist Doctor Millar (played by Graham Crowden), and a sojourn with the musician Alan Price, ends in his rebirth as a film star, thanks to a slap by a film director played in a cameo by Anderson—the scene was a depiction of McDowell's first audition for if..., in which McDowell was slapped by his eventual costar Christine Noonan. [1]
In Britannia Hospital (1982), written by Sherwin, Travis is a reporter attempting to make an investigative documentary about a hospital where Doctor Millar is continuing his unspeakable experiments. [2] While spying on an experiment to create a new human being from assembled body parts, Travis is captured by the hospital staff. A power failure renders the experiment's human head unusable, so Millar kills Travis and attaches his head to the creature. On being given life, the creature (played by McDowell) attacks Millar, forcing Millar to stab and dismember it.
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if...., which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut. He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, Never Apologize.
I Never Sang for My Father is a 1970 American drama film. It tells the story of a widowed college professor who feels dominated by his aging father, yet still has regrets about his plan to leave him behind when he remarries and moves to California. It stars Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman, Dorothy Stickney, Estelle Parsons, and Elizabeth Hubbard.
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor. He first became known for portraying Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson's if.... (1968), a role he later reprised in O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982). His performance in if.... prompted Stanley Kubrick to cast him as Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971), the role for which McDowell became best known.
Anjelica Huston is an American actress, director and model known for often portraying eccentric and distinctive characters. She has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and six Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2010, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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).
Walking Tall is a 1973 American neo-noir biographical vigilante action film based on the life of Buford Pusser, a professional wrestler-turned-lawman in McNairy County, Tennessee, played by Joe Don Baker. The film was directed by Phil Karlson. It has become a cult film with two direct sequels of its own, a TV movie, a brief TV series and a remake that had its own two sequels.
If.... is a 1968 British satirical drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Malcolm McDowell as the character Mick Travis, who appeared in two further Anderson films. Other actors include Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann. A satire of English public school life, the film follows a group of pupils who stage a savage insurrection at a boys' boarding school. The film was the subject of controversy at the time of its release, receiving an X certificate for its depictions of violence.
D.A.R.Y.L. is a 1985 science fiction adventure film directed by Simon Wincer and written by David Ambrose, Allan Scott, and Jeffrey Ellis. It stars Mary Beth Hurt, Michael McKean, Kathryn Walker, Colleen Camp, Josef Sommer, and Barret Oliver. It follows a seemingly normal young boy who turns out to be a top secret, military-created robot with superhuman abilities.
Lindsay Ann Crouse is an American actress. She made her Broadway debut in the 1972 revival of Much Ado About Nothing and appeared in her first film in 1976 in All the President's Men. For her role in the 1984 film Places in the Heart, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her other films include Slap Shot (1977), Between the Lines (1977), The Verdict (1982), Prefontaine (1997), and The Insider (1999). She also had a leading role in the 1987 film House of Games, which was directed by her then-husband David Mamet. In 1996, she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for "Between Mother and Daughter", a CBS Schoolbreak Special episode. She is also a Grammy Award nominee.
Clement Graham Crowden was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his many appearances in television comedy dramas and films, often playing eccentric scientist, teacher and doctor characters.
Leprechaun is a 1993 American comedy horror film written and directed by Mark Jones, and starring Warwick Davis in the title role, with Jennifer Aniston supporting. Davis plays a vengeful leprechaun who believes a family has stolen his pot of gold. As he hunts them, they attempt to locate his gold to mollify him.
Vincent Canby was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for The New York Times from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. He reviewed more than one thousand films during his tenure there.
Britannia Hospital is a 1982 British black comedy film, directed by Lindsay Anderson, which targets the National Health Service and contemporary British society. It was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and Fantasporto.
Brian Pettifer is a South African actor who has appeared in many television shows, and also on stage and in film. He is the younger brother of folk musician Linda Thompson.
The Return of Swamp Thing is a 1989 American superhero film based on the DC Comics' character of the same name. Directed by Jim Wynorski, it is a sequel to the 1982 film Swamp Thing, having a lighter tone than its predecessor. The film has a main title montage consisting of comic book covers set to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born on the Bayou", and features Dick Durock and Louis Jourdan reprising their roles as Swamp Thing and Anton Arcane respectively, along with Sarah Douglas and Heather Locklear.
David Sherwin-White was a British screenwriter best known for his collaborations with director Lindsay Anderson and actor Malcolm McDowell on the films if.... (1968), O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982).
That Sinking Feeling is a 1979 Scottish comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth, his first film as a director. The film is set in his home city of Glasgow in Scotland. The young actors in film were members of the Glasgow Youth Theatre. The film also features Richard Demarco, the Edinburgh gallery owner, playing himself. The four main actors went on to feature in Forsyth's following film Gregory's Girl.
Look Back in Anger is a 1980 British film starring Malcolm McDowell, Lisa Banes and Fran Brill, and directed by Lindsay Anderson and David Hugh Jones. The film is based on John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger.
Broderick Miller is an American screenwriter, known for his television and feature work.
Margot Bennett is an American publicist and former actress who appeared in various stage, television and film roles between the years 1957 and 1973. She is best known for her appearances in the films O Lucky Man! and Who Killed Teddy Bear, and for being the first wife of both actor Keir Dullea and, later, actor Malcolm McDowell.