VUWSA Film Preview: Memorial Theatre Th 27 May 5.00pm

'O Lucky Man'

Director: Lindsay Anderson

Malcolm McDowell is Mick Travis, a coffee salesman who is sent on an assignment which leads to another and to another and so on.

It is very like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, not in theme or story but in just about every other way. This film is better than A Clockwork Orange and better than If, Anderson's previous film also starring McDowell.

The film is absolutely packed with incredibly lively incidents, interspersed with Alan Price and his band playing the theme tune The audience is continuously shocked by the amazing encounters that Travis experiences. It is three hours long but it seems to be over far too soon.

O Lucky Man is meant to be a satire and in this respect I'm not sure that it succeeds terribly well. But certainly the humour is incredible and the entertainment value is as high as any film I have seen.

Sight and Sound sums the film up as: "Lindsay Anderson's epic view of the state of the nation, filtered through the all-purpose adventures of a coffee salesman and his pilgrim's progress from ambition to acceptance, Much incidental insight; a less than certain conclusion."