O Lucky Man!

‘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.

 

The Coffee Salesman.

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!

 

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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[1] Bertolt Brecht.

[2] Lindsay Anderson DVD commentary1994.

If….

The revolutionary spirit of the sixties....

Lindsay Anderson’s most successful film was never made to cash in on the revolutionary fever of the late sixties although it was made around the same time as the Paris uprising in May 1968. In fact the idea for the film first surfaced in 1966 when Seth Holt, a British Film Director who directed feature films for Hammer Studios, brought the idea to Lindsay. The script he showed him was written by John Howlett and David Sherwin and was about their experiences of life in an English public school. The pair had been working on the script for a number of years but nobody seemed interested until they brought Crusaders, the name of the initial script, to Lindsay. Not too impressed with the original he decided to meet with the two authors and it was agreed that he along with Sherwin would collaborate and see if they could produce a less naive piece of work. The Indian born director and writer was able to include his own dire experiences of life at his old school, Cheltenham College and of society in the intervening years although he has said it was not autobiographical.  With Lindsay’s input it became a must more intimately personnel experience more in the tradition of Free Cinema, with a story written free from outside interference. When the revised script was completed it was shown to Michael Medwin and Albert Finney who had started their own production company Memorial Pictures. It was following this tie up that the title was changed to if.... 

 

....coupled with the innocence of youth.

With the help of This Sporting Life (1963) casting director Miriam Brickman the actors was chosen. Auditions took place and it was Brickman who suggested auditioning Malcolm McDowell for the main lead Mick Travis, in what was to be his debut feature film and a role that led to Stanley Kubrick casting him as Alex in Clockwork Orange (1971).  Arthur Lowe was cast because of his work in This Sporting Life, Mary McLoad and Graham Crowden were chosen because of their previous work with the director at The Royal Court Theatre. It was arranged for Polish DOP Miroslav Ondricek to return to this country from Prague to work on the film after previously working on The White Bus (1967). Union regulations stipulated that that you must have a ‘reserve’ British cameraman. This is how the award winning Chris Menges came to work on the film. As with most British movies finance was impossible to obtain from the UK but fortunately Medwin and Finney impressed Charles Bludhorn, the head of US Paramount Pictures, enough to provide the funding.

As far as the British censor was concerned the only problem seemed to be the short nude scene in the roadside cafe involving Christine Noonan and McDowell. He surprisingly allowed a glimpse of Mrs Kemp’s pubic hair as she wanders naked down the dormitory corridor but made the boys cover their private parts in the shower scene.  In Greece, under the Colonels, the entire last sequence was cut which obviously destroyed the film, with Portugal refusing to show the film at all. Out of the Communist country's it was Poland that seemed to have the biggest problem with the film.  Other countries made various cuts but the USA gave it an X certificate and passed it un-mutilated.

 

The converted cloisters of the British education system.

Popular with students and young people, even with it carrying an X certificate, it did reasonably well in this country, it was in the US, Europe and in some Communist countries that it did its best business. Lindsay maintains it is by the vitality of emotional impulse, the urgency of what needs to be said rather than star names and a big budget production, something that’s not always recognised by the British public.  

 

"You must remember gentlemen to shake my hand after I've beaten you senseless"

Although identified with the sixties the film could have been made at any time. Intentionally there were no contemporary references in the film deliberately to make it difficult to date. Partly filmed at Lindsay’s old school Cheltenham College, the film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in the 1969 Film Festival, which at the time seemed to legitimize the spirit of revolt that has swept through Europe. The film was a wonderfully scurrilous attack on the absurdities of the public school system combining an observational style with modernist techniques for example chapter headings and abrupt jumps between colour and black and white (which some have said was for economic reasons and not for art sake) and the gradual shift into a sort of fantasy, or for some, wishful thinking! The whole film is a metaphor for British society and an attack on authority, with a form of education that lead to conformity and dullness but was expected to produce our bigoted ruling classes including membership of parliament and the House of Lords, the church which has always been deemed the Tory party at prayer and of course those that commanded the armed forces and sent young men and women to war. The London Film Festival showed the film and it was nominated for a prize that was given at that time by the BFI but as Lindsay opined in 1994 'just as the British were not interested in financing the film, they were not interested in acknowledging it'

 

Mrs Kemp with her clothes on!

'The basic tensions, between hierarchy and anarchy, independence and tradition, liberty and law, are always with us'[1].  It’s a story about freedom and its romantic connotations. The world rallies as it always will, and brings its overwhelming firepower to bear on the men who say 'no'[2].  Still true to this very day. Was Mick Travis right when he said Violence and revolution are the only pure acts?[3]

The rest is up to you[4]

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[1] Taken from the preface to the published script. 1969

[2] Lindsay Anderson.

[3] Mick Travis. 1968.

[4] Lindsay Anderson. After an early screening of the film. 1969

Caligula.

Its hard work being Emperor of Rome!

In the dying days of the Empire, Ancient Rome falls under the rule of Caligula, the most evil and perverse emperor ever to wield power over men. An incestuous, psychopathic despot, hell-bent on bloodshed and sodomy. A Roman orgy of sex, violence and depravity, an explosion of lust, lesbianism, torture and bloodshed….

Helen Mirren said 'it was a mix of art and genitals'.

I first saw Caligula in an independent cinema in London’s Soho in 1979/80. This grandiose epic is now available in a completely uncut hardcore version on Blu-ray!!!!

Caligula's sister's not looking to well?

Produced and funded by Bob Guccione, founder and publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse. Gore Vidal wrote the original script and the movie was directed by Tinto Brass both of whom disowned the film when Guccione brought in 13 Penthouse Pets and added additional scenes to spice up the action. And what action!!!!! Helen Mirren, who plays Caesonia Caligula’s wife, described the film as ‘A mix of art and genitals’, which really sums it up. As well a Mirren the film stars Malcolm McDowell as the Emperor, Peter O’Toole as Caligula’s grandfather Tiberius, John Gielgud as Nerva, Teresa Ann Savoy as the incestuous sister of Caligula and the legendary Italian B Movie star John Steiner as Longinus the Emperor’s right hand man.

Those Penhouse Pets know how to enjoy themselves.

On its release the film was panned by critics and if I remember correctly got a minimal release in this country. There are endless versions of this film but I would assume that this latest Blu-ray release has got to be definitive one. The question has always been, not ‘is it a good film’ but does it overdose on sexually explicit material? The answers got to be yes and I would advice anyone that is easily offended by the naked human form and on screen fornication to give it a wide berth, for the rest of you its great run, a movie curiosity, but great fun. 

Whose your friend?