One worker (McDowell with black hair and a mustache) pockets a few beans for himself ("Coffee for the Breakfast Table"), but he is discovered by a foreman.

The foreman draws 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.

In parallel with Travis's experiences, the narration shows 1960s Britain slowly retreating from its imperial past but retaining some influence by means of corrupt dealings with the foreign dictators of countries that had recently fought for their independence.

Burgess is allied with Dr. Munda, the dictator of Zingara (a fictional African country), who has created a brutal police state and playground for wealthy people from the developed world.

Burgess sells the regime a chemical called "PL45 'Honey'", which the dictator sprays on rebel areas; its effects resemble those of napalm.

He is given various props to handle, including a stack of schoolbooks and a machine gun (both reminiscent of Mick Travis' first chapter in the trilogy, if....).

The film originally began as a script written by McDowell about his experiences as a coffee salesman in his late teens and early 20s.

[5] Anderson conceived of Price's role as a kind of Greek Chorus, both commenting on and finally appearing as part of the action.

The song "Changes" (based on the tune to "What a Friend We Have in Jesus") was later a chart hit for Price in April 1988 when it was used in a television advertisement of the same name for Volkswagen Golf cars in 1987, starring model Paula Hamilton.

[11] A number of different edits exist, with some American prints removing around twenty minutes including the working class parody suicide, just before the conclusion of the film.

Even both British VHS releases delete at least one scene present in the BBC broadcast of the film (Travis testing his status in the home of his industrialist patron) in the early eighties.

"[19] Reviewing the film for BFI in May 2024, Stephen Dalton said: An anarchic joyride through the tragicomic horrorscape of early 1970s Britain, Lindsay Anderson’s maximalist musical satire O Lucky Man!

... A heady cocktail of Brecht and Buñuel, Lewis Carroll and Monty Python, Jean-Luc Godard and Ken Russell, O Lucky Man!

Admittedly some elements have dated exceptionally badly, especially the Carry On-style depiction of women as pliant nymphomaniacs, and the jarring spectacle of beloved Dad’s Army star Arthur Lowe in full blackface (a decision that would have been unremarkable in 1973, when The Black and White Minstrel Show was still a high-rating BBC fixture).

Despite this, the film’s rich combination of cynicism and romanticism, jaunty music and bitingly absurd humour, can still feel fresh and spiky today, with its proto-punk contempt for bourgeois good taste.