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Malcolm McDowell, Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts, Arthur Lowe, Helen Mirren ... see more see more... , Dandy Nichols , Ben Aris , James Bolam , Jeremy Bulloch , Constance Chapman , Geoffrey Chater , Warren Clarke , Graham Crowden , David Daker , Paul Dawkins , Wallas Eaton , Michael Elphick , Brian Glover , Peter Jeffrey , Edward Judd , Stephanie Lawrence , Patricia Lawrence , Mary McLeod Bethune , Michael Medwin , Anthony Nicholls , Christine Noonan , Bill Owen , Geoffrey Palmer , Edward Peel , Brian Pettifer , Vivian Pickles , Irene Richmond , Frank Singuineau , Patsy Smart , Philip Stone , Hugh Thomas , Mona Washbourne , Catherine Willmer , Lindsay Anderson , John Barrett , Eleanor Fazan , Alan Price , Geoff Hinsliff , Betty Turner , Margot Bennett , Glenn Williams , Roy Scammell , Anna Dawson , Jumoke Debayo , Terence Maidment , Cyril Renison , Peter Childs , Les Weldon , Malcom MacDowell , Mary MacLeod

One man's dreams of success take him on a Byzantine journey through the various stations of the British class system in this politically charged black comedy from director Lindsay Anderson. Mick Travi... read more read more...s (Malcolm McDowell) is an ambitious young man who is looking to get his foot on the first rung of the ladder of success by landing a job as a salesman. After the death of Imperial Coffee's leading drummer in the North, Travis' charm and enthusiasm so impresses manager Mr. Duff (Arthur Lowe) that he's given the job, and after some coaching from Gloria Rowe (Rachel Roberts), Travis sets out to find his fortune in the coffee trade. Travis' desire for success quickly sets him on a curious odyssey in which he happens upon a secret sex club for businessmen, finds himself the subject of random seductions by lonely women, is captured and tortured by military intelligence agents, submits to medical experiments at a bizarre private clinic, hitches a ride with a traveling rock band led by former Animals keyboardist Alan Price, falls in love with a beautiful young bohemian named Patricia (Helen Mirren), goes to work for her father (Ralph Richardson), who happens to be a singularly corrupt political figure, and eventually lands in prison after he's implicated in a deal to sell chemical weapons to the Third World. As Mick's strange tale progresses, we periodically visit Price and his band in the recording studio or rehearsal hall, as they work on songs which serve as both mirror and counterpoint for Travis' progress. O Lucky Man! was the second film in which Malcolm McDowell would portray Mick Travis for director Lindsay Anderson, following If..., and preceding Britannia Hospital; the film's surreal undercurrent was reinforced by the casting, in which nearly all of the principal actors play two or three roles. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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R, 3 hr. 6 min.

Directed by: Lindsay Anderson

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DVD Release Date: October 23, 2007

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Flixster Reviews (316)

  • mumby1988
    August 7, 2011
    mumby1988
    After If.... won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1969, Malcolm McDowell was desperate to work with Lindsay Anderson again. Teaming up with If.... screenwriter David Sherwin, McDowell spent the years in and around A Clockwork Orange churning out draft after draft of a screenplay based... read more loosely on his life. Anderson wanted a film of epic proportions, and what he delivered is at once epic, joyous, frustrating and utterly perplexing.

    O Lucky Man! is the second instalment of Anderson's Mick Travis trilogy, following If.... and preceding Britannia Hospital. It is not so much a sequel as a companion piece to If...., with this Mick Travis being an everyman figure rather than just the grown-up version of the revolutionary schoolboy. Many of the cast of If.... return playing multiple, completely different roles, and aside from Travis there is little or no attempt made at direct continuity.

    Where If.... was based on Anderson's experiences at public school, O Lucky Man! is loosely based on the life of Malcolm McDowell, who started out as a coffee salesman before wandering into acting and being cast in If.... almost by accident. The story of Mick Travis has been likened to Candide, Voltaire's sprawling 18th-century epic about an everyman indoctrinated with optimism, who journeys out into the world on a series of exciting and terrifying adventures.

    As with Candide, O Lucky Man! has a picaresque structure, with an episodic, incredibly rambling storyline which is very difficult to summarise in a paragraph. It begins with Travis working for Imperial Coffee as a salesman and being put in charge of the North-East of England. Following his apparent success he is given Scotland as well, but ends up being interrogated by the military who believe he is a Russian agent. He manages to escape their torture after the base is attacked and evacuated.

    With no money to speak of, Travis volunteers for a series of experiments led by Dr. Millar (Graham Crowden), who talks about using science to unlock the full potential of mankind. Upon his discovery of a patient who is half-man, half-sheep, Travis flees in fright, hitching a lift to London with Alan Price's band and falling in love with their groupie (Helen Mirren). Having wangled his way into meeting her father, the richest man in the world (Ralph Richardson), Travis becomes his personal assistant, only to be dragged into shady government dealings and imprisoned for fraud. Upon release he is robbed and beaten up by the homeless, leading him to wander into an audition with a film director, played self-referentially by Lindsay Anderson.

    At this point you would normally have every reason to berate me for giving away the whole plot of the film. But the fact is that O Lucky Man! is very difficult to follow unless you have some prior idea of where it is going. At a slow-moving 183 minutes, it requires a massive amount of patience both to sit through and to tolerate the contrivances and oddities of its plot. There is still substance to be found, but many of its interesting ideas are severely compromised by their execution.

    As with Candide, O Lucky Man! is at heart a social satire wrapped up in romantic and adventure elements. Like Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Voltaire was looking to create a work which could satirise society by means of elaborate, whimsical allegory - so elaborate and whimsical that it would slip through the net of church wrath or state censorship. Anderson attempts the same here with less immediate success, although his intentions are noble and his film has dated somewhat better than other contemporary satires, if only because its scope and themes are so universal.

    O Lucky Man! is a satire of commercialism and ambition in a capitalist society. Travis begins the film guided by optimism, ambition and his willingness to do anything to get rich. Even before his success with Imperial Coffee, he seems to have totally abandoned his revolutionary principles, acknowledging either through maturity or base self-interest that the only way to make it in life is to fake it. Anderson's re-tuning of the character reflects both the selling-out of many of his left-wing comrades and Britain as a whole, which was slowly eroding or reversing its post-war achievements (something he would return to in Britannia Hospital).

    The film is also about luck, with most of Travis' adventures coming about mostly from being in the right place at the right time. His success in the North-East comes largely from networking with the locals in a crowded showing of a porn film. When interrogated by the army, he begins to pretend that he is Russian to get it over with, and only escapes because the base is bombed. He becomes Sir James' assistant not because he has the skills or experience, but because he knew his daughter and just happened to be there when Professor Stewart (Crowden) committed suicide. "It's not what you know, it's who you know" may be a trite point to make, but Anderson plays it through with relish to show how hollow capitalist meritocracy can be.

    As perfectly valid and interesting as these points may be, they often get misplaced or buried amongst the increasingly ridiculous series of events. Travis is supposed to be an everyman and yet his experiences become so fantastical that even when the allegory is played for obvious effect, they never quite tap into the nub of the issues. One could argue that this was done out of respect for the audience, with Anderson believing they could fill in the blanks rather than needing to be lectured. But there is too little for us to grip onto in our bid to decode the most esoteric elements, and at its worst the film resembles Sleeper, having to constantly be outlandish or wacky to keep things moving forward.

    The tone of O Lucky Man! lurches around uncontrollably. The scenes in Dr. Millar's institute are played straight to maximise the horror, with certain scenes resembling H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. But other scenes are almost parodies of Anderson's earlier work - the scene where Travis attempts to coax Mrs. Richards out of committing suicide is a total piss-take of kitchen-sink dialogue. Mrs. Richards is played by Rachael Roberts, star of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and This Sporting Life, who would tragically take her own life in 1980.

    The recurrence of cast members like Graham Crowden, Rachael Roberts and Arthur Lowe give the impression that O Lucky Man! was partly or wholly made to get the old gang back together. Anderson was less confident that he had been on If.... and parts of the film feel that he was making it up as he went along (albeit not without success). Alan Price's band were incorporated into the film as a modern-day Greek chorus because Anderson had wanted to make a documentary about them but couldn't afford the licensing costs.

    On top of all that, O Lucky Man! is littered with moments which are so completely out of left field that you have to pinch yourself. The strangest of these comes at Travis' trial when the judge goes back into his chambers, strips off to reveal next to nothing under his gown and is roundly whipped by the usher. Anderson could be making a point about public school habits or sexual perversity behind closed doors. But it does feel like we've wandered into the Monty Python sketch where the two judges strip off while talking about "waggling wigs" and "banging gavels".

    O Lucky Man! is a sprawling and bizarre follow-up from Anderson, which confuses as much as it stimulates or enthrals. McDowell is excellent in the lead, giving us some form of a charismatic anchor for the story as it floats on increasingly choppy waters. Like The Bed-Sitting Room before it, it has a number of interesting and relevant ideas which are let down by their peculiar execution, and both films require immense patience to be fulfilling. It's massively and tragically flawed, but somehow still compelling.
  • fb100002359227440
    May 6, 2011
    fb100002359227440
    Great!!! Surrealist!!!! and one of the best films i ever see!!!!!
  • matertenebraum
    February 10, 2011
    matertenebraum
    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 do... read moren't - you know nothing!" Oh Lucky Man! is like Pulp Fiction and High Hopes - it is a smarter film than you are a film watcher.

    After a build up like that you might expect for me to say that this is a perfect film or that everything works. But it doesn't. The story rambles and pauses, moves left and right and tries to keep the audience on its toes. The humour is mostly black, but very true to life. People are often selfish and acting for themselves - while Travis (our hero - if we can call him that) is quite kind and thoughtful. Like an Adam that has been put in to the modern world rather than the garden of Eden.

    I have seen this film twice. Like many films, once when I was too young to understand it. It is quite sexual graphic at times and that stuck in my memory for a long time. In one scene a black man plays out a scene at a sex club - and to this day I am puzzled as to what this represents. That the entirely white audience see the black as an entertainer to laughed at or cheered. That this is his only place?

    Most anything-goes films are comedies, and while this has plenty of black comedy, I see it as social comment. Life has moved on from the 1970's, people have escaped their own class more, women have more of a role to play, people get away with things less. But no one can say - even viewing today - that it doesn't tell plenty of home truths about the UK.

    (People that live outside the UK and never visit must be puzzled by what goes on here. I bet you would have to answer hundreds of questions if you watched it beside, say, an American.)

    Lindsey Anderson sees all authority as being violent, ugly and corrupt. This is the kick in the balls society that existed before CCTV in police stations and human rights acts. Where people were fitted up for crimes that the police knew they couldn't have committed. 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! is one of the best films ever made. It has something that few films ever have - instant cult appeal. You could watch this over and over again and not get bored with it, see something different and learn something new. They should bring it back as a musical or a stage play. 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! is a must-see...
  • ajv2688
    December 30, 2010
    ajv2688
    I really loved this movie, it's a sort of sequel to If... with McDowell's character getting into all sorts of crazy situations after taking a coffee salesman job. It's got everything you want in a movie: action, adventure, romance, horror, comedy, etc. If you're a fan of his yo... read moreu have to check out this crazy movie. I love it.
  • 366weirdmovies
    April 28, 2010
    366weirdmovies
    An eager young coffee salesman (Malcolm McDowell) sets out to make his fortune in the world but instead has many peculiar and unlucky adventures, finding himself mistaken for a spy, volunteering for medical experiments, taking up with a touring rock band, becoming personal assist... read moreant to a ruthless capitalist, and being sent to prison, among others. Basically a 1970s version of Voltaire's "Candide." At 3 hours it's way overlong, although the ambition is admirable; McDowell's charming performance and some very strange, surreal satirical set-pieces make it worth watching.
  • rubystevens
    May 11, 2009
    rubystevens
    a bizarre and brilliant satire and sequel to if...with malcolm reprising his role as mick travis, now a coffee salesman(!), on a surreal odyssey around '70's britain. a very ambitious film commenting on many aspects of modern society and with most of the actors in multiple roles... read more, which can get confusing. with strange musical interludes by alan price of the animals. it's over 3 hours long and definitely a trip. revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals
  • divinetrash
    May 28, 2010
    divinetrash
    Kinda like a sequel to If..., but not really connected, Malcolm McDowell is once again excellent as Michael Travis, now a travelling coffee salesman who keeps encountering bizarre people in bizarre situations. A very funny and reflective film that satirizes the modern world and a... read more very good character study about a lost man.
  • littlecharmer1959
    April 30, 2008
    littlecharmer1959
    A worthy follow up to If....
    Mick Travis is now a coffee salesman, travelling across 70s Britain and encountering many strange characters.
    Malcolm McDowell is excellent as well as the rest of the cast which features a wealth of British talent.
  • cacutshaw
    March 21, 2008
    cacutshaw
    The strangest in Lindsey Anderson's trilogy and maybe the best (by a hair, they're all 5 star films). Once again, like with all the films, everything works perfectly to make a one of a kind viewing experience.
  • sosinsk1
    April 24, 2012
    sosinsk1
    I wanted to see this movie on the strength of If.... being so awesome. This one fell well short of the mark. Looking back on it, I can get some of the humor of the situations Mick finds himself in, but they are not really all that funny at the time. Some of the episodes remind... read more me of "Ripping Yarn" sketches, but these are all tacked together in a seemingly tied-up narrative, but really work better individually.

    I don't see how this is related to If.... apart from the shared cast and McDowell played a character named Mick Travis. Very disappointing "sequel".

View All O Lucky Man! Reviews

Critic Reviews

Variety Staff
August 22, 2008
Variety Staff, Variety

No less than an epic look at society is created in Lindsay Anderson's third and most provocative film. Full Review

Vincent Canby
May 9, 2005
Vincent Canby, New York Times

O Lucky Man! clearly has a number of things on its mind, but as a movie, it is a very mixed bag. Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson
January 3, 2008
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

It's as audacious as anything made in the 1970s, running three hours without much of a plot. Full Review

Christopher Null
November 27, 2007
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

You'll wonder how long this can go on, but over the course of two DVDs you'll likely find yourself enthralled nonetheless. Full Review

January 26, 2006
Time Out

O Lucky Man! is a disappointment. Full Review

Gary Brown
June 13, 2003
Gary Brown, Houston Community Newspapers

The best film made by Lindsay Anderson.

May 24, 2003
Film4

Sometimes comic, sometimes grotesque but consistently intriguing, this is a spectacular, sprawling satire built around its surreal set-pieces and driven by a charismatic performance by McDowell. Full Review

Ken Hanke
August 26, 2002
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Rich, densely layered, disturbing, unique and strangely satisfying in a way few films ever have been. Full Review

Chuck Rudolph
May 17, 2002
Chuck Rudolph, Matinee Magazine

Courts brilliance by tempering its cynicism with a hefty dose of protracted, but never quite gullible, innocence in its main character. Full Review

Cole Smithey
February 17, 2006
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

No review available.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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