‘Realism is not a matter
of showing real things, but of showing how things really are’[1].
Lindsay Anderson and writer
David Sherwin made a total of three films featuring a character called
Mick Travis all played by Malcolm
McDowell, but besides having the same name they are not strictly speaking the
same character and
the stories aren't sequential but there is similarities between them and have
always been termed the Mick Travis trilogy. The first of the three was If…. (1968). Which as I have explained before was meant as a
metaphor for British Society and a condemnation of authority but specifically
an attack on the absurdities of the British public school system. The second
film in this ‘trilogy’ is O Lucky Man! (1973) an allegory on
life lived in a capitalist society and an attack on the British class system.
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| The Coffee Salesman. |
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| The Tycoons Daughter. |
After
the success of If…. McDowell wanted
to work with the director again and suggested that he (McDowell) write a script
based on his own early experiences as a coffee salesman. Anderson pointed out
that good scripts are pretty rare and challenged the actor to come up with one,
which he did! Originally called Coffee
Man Anderson asked Sherwin to work up a script from Malcolm McDowell’s
original ideas. These adventures of a coffee salesman became what Anderson
called an epic “not in the sense of
Ben-Hur but in a classical poetic sense of the term’[2]. It tells the story of a
young man (Travis) who uses any means to get to the ‘top’. Firstly as the afore
mentioned coffee salesman who gets awarded not only the prime area of North
East England but of Scotland as well. There’s a beautiful comment from Mick when
he is told he has to go to Scotland, he responded that he can’t possible go
because he does not have any warm clothes with him! From salesman to scientific
guinea pig. Then assistant to a business tycoon, who cons him into acting as
his fall guy and serving a prison sentence, converted to near saintliness, almost
martyred by a crown of down and outs he is trying to help and finally reaching
an understanding of life by being hit around the head with the script of O Lucky Man! by the films director!
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| British justice at work. |
One
of Lindsay brilliant theatrical touches is to cast the same actors in different
roles including Helen Mirren, who had just finished Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah (1972) and went on to
appear opposite McDowell in Caligula some six years later, who plays Patricia the tycoons
wayward daughter and a casting call receptionist. Other well-known actors who
have two or more parts are Sir Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts, and Graham
Crowden and Christine Noonan who both appeared in If…. Mora Washbourne, Brian Glover and Arthur Lowe who ‘blacks up’
as Dr Munda the dictator of Zingara a brutal police state.
 |
| The Dictator of Zingara. |
Although
it may not sound like it, it is a film about the real world but one that makes
its point through comedy and satire, with words and music from Alan Price reinforcing
and underlining the storyline in a clever and imaginative way. It did not do
that well at the box office when it was first released but its satirical
brilliance has now been recognised, just re-watch it and see the relevance it
has to today.
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