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