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O Lucky Man! [1973] | ![O Lucky Man! [1973]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mttk7UinL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Lindsay Anderson
Actors: Malcolm Mcdowell, Philip Stone, Arthur Lowe, Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £15.99
Buy New: £7.97
You Save: £8.02 (50%)
New (9) Used (2) from £7.97
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1992
Format: Pal, Special Edition
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 169 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 7321902200316
ASIN: B0014T7EKA
Theatrical Release Date: 1973
Release Date: May 19, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Fantastic - but still missing scenes May 23, 2008
J. R. Kerr (Livingston, Scotland)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Towards the end of the excellent commentary on the second DVD, Alan Price mentions that people who see this film in their early adulthood often say it fundementally changed their outlook on life - I have to agree because, well, I was that soldier. This film is a truely remarkable piece of work and somehow manages to rise completly above it's seventies origins and seem even more relevant more than 30 years on. Disturbingly the film's exaggerated and satirically ruthless businessmen and government officials, complete with dirty arms deals etc, who use Travis throughout the film now seem entirely plausible. The only small disappointment is that despite the lengthy running time the film is still missing a few minutes halfway through, a scene where Travis stays the night at Sir James house and tests his authority by ordering champagne from the butler before having to take instruction from Sir James who has retired to bed. It doesn't add much, but as Travis also phones Patricia in the sequence, and there is a revised version of "Poor People" playing on the soundtrack, it is a shame it could not be included with two discs worth of space to play with. Incidentally, this scene was shown on the BBC broadcast in the early eighties and also appears in the script of the film published in book form - check it out if you doubt me.
A most excellent sprawling epic of a film May 16, 2008
Mr. C. J. Iredale (hezza bezza)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
There is a fashion at present to make films that go on and on and on. There are example where this expanse is used to good effect, such as the Lord of the Rings films and the opposite, such as the latter Pirates of the Carrebean films. This is an early example of a long film and it pulls it off with a swagger.
The second in a trilogy of films made by the late great Lindsey Anderson, O Lucky Man plots (albeit somewhat surrealistically) the progressions through life in the early 1970s (this was made in 1973, and boy, does it look it!); it is almost a kind of Pilgrim's Progress/ Road to Damascus tale, and is highly entertaining. Some have said they felt it flagged towards the end; I question whether the film flags or the viewer, as it is nearly 3 hours long, but to edit it would be to ruin it. It's sprawling aspect is one of it's selling points.
It has many stars other than the wonderful Malcolm MdDowell, such as Arthur Lowe, Jeremy Bulloch and Helen Mirren. The music is supplied by Alan Price and he also stars in the film as the leader of the band who supply the music to the film. At points still shocking (a rare thing for a film so old), at others laugh out loud funny and at others hard to fathom, this is a treat for anyone who likes the slightly odd, cult films from this period or the open minded.
Finally released, O' Lucky Us! May 15, 2008
Mb Cunliffe (North West)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This blackly comic classic finally gets a release to DVD.
And classic is not too strong a word. This film is the second in the loose Mick Travis trilogy and it is simply the most seminal film of 70s Britain.
A weird and wonderful travelogue through the winter of discontent peopled with true greats of film and TV and with simply the best soundtrack ever care of Mr Alan Price. It's a must have if you're on the right wavelength.
Finally! April 12, 2008
simonpeggfan (Maidenhead UK)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
The DVD format is 10 years old - and finally we're getting a release of this, following on from Paramount's release of If... and the age-old release from Cinema Club of Britannia Hospital we can have a complete Mick Travis collection :-)
Of the trilogy of Anderson's films I find this (the middle work) the oddest, and the possibly the best - but it's so hard to judge between masterpieces.
The film follows Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) and his surreal adventure through '70s England along with the Alan Price's band that provide the music commentaries in the traditions of a Greek Chorus.
O Lucky Man! is simply one vast, weird, intelligent and funny movie. It provides some great food for thought on survival-of-the-fittest style capitalism, through Mick Travis's increasingly unexpected adventures
O Lucky Man! deserves to be recognized as one of the great films of the 1970s, and perhaps of all time.
You'll never eat bacon or pork again. March 19, 2008
Mr. S. Ogley (Yorkshire, England)
14 out of 18 found this review helpful
It was a long time ago when i last sat down and watched 'O Lucky Man'. It was on VHS as it's been devoid of a DVD release until now.
I'm a Malcolm McDowell fan. He was born Malcolm Taylor in Leeds, not far from where i was born. Being a Yorkshireman myself like Malcolm, i guess that's part of why i have an interest in him so much, and in his films. In 'A Clockwork Orange' he makes no attempts to hide his Yorkshire accent. McDowell has always said how he loves to play northern characters in his films. To his credit, he is a terrific character actor and one we miss sadly from our TV screens in this country. He resides in California where the lifestyle is "more healthy", he says. The last great British television programme i saw him in was the outstanding BBC drama 'Our Friends In The North' where he played a mobster boss, taking a young Daniel Craig under his wing and exposing him to a life of sex, drugs, power, and violence.
'O Luck Man' is a great British film. It stars a plethora of British film and television talent such as Ralph Richardson, Helen Mirren, Arthur Lowe, and many others who's names escape me as i write this. McDowell plays Yorkshireman 'Mick Travis', a trainee coffee salesman (which he was in real life when he left school) who escapes from his job to find something better to do with his life. It's a rags-to-riches and back to rags again story with very little plot, other than it simply moves along slowly as he falls from one job to another. The film, by the way, is hellishly overlong. Still, it's interesting to watch McDowell's character unfold and grow into an almost super powerful financial tycoon in London. Then he falls from grace. The transition is nothing short of fascinating. And then there's dark humour. There's one particularly shocking part of the film where he devotes his body to medical science, after being offered a sum of money. He is picked up on the motorway after he hits rock bottom and all hope is lost, but then sees an opportunity to make some brass for his travels. He's taken to a clinic in the country and given a series of injections. Little does he know that they are planning to transplant his head onto the body of a pig in a hideous scientific experiment. He finds a 'patient' in one scene, sweating in bed with the sheets pulled up to his neck. Travis (McDowell) pulls pack the cover to reveal a half-human, half-pig transplant victim, tied to a hospital bed. It's not a scene i found amusing, although i guess you can look at it from a different perspective. I think it's meant to initially shock you, then humour you, only much much later.
The last half hour to 45 minutes of the film starts to suffer a little, as director Lindsay Anderson has clearly run out of ideas, although to his credit, Anderson is a fabulous visionary director, and it shows for most of this film. It is a good 45 minutes too long, but then again, aren't all epic films? Nevertheless it needs to be said that this is a big slice of British cinema at its best, with outstanding performances from a variety of stars (some in duel roles) and several amusing scenes. Some call this a comedy - a black comedy it certainly is in the darkest sense. This is a showcase of early 70's Britain in the best possible way, with elements of the darkside, pre Star Wars, showing the pressures of business at the top, the pressures at the bottom, and the disturbing goings on in the countryside in between. Wonderful.
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