Plot
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 ("Look Over Your Shoulder"). 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 ("O Lucky Man!"), which includes all of the film's cast celebrating.
Soundtrack
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]
Reception
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]
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.
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.
Alan Price is an English musician who first found prominence as the original keyboardist of the English rock band the Animals. He left the band in 1965 to form the Alan Price Set; his hit singles with and without the group include "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear", "The House That Jack Built", "Rosetta" and "Jarrow Song". Price is also known for work in film and television, taking occasional acting roles and composing the soundtrack of Lindsay Anderson's film O Lucky Man! (1973). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Animals.
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.
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.
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is a British concert film hosted by and featuring the Rolling Stones, filmed on 11–12 December 1968. It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who proposed the idea of a "rock and roll circus" to Jagger. The show was filmed on a makeshift circus stage with Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Rolling Stones. John Lennon and his fiancee Yoko Ono performed as part of a one-shot supergroup called The Dirty Mac, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums, and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. The recently formed Led Zeppelin had been considered for inclusion, but the idea was rejected.
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel. It employs disturbing and violent themes to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.
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.
Michael Jackson's Ghosts is a 1996 short film starring Michael Jackson, directed by Stan Winston, and written by Stephen King and Mick Garris. It is based on a story by Garris, Jackson and King.
Michael Hugh Medwin, OBE was an English actor and film producer.
Miroslav Ondříček was a Czech cinematographer who worked on over 40 films, including Amadeus, Ragtime and If.....
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.
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).
Constance Chapman was an English character actor working in theatre and television. She also made occasional film appearances.
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.
Christine Noonan was a British actress. She is best remembered for her role as the anarchist love interest of Malcolm McDowell's character in the film if.... (1968). In one scene, which gained particular notice in British cinema of the period, she impersonated a tiger and had sexual intercourse with McDowell's character Mick Travis on the floor of a cafe, which with the later violence in the film led to an X rating, leading Paramount to later cut the sexual content from the film. Noonan said of the scene in the film: "He was stark naked and I was stark naked, but we were both so busy fighting that I can't remember what he looked like in the nude". Her husband initially protested when he learned of the nature of the role, but he agreed to her acting in it once she explained the point of the film and the context.
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.
Mary Katrina Anne MacLeod was an English-born Scottish actress who performed on the stage and in film and television productions of the United Kingdom. Born in the Midlands market town of Wednesbury to Scottish parents, she debuted in theatre in 1956 and had her first British cinema role in the Lindsay Anderson film if.... (1968). MacLeod continued to feature in minor roles until her career was ended early by a stroke in 2003.
