FILM · 1973 · UK
O Lucky Man!
42 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (42)
- #001
After the success of If… (1968), Malcolm McDowell suggested to producer and director Lindsay Anderson that they should work together again. Anderson told him that good scripts do not grow on trees and that if McDowell wanted a good role for himself, he should consider writing his own script. Although McDowell was only thirty at the time, he based this film on the concept of his own life story and later brought it to David Sherwin, who would go on to write the screenplay.
- #002
The scene in which producer and director Lindsay Anderson slaps Malcolm McDowell in the face with a script had about thirty takes.
- #003
Nearly every member of the cast played more than one role.
- #004
It is Malcolm McDowell's favourite among all the films he has made.
- #005
Dame Helen Mirren was cast at the last minute. Fiona Lewis had begun shooting but was fired, so Mirren was chosen in her place for the role of Patricia.
- #006
It is the biggest-budget film of producer and director Lindsay Anderson's career.
- #007
A scene in which Rachel Roberts plays a suicidal housewife in London was cut from the American release. It was removed from the film at its London opening only three days after the premiere, having been included in the press screening. The scene was restored for the film's video release. (Tragically, Rachel Roberts took her own life in 1980.) CORRECTION: On 22 May 1973, nineteen days after the gala, the scene was present at a screening in London, but it was missing from the film's showing two days after the opening. By the screening on 5 June, however, it had been removed again. It was said to have been cut purely to shorten the running time, though this seems unlikely given that the film is still very long.
- #008
The screenplay was written over a period of three years.
- #009
The name "Alexander de Large" (Malcolm McDowell's character in A Clockwork Orange (1971)) can be seen in the order book while Mick is working as a salesman.
- #010
Sir Ralph Richardson genuinely had difficulty remembering the other characters' names, so he had them written on his hands and his costumes.
- #011
Producer and director Lindsay Anderson conceived the role of Alan Price's music as a kind of Greek Chorus that comments on the action while also being an inseparable part of it.
- #012
In the DVD commentary, Malcolm McDowell says that after the original actress left, he persuaded Dame Helen Mirren to take on the role. He had worked on stage with Helen alongside Sir Laurence Olivier. He also stated that he persuaded her to appear with him in Caligula (1979), which has since become notorious, and, in a relaxed tone, added that she has probably not forgiven him for it.
- #013
David Sherwin was going through personal problems at the time, which required Lindsay Anderson to write several scenes, a skill he did not think he possessed.
- #014
Lindsay Anderson had previously tried to make a documentary about the musician Alan Price and his band's tour of Britain. He had to abandon the project, however, because of the exorbitant cost of licensing the cover songs the band performed. While Anderson and David Sherwin were developing the screenplay for this film, they decided that Price should write the music. They sent him the script indicating where all the songs should appear. As a result, almost all of the songs were written before shooting.
- #015
Lindsay Anderson found working with the Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondříček far less rewarding than he had on If… (1968). During the making of the film he also doubted his own skills as a director and felt that the film's preparations had been inadequate.
- #016
Because he came from Newcastle, Alan Price always had a steady supply of Newcastle Brown Ale on set thanks to producer and director Lindsay Anderson. A bottle of beer is clearly visible on his piano in all the musical sequences.
- #017
There are many connections and similarities with A Clockwork Orange (1971), including the experimental programme Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) undergoes in hospital; Mick jumping out of a window to save himself; the prison reforming him; after being reformed, being beaten by thugs; and the two policemen at the scene of the car crash (who, after becoming policemen, closely resemble his old gang). In fact, Mick's extreme fragility resembles Alex DeLarge's naive entry into situations that turn against him in the second half of A Clockwork Orange.
- #018
It appears that the entire third film of the Mick Travis trilogy, Britannia Hospital (1982), is based on this film's significant hospital experiments sequence, which runs for about fifteen minutes. Graham Crowden played the doctor in both this series and Britannia Hospital.
- #019
Apparently the only actor who does not appear in the finale is Sir Ralph Richardson.
- #020
While Mick is at the Millar Research Clinic, one of the lab assistants calls for the other "Stanley." This is a nod to Stanley Kubrick, who had Malcolm McDowell similarly strapped down in A Clockwork Orange (1971). The film contains numerous sly references of this kind.
- #021
Lindsay Anderson initially opposed the idea of blacking up one of his actors, Arthur Lowe, but was eventually persuaded otherwise.
- #022
Alan Price's soundtrack was recorded in only three days.
- #023
Fans of A Clockwork Orange (1971) will first spot Warren Clarke, who played Malcolm McDowell's dim-witted friend Dim in Stanley Kubrick's classic, still McDowell's most famous film. In fact, Warren can be seen three times as three different characters.
- #024
The nightmarish "Pig Man" in the hospital scene was played by Jeremy Bulloch, now best known as Boba Fett in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Bulloch also played the young man involved in the car crash and the young man who ends up carrying a sandwich board.
- #025
Co-producer Michael Medwin played six roles in the film.
- #026
Hugh Thomas plays a young coffee salesman whom the coffee manager (Rachel Roberts) looks down on because of his dirty hands, and who prefers Mick Travis. It is a kind of joking revenge for Mick, since in If… (1968) Thomas played his adversary, the one who forces Mick to stand in a cold shower. Thomas, however, has the last laugh here, as he also plays a pickpocket who takes all of Mick's money.
- #027
Sir John Gielgud was initially asked to play the role of the General/Judge.
- #028
Since the film is based on Malcolm McDowell's life before he became an actor, his real first job at the Planter's Nuts factory was changed to a coffee factory.
- #029
Christine Noonan did not make another film until Backwoods (1988), her last.
- #030
Malcolm McDowell and Dame Helen Mirren appeared together in Caligula (1979) and The Great War: 1914-1918 (1996).
- #031
Warren Clarke, Philip Stone and Malcolm McDowell all appeared in A Clockwork Orange (1971).
- #032
Mick's car is a 1965 Ford Anglia Estate 1200 Deluxe.
- #033
Although the actors in the sex party scene appear quite drunk, they were in fact drinking tea.
- #034
This was Irene Richmond's last film.
- #035
The film's cast includes one Oscar winner, Helen Mirren, and two Oscar nominees, Rachel Roberts and Ralph Richardson.
- #036
One of the characters played by Geoffrey Palmer is "Basil Keys," the name of a well-known real-life British production manager who was an associate producer on this film. Similarly, the police inspector played by James Bolam is named "Attenborough," because Bolam had scored a stage success in a revival of the stage version of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock," playing the same character ("Pinky") that Richard Attenborough had played in the play's original 1940s production and later in the famous 1947 film version.
- #037
Albert Finney visited the set together with his wife, Anouk Aimée.
- #038
Alan Price is the musician who provides the Roman chorus and later becomes part of the film, taking Mick Travis into the city and introducing him to Helen Mirren and then to her corporate businessman father, the latter providing the most important character development. It could also be said that Price and his band are always characters in the film, since we see them rehearsing songs before we meet them as characters.
- #039
The role played by Eleanor Fazan was first offered to casting director Miriam Brickman.
- #040
The 'smiling scene' is quoted in the song 'Can't Smile' by the rock band Vex Red.
- #041
Robin Askwith and Warren Clarke auditioned for the role of "Andy".
- #042
This was Alan Price's first film.
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