The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Extremely entertaining crime thriller directed by Joseph Sargent and adapted from the 1973 novel by Morton Freedgood.

A New York subway train is hijacked by a team of four men in hat and moustache disguises. They take 17 passengers hostage and threaten to kill them unless they are paid $1 million within an hour. 

Walter Matthau stars as the Transit Police lieutenant responsible for saving the victims and resolving the crisis. Robert Shaw plays "Mr. Blue", who is one of the deadly crooks.

It’s tense and exciting with plenty of moments of welcome humour. That said, there are also some very dodgy racist jokes.

Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Written, produced and directed by H. B. Halicki, who also stars and serves as the stunt coordinator, this is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. In many ways, it's not really a film at all. In places it merely seems like raw camera footage.

The “plot” – what there is of one – focuses on a group of thieves who need to steal 48 different cars in just a few days. The lengthy set-up is muddled and poorly done, with almost zero drama in terms of the human interactions. The thread about insurance isn't properly explained, and a thread about discovering bags of heroin is needlessly thrown away. 

It's unusual on a technical level, too. The basic production values are shoddy and amateur-ish, as if it’s a home-made film or school art project. Camera work is blurred, framing is poor and the “dialogue” (much of it not even scripted) is difficult to hear. The sound of a creaking chair, meanwhile, is all too audible.

Where the film redeems itself is with the 40-minute car chase that fills the second half. Suddenly Halicki reveals himself to have a real talent for action sequences. The Mustang car named Eleanor evades police and other pursuers in increasingly improbable and remarkable ways, while becoming progressively more battered and ruined. 

Because Halicki was essentially just “winging it”, many of the extras are real people doing real things in real places. (Halicki’s wife introduces the film and explains that actual policemen, fireman and members of the public were included.) That gives the film an extra value – it's like peering into 1974 and seeing what it was actually like, without the usual artifice Hollywood serves up. 

Stardust (1974)

In this satisfying sequel to That’ll Be the Day (1973), David Essex’s character is now a rock star on a steep rise to fame. Initially he’s in a band (played by actors including Keith Moon, Dave Edmunds and Paul Nicholas), but he later becomes a solo star on a path to self-destruction.

It’s highly entertaining. The story is the classic “rise and fall of a rock star”, but it’s handled well. Adam Faith is excellent as Jim MacLaine’s friend and manager, while Larry “J.R.” Hagman is suitably pushy and ruthless as an American manager and businessman. 

David Essex maintains a magnetic presence throughout, whether performing, smiling or – as his fortunes take a downturn – looking increasingly lost. 

The section in which he performs a ludicrous rock opera celebrating womanhood is suitably ponderous and overwrought.

Earthquake (1974)

When Los Angeles is hit by a major earthquake, it’s up to a few brave heroes to save as many lives as possible. This film performs the standard disaster-film trick of setting up several diverse characters in different places before the incident kicks off. We get to know them a little, and then we get to see how they fare when everything goes wrong. It works because it actually makes us care.

The drama is fairly compelling. On a couple of occasions it lapses into sensationalism – most notably when a lift plunges in its shaft and animated drops of blood superimposed on the screen indicate that everyone in it died. But the film is generally impressive in terms of the special effects of the time (a bursting dam, burning buildings, semi-collapsed structures) and it successfully conveys the huge scale of the disaster. It feels “real” in a way that The Poseidon Adventure never does. 

Charlton Heston is the former sporting hero who has to save work colleagues and his father-in-law. Geneviève Bujold is the young mum who Heston has fallen for. Will he save her or his semi-estranged wife (an oddly unconvincing Ava Gardner)? George Kennedy plays a tough, cynical cop who proves decent enough to do the right thing. Richard Roundtree is a motorcycle stunt driver whose potential is never quite realised in the plot. (I kept expecting him to have to leap across a crack in the ground or cycle through a ring of fire, but his story just peters out.) There are also roles for Victoria Principal (of Dallas fame), who is nearly the victim of a machine-gunning predator, and Walther Matthau, who gets to be a comedy drunk. It’s not clear why they felt the need for comedy in a fairly serious film.

Gripping and suspenseful, this is well worth seeing.

Swallows & Amazons (1974)

Enchanting adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic novel about four young siblings from the Walker family on holiday in the Lake District. They sail a small boat to an island to camp out and seek adventure. They encounter two girls (the Blackett sisters) doing much the same and – after some initial friction – they team up. Remarkably, their mother doesn’t seem the slightest bit worried about them disappearing for days at a time, entirely out of contact and in various dangerous situations (deep water, cliff edges, talking to strange adults, and so on), but then it is presented from the childrens’ point of view (allowing safety concerns to be ignored). Plus, kids were tougher in those days. They never argue among themselves and they never come to any harm, but they do have a lot of fun.

It’s an innocent story from a more innocent time – jolly japes for posh people with fathers in the navy and an early induction into sailing techniques. The story does develop to an exciting climax involving petty theft, but mostly it’s just about the children playing – and that’s enough. It’s so sweet and endearing that it doesn’t require any further drama. The 2016 remake, while also entertaining, felt the need to introduce an unnecessary plot about a secret agent.

All four child actors are excellent. Not sure what happened to the other three, but in a fairly extreme shift of roles Suzanna Hamilton went on to play Julia in 1984.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

A big Hollywood blockbuster disaster film about a fire breaking out in a state-of-the-art skyscraper. Paul Newman (the architect) and Steve McQueen (the chief fireman) lead an all-star cast that includes Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner.

At 165 minutes it’s long indeed, but surprisingly it doesn’t feel slow or laboured. I last saw it as a child and I enjoyed it then, which wouldn’t have been the case if it was a stodgy, ponderous epic.

In places it’s trashy, and there were a few unintentionally funny moments. But there was also real drama and tension. At times it was truly horrifying – such as when Jennifer Jones falls out of the exterior lift and then bounces off the sides on the building on her way down.

The cast is strong. Paul Newman makes for a very likeable hero and manages to rise above the material he’s given. Faye Dunaway does the same, with a cool, restrained intelligence. Richard Chamberlain is just right as the edgy, selfish electrical engineer and son-in-law of the builder. You know it’s not going to end well for him and sure enough he comes to a sticky end.

Only Fred Astaire – playing a doddery old conman who unexpectedly falls in love – seems wrong for his role.  He loses the woman but inherits her cat, which O.J. Simpson has kindly rescued.

I’m not sure this film could have been made now, post-9/11 and post-Grenfell Tower. Intriguingly, it’s adapted from two novels (with both plots and climaxes woven together), but although it’s a work of fiction there’s a dedication at the beginning to all the real-life firemen who died in the course of their duties.

Chinatown (1974)

Highly watchable Roman Polanski crime thriller starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. The former plays Jake Gittes, a private investigator. The latter plays Evelyn Mulwray, who is suspected of killing her husband.

The plot unfolds slowly and luxuriously. The L.A. locations look stunning, and it’s one of those films that can be paused at any moment to reveal an image striking enough to work as a poster. There’s a spacious quality to the pace and style of the storytelling that’s missing from so much modern cinema. It’s a film you want to live in.

And Nicholson – one of the most charismatic people to ever walk the Earth – is transfixing.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Ninth Bond film and the second with Roger Moore, who, throughout the film, wears suits that are too big for him. Bond pursues the “Solex Agitator” device (tied into an interesting plot about the 1973 oil crisis) and arch-villain Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). It’s as racist and sexist as you’d expect from the vintage. That aside, what are the pros and cons of the film?

Pluses:
• M and Q’s base hidden in a wrecked ship in Hong Kong has brilliantly skewed angles with their own dream logic – superb set design.
• Christopher Lee is charming and convincing compared to most Bond villains. He could be the best of all. He certainly out-acts Roger Moore.
• The horror-funhouse in which Scaramanga traps his victims is imaginative and thrilling.
• This dialogue...
Bond: “But where is it collected from? You need the sun.”
Scaramanga: “Watch that mushroom-shaped rock. lngenious, isn't it?”

Minuses: 
• Britt Ekland is terribly weak as “Goodnight”, but the character is so underwritten that she isn’t given much to work with.
• The name “Goodnight” seems to exist only to enable a feeble pun at the very end of the film that isn’t worth the wait.
• Bond hits a woman again (see also From Russia with Love).
• Awful theme tune by Lulu: a breathless dash of a song.
• In one scene, Nick Nack throws countless wine bottles at Bond but no wine spills anywhere. Then Britt Ekland manages to clean up hundreds of shards of glass within minutes.
• The comedy character Sheriff J.W. Pepper returns from Live and Let Die and hasn’t got any funnier.
• A brilliant stunt in which a car corkscrews across a river is ruined by the pointless addition of a “whoopsie” sound effect. What were they playing at?!