- published: 09 Apr 2015
- views: 4815
O Lucky Man! is a 1973 British comedy-drama fantasy film, intended as an allegory on life in a capitalist society. Directed by Lindsay Anderson, it stars Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Anderson's film if.... (1968). The film was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.
The movie opens with a short fragment outside the plot but clearly related on repeated viewings. Grainy, black-and-white, and silent, a title "Once Upon a Time" leads to Latino laborers picking coffee beans while armed foremen push rudely between them. One worker (McDowell with black hair and moustache) pockets a few beans ("Coffee for the Breakfast Table") but is seen by a foreman. He is next seen before a fat Caucasian magistrate who loses some saliva as he removes his cigar only to say "Guilty." The foreman pulls 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 lifts, descends, and we see McDowell draw back in a silent scream. The scene blacks out, the word NOW appears onscreen and expands quickly to fill it.
If you have a friend on whom you think
you can rely - You are a lucky man!
If you've found the reason to live on and
not to die - You are a lucky man!
Preachers and poets and scholars don't know it,
Temples and statues and steeples won't show it,
If you've got the secret just try not to blow
it - Stay a lucky man!
If you've found the meaning of the truth
in this old world- You are a lucky man!
If knowledge hangs around your neck like
pearls instead of chains - You are a lucky man!
Takers and fakers and talkers won't tell you.
Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you.
When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell-
You'll be a lucky man!
You'll be better by far to be just what you are
You can be what you want if you are what you are
And that's a lucky man, oh yeah, a lucky man