70’s Films: Not Crap

Movies of the 70’s. Yeah - I can remember the 70's. Lots of long hair, rounded collars and power cuts. A few years later - in the later 80's - I worked for a Tory MP and edited a Conservative In-Touch leaflet for the voters of Bury North that basically painted the 70's as a huge 10 year drift into communism (fault of Callaghan, Wilson, Benn, Heath and other assorted fellow travellers). There's something in that, of course, but my actual memories of the decade - as opposed to my teenage political views - are fabulous; warm, comforting, happy.

And the films? Pretty damn good. A better decade than the 60’s and certainly, in retrospect, more watchable than the 80’s where all the films seemed to be populated by big haired actors wearing shoulder pads battling intrusive crap music taking the place of characterisation.

So, today's listette is the best films of 1970's with a slight bias towards films I actually saw. Yeah. In the 1970's at ABC Cinema in Rochdale town centre. Probably a bloody Wetherspoons now.

Star Wars (1977)

Of course Star Wars. I saw it when it came out in 1977 and was pissed off it would 1984 before it came on TV. These were days before videos, online Disney etc. Christ this movie, and the franchise, is big now. BIGGER in the 70's when the tech wasn't so dated and before Lucas messed it up with crap CGI in the 90’s. I collected the cards. Swapped them at school. Iconic movie. 70's classic. It doesn't get much better than this.

Grease (1978)

Saw the film. Watched all the hits on Top of The Pops as Summer Nights and You’re the One That I Want each set up camp at Number One. Got the album for Christmas. An album that - framed - adorns my hallway right now. All the innuendo and smutty lyrics went right over my head. Were we more innocent back then or was it just me? But great casting (if somewhat old for high school kids), great songs, dance routines all stuffed into a pleasing boy meets girl, loses girl, gains her back again three act plot.

The Long Good Friday (1979 released 1980)

Obviously, I didn't see this in the 70's! Well, it wasn’t released until 1980 but I’ll squeak this one in as it was filmed in the decade. Bob Hoskins on fine form and Helen Mirren looking (as she always does) stunning. Dream girl. London as I remember it in the late 70's - a shit-hole but ringing to the song of Cockneys getting all useful with each other. A time piece of a world in transition before Thatcher reinvented the country and builders transformed the Thames riverside into skyscapers of glass and money.

The Three / Four Musketeers (1974/5)

Richard Lester screwing over Olly Reed, Michael York et al by claiming to make just one movie but then cutting it in half and releasing two. Funny, irreverent, with Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway engaging and distracting the fab four as they flash their swords in France and England. I saw this one rainy holiday in Dorset 1974 when the weather forced us to the cinema. Glad it did. There’s not a day when I don’t think about this film.

Manhattan (1978)

I thought this one better than the more celebrated Annie Hall. Shot in black and white. When Woody Allen was vaguely funny. Didn't see this until the 80's. Plot: Woody forms an inappropriate relationship with a much younger girl. Mmm, yeah. An artist, right?

Animal House (1978)

“Greg honey, is it supposed to be this soft?” I don't think I've ever progressed beyond the humour from this story of the worst Frat House on campus. Kent Dorfman. Wow! Tim Mattheson, John Belushi lead the lads into one gross out misdeed after another. Toga! Toga! Louie Louie. Spawned a genre. And no, I didn’t see it at the time.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

"Saigon. Shit!" President Andrew Bartlett goes off to kill The Godfather to sound of the Doors while reading Heart of Darkness. Or something like that. It goes on for, like, nine hours and is always on when I come back pissed from the pub. So I see a bit here. A bit there as I fall asleep on the couch. If I wake up and see the deleted French scene, I must be watching the director's cut. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

Monty Python's Life Of Brian (1979)

What can I say? Possibly one of the most iconic and funniest films ever. So many scenes that are now comedy gold and have slipped into the culture. Hard to see that it was controversial at the time. Christianity is a bit of a soft target though, isn't it? Not then, apparently. I suppose one could imagine a comedy team doing a piss-take of another religious figure from a different, militant religion now? Edgy, no? No? They'd rather take lame shots at Trump? How we've progressed since the 70's. Not.

The Godfather 1&2 (1974/5)

Mario Puzo / Francis Ford Coppola's epic tales of a mafia family in New York moving to Vegas and Cuba. What's not to like? Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall. "Forget about it". “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Well worth watching again and again. It stands up as a timeless classic - out of time, not of its time.

Well there you go - some great films. Some good times. Superman in January 1979 at the ABC in Rochdale was memorable only because it was the Winter of Discontent and so the heating was off because of the strikes. Really looking forward to Andy Burnham taking us back to those days. Without the iconic films and music though, eh?

Did I miss off Wild Geese? Travesty! Another time perhaps.

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70's Films