10 great Seventies movies you may not have seen

RTÉ News​

3 days ago

You'll find a new favourite or two here - guaranteed.
1) The Paper Chase (1973)
"Never assume anything in my classroom!" If you like college movies, then here's an Oscar-winning one from the old school, perfect for a Sunday afternoon, as writer-director James Bridges (The China Syndrome - another 70s must-see) brings John Jay Osborn Jr's bestseller to big-screen life. Here, Timothy Bottoms plays James Hart, a Minnesota boy in his first year of law at Harvard. As Hart makes his way through mountains of books, he becomes fascinated with his enigmatic Contract Law lecturer Charles Kingsfield (John Houseman) and also falls for Susan Fields (Lindsay Wagner), a woman he meets by chance and who proves to be every bit as difficult to figure out as Kingsfield! Legendary stage and screen producer Houseman, who was also the founding director of the world-famous Juilliard School, embarked on a fascinating third act in his own life when he agreed to take on the scene-stealing role of Kingsfield, a nixer that would see him win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and become a much-in-demand gentleman of a certain age. If you enjoy The Paper Chase, there's a spin-off series that follows Hart through all four years of college. James Stephens takes over the lead role, but Houseman returns for the entire run as Kingsfield.
2) Slap Shot (1977)
Paul Newman said that Slap Shot was the most fun he ever had making a film. It shows. This OTT treasure of a sports comedy reunited Newman with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting director George Roy Hill, and scene for scene it's every bit as enjoyable (and rewatchable) as those two gems. Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the beleaguered player-coach of Rust Belt ice hockey team The Charlestown Chiefs. The mill is about to close down; the team will become collateral damage, and the town hates them all anyway! But, as the saying goes, never waste a crisis, and when the team's skinflint manager (the great Strother Martin) signs a trio of new players, the Hanson Brothers, Dunlop comes up with a plan as all hell breaks loose... Slap Shot ships bawdiness, bravado, and beatings by the tonne - you'd never think it was written by Nancy Dowd, who would soon share a screenplay Oscar for the romantic war drama Coming Hom e. It's an ante-upping delight that would never get made today. The clip above is the only one that's clean enough to feature!
3) Capricorn One (1977)
"You don't really think you're going to get away with this..." A caveat: do not read up on the plot of Capricorn One, as it will ruin the surprise. And oh, lucky you if you're seeing this ripper of an action-thriller for the first time. Here's all you need to know: Elliott Gould, at his 1970s coolest, plays Robert Caulfield, a journalist who's nicknamed 'Scoop' because so many of his stories turn out to be duds. But then Caulfield stumbles on the big one. It's huge, and you'll be hooked. Chock full of tension and humour, Capricorn One 's great cast sees James Brolin, Hal Holbrook, and Brenda Vaccaro hitting their marks in style, and there are magic scenes with the wisecracking David Doyle (aka Bosley from Charlie's Angels) and Telly Savalas, who turn out to be as much the stars of the film as Gould and Brolin. Still need convincing? You'll also get one of the best closing scenes in movie history. Buckle up, you won't want this thrill ride to end.
4) Coming Home (1978)
Jane Fonda won the Best Actress Oscar and Jon Voight won Best Actor for this landmark film, one of the first to examine America and the Vietnam War, released 10 months before The Deer Hunter. Fonda plays Sally, the military wife who breaks free from her drudgery and embarks on a relationship with former classmate Luke (Voight) while her husband Bob (Bruce Dern) is serving in Vietnam. Voight's Luke has returned from the war a paraplegic. Through Sally's compassion, he finds a way back to life. Nominated for eight Oscars (it won Best Screenplay too), Coming Home 's power still holds up today and deserves its place alongside The Deer Hunter, The Best Years of Our Lives, and more on the anti-war honour roll. It was also part of a remarkable 1970s run from the late director Hal Ashby, whose other credits that decade included Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, and Being There - add them all to that never-ending list.
5) The Parallax View (1974)
"There will be no questions." That's the chilling diktat in director Alan J Pakula's conspiracy classic. From the get-go, you'll have plenty. Released two years before Pakula's era-defining Watergate drama All the President's Men (yes, you have to watch it too), The Parallax View sees Warren Brady perfectly cast as Joe Frady, a Jack the Lad journalist who puts himself in the crosshairs of the masters of deception. Frady is smart, but is he as smart as they are? Based on the 1970 Loren Singer book of the same name, The Parallax View deftly mixes menace, action, and suspense as Frady tries to make all the pieces fit. No spoilers here, suffice it to say that, if anything, this film has become all the more terrifying with age. Its key montage scene, which runs for over five minutes, has yet to be bettered in any thriller. Don't look the other way...
6) Fat City (1972)
Any film that opens with Kris Kristofferson's Help Me Make It Through the Night is already looking like a contender, and sure enough this study of boxing and booze from director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Dead) turns out to be one of the most poignant and grittily authentic slice-of-life films that you will ever see. Stacy Keach is down-on-his-luck fighter Billy Tully, Jeff Bridges is young prospect Ernie Munger, and the Oscar-nominated Susan Tyrrell is Billy's latest flame Oma Lee Greer in this adaptation of Leonard Gardner's revered 1969 book, his only novel. Filmed on Skid Row in Stockton, California, and the grubby halls and changing rooms of the fight circuit, Fat City feels like a documentary at times as cinematographer Conrad Hall (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Road to Perdition, American Beauty) delivers another masterclass. Don't go in expecting fight scenes galore, but be ready for your heart to take a hiding.
7) Straight Time (1978)
The narrator will leave you certain of two things at the end of the trailer: 1) The film stars Dustin Hoffman. 2) It's called Straight Time. Retro gags aside, this is one of Hoffman's most overlooked performances. Based on Edward Bunker's (Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs - he also appears here) book No Beast So Fierce, Straight Time explains Bunker's assertion that those with criminal records aren't just locked down, they're also locked out upon release. As the just-paroled Max Dembo, the cast-against-type Hoffman tries to stay out of trouble, only to find that the system appears determined to put him back inside. And as desperation mounts, things go downhill very fast. Directed by Ulu Grosbard (True Confessions, Falling in Love), Straight Time is a savage study of ever-decreasing options and a real word-of-mouth find. Keep an eye out for a young Kathy Bates in just her second film.
8) The Candidate (1972)
"You don't have a chance, so say what you want." Fans of The West Wing and The Thick of It, this one's for you. Robert Redford is at his boyish best as Bill McKay, the idealistic lawyer who is persuaded to run as the Democratic candidate in the California senate election. McKay, the son of former governor John J McKay (Melvyn Douglas), is up against the gloriously monikered Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter), an 18-year incumbent. As McKay gets into the campaign and realises that he needs to sup with a longer spoon than even he expected, he's cajoled, chided, and coerced by permanently hyper political consultant Marvin Lucas (an excellent Peter Boyle). Sure, the race to the bottom has been turbocharged in the 50-plus years since The Candidate was released, but director Michael Ritchie's on-the-hoof study of McKay's campaign remains pacy, pertinent, and prescient. That's thanks to an Oscar-winning, rust-proof script from author Jeremy Larner, the principal speechwriter during US Senator Eugene McCarthy's bid to secure the Democratic nomination for the 1968 presidential election. Larner brilliantly summed up The Candidate in a 2016 interview with Brooklyn Magazine: "The better McKay gets at campaigning, the more he loses himself."
9) Sorcerer (1977)
A disaster when it came out in the same summer as Star Wars, William Friedkin's take on Georges Arnaud's book The Wages of Fear - there's also a must-see 1953 adaptation - is now considered gold. Friedkin's French Connection star Roy Scheider leads a story of desperate men "willing to do a dangerous job". The job? Transporting leaking dynamite 200 miles through the South American jungle to an oil well fire. Here, the terrain, the elements, and the cargo all combine to create a sweat-soaked existential thriller about the will to survive and, as Friedkin described it, "the mystery of fate". After a critical mauling upon release, fate has ultimately proved kind to Sorcerer; more people discover it every year, and they tell others, "Wait until you see the scene with the rope bridge..." Friedkin, who died in August 2023, said he wouldn't change a frame of his personal favourite. He was right all along.
10) The Offence (1973)
Sean Connery's finest work, The Offence is also one of his least-seen films. Despite critical acclaim, it flopped upon release, but its status has grown by the decade. For The Offence, Connery reunited with The Hill (another must-see) and The Anderson Tapes director Sydney Lumet for writer John Hopkins's adaptation of his own play This Story of Yours for the screen. Connery plays Detective Sergeant Johnson, a time bomb investigating the rape of a young girl. Ian Bannen superbly plays Kenneth Baxter, a drunk man who is brought in as a suspect. What unfolds is as riveting as it is disturbing, with powerhouse supporting turns from Trevor Howard as Detective Superintendent Cartwright and Vivien Merchant as Johnson's wife, Maureen. Try this for an endorsement: when Cillian Murphy and director Christopher Nolan visited the Konbini store on YouTube to talk about their favourite films, Nolan told his Oppenheimer star that The Offence was Connery's crowning glory as an actor, hailing "a level of craft from Sean Connery that you won't have seen anywhere else".