Saturday Night Fever (1977)

The way John Travolta walks, talks and moves in this film is so effortlessly cool that you can only imagine the entire role was constructed around him. By day he works in a hardware shop in New York. At night, he dances in the local clubs where his astonishing moves have earned him a level of respect he cannot find in regular society, nor in his home life.  

It tackles issues including religion, class, social mobility, gender roles and the state of New York in the 1970s, but never in a heavy-handed manner.

Both incredibly dramatic and desperately sad, in some ways it’s a New York version of the sort of stories told in Billy Liar and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – a young man tries to rise above his background to make his way in the world while negative forces conspire to keep him down.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Alternative title: An Hour Too Long. 

During World War II, Operation Market Garden was an Allied operation that took place in September 1944. It aimed to secure key river crossings, enabling a route from the Netherlands into northern Germany – culminating with the strategically vital Arnhem bridge. 

That real-life saga is brought to life with mixed results. Unfortunately, at nearly three hours it’s excessively drawn out. The film gets off to a very slow start, too, and it’s a full 52 minutes until the first shot is fired. There are a lot of characters and plenty of time is used up introducing them and generally setting the scene. It’s an extreme example of the all-star cast, cramming in key roles for Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O'Neal, Laurence Olivier and Robert Redford. The ensemble approach works reasonably enough and it adds scope, but it does mean you don’t get to know – or care about – any particular individual very well. 

Despite the jaunty music at times and the sense that for the posh Brits it’s all just a jolly jape, there’s a strong message about the brutality of war and the film doesn’t hold back from showing the realities of injury and death. 

It’s superior to the likes of The Great Escape and The Longest Day, although still oddly unsatisfying. It fails to convey why these battles are so important or to provide a wider context of how they fit into the war.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Roger Moore’s third Bond film is probably his best.

Pros:
• A different kind of story arc. It seems to turn into a war film about two thirds of the way through.
• The Bond girl has a better-written role than usual. Unfortunately, Barbara Bach (later to marry Ringo Starr) doesn’t act that role very convincingly.
• Jaws is the most compelling henchman of them all and I like the fact that he survives, even if they ruined the character by turning this brutal killer into a soppy fool when he returned in Moonraker.
• In places, it’s like a horror film and there are a couple of genuinely frightening surprises.
• Iconic scene in which Bond skis off a cliff and opens a Union Jack parachute.
• Bond’s underwater car.
• Theme song “Nobody Does It Better” sung by Carly Simon.

Cons:
• Roger Moore is still ridiculous.
• The villain (Curd Jürgens playing Karl Stromberg) is killed rather too easily by Bond shooting him. I was expecting him to be sent down the shaft in his sci-fi sub-aquatic base to the shark tank so that he would suffer the same fate as his victims. Instead, Jaws gets that treatment so that they can have a Jaws vs. Jaws battle, which – brilliantly – henchman Jaws wins.
• The usual racism and sexism.
• Bond’s evident knowledge of marine creatures is never explained. Is he just an expert at everything?