I kind of get a kick out of those Sprint commercials with James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell.

I have always been a fan of McDowell’s since I saw his first film, Lindsay Anderson’s IF, and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is my all time favorite movie (though in fairness, it is tied with Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game).

Anyway, seeing the commercial usually reminds me of A Clockwork Orange , but the other day I found myself thinking about Anderson’s brilliant sort of sequel to IF, his film Oh Lucky Man!

Oh Lucky Man!  shows us McDowell’s IF character Mick Travis a few years later, giving a treatise on capitalism, life, death, and existence in a sort of comedic dramatic epic form that is also Zen.

If nothing else, the story is fascinating (it also really needs a couple of viewings).

Anyway, the soundtrack to Oh Lucky Man! was written by Alan Price, the keyboardist/songwriter of the Animals, the great British blues-pop band, who not only featured Eric Burdon, but whose bass player, Chas Chandler, is credited with “discovering” Jimi Hendrix.

Price wrote a fabulous soundtrack to the movie, bookended by one version of the title track for the opening credits,

and then a second version that serves as the closing credits.

Just a great cut. And, now I will have to dig up my old VHS of the movie and watch it again. Hell, maybe I will even buy it on DVD!