Oh my God! I’ve gone and done a list! (70s)

Member Name: Shazzy

Product:	70s
Date:	29/01/02 (228 review reads)
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I was just 10 when the 70s started, and 19 by the time it was all over. There are some memories there, believe me, as I progressed from girl to woman. Hot pants, maxi skirts, space hoppers, chopper bikes, clackers (break your knuckles, darned things), first boyfriend, first hangover, glam rock, disco, first baby, first marriage and first horror film. The 70s were, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest era of them all.

I used to like going to the pictures with my mates. Like most kids, we used to be selective with regards to our ages. If it was a kids/youth film, we were under 18 and paid for a child’s ticket. If it was an adult film, we were over 18 and went to a different cinema. Nobody ever asked for ID back then and loading on the make-up did wonders. We were caught out once though. A 18 certificate was showing at our local cinema and we didn’t have enough money to pay for tickets and bus fare to the one we usually used in those situations, so we decided to chance it down the local ABC. We stood in the queue, as you did in those days, and gradually moved towards the box office (posh name for the little cubby-hole that the ticket lady sat in). Our turn arrived and my friend stepped forward. “One for The Exorcist, please”. The lady in the cubby hole eyed her up and down, looked me and a couple of other friends over and asked “Weren’t you lot here last week to see [some kids film or another]? And didn’t you pay half price?” Quick turn and leg it out of the foyer. Bugger! It was months before we dared go back there again.

Anyway, onto the top 10 list. My favourite films of the 70s, as I remember them. Don’t expect them to be great films if viewed now, but they were my favourites, way back when….


!. The Exorcist – 1973 (UK release 1974)

This one has to be listed first. The horror by which all ensuing horror films were judged. At the time, the special effect
s were incredible, especially the vomiting and head swivelling scenes. The crucifix scene was shocking, and the whole concept of possession was very scary. Nobody dared admit that it had scared them of course, but it sure as hell scared me! I was really quite worried about the possibility of the devil taking over my body and wanted to sleep with the lights on for weeks after seeing it. Mum wouldn’t let me leave the light on though (“you’re not paying the electric bill are you?”) and lying in my bed worrying about demons and what they could do to me just wasn’t nice at all. It’s amazing really, how something that is so unlikely to happen, can be so terrifying. There were films that were far closer to reality, like “Jaws”, but that never had anywhere close to the same effect on me as William Friedkin’s masterpiece. I’ve seen it since, and although it doesn’t give me sleepless nights anymore, it’s still a very chilling film.

By the way, did you know that “Tubular Bells”, which was used as the soundtrack, was the first ever album released by Virgin records?



2. Rocky – 1976

The first episode of what eventually turned into a cinema soap. I actually didn’t want to see this, but a male friend persuaded me, and now it’s there as number 2 on my list. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably because I was living in an area where a lot of the boys were amateur boxers, and the idea of a lad moving up in the world, even if it was by knocking the living daylights out of somebody else, was a bit Cinderella-ish. The fact that Sylvester Stallone had a nice body didn’t have anything to do with it of course. Stallone, who was an unknown at the time, wrote the script himself and insisted on playing the leading role. I’ve seen all the sequels, but the first one remains my all time Rocky favourite.



3. Grease – 1978
<
br>Still one of my favourites today. I loved the music, I loved the attitudes, but I especially loved the clothes of the 50s. A lot of girls already held a torch for John Travolta after Saturday Night Fever, and went to see Grease for that reason alone. I didn’t go much on him really, but that didn’t matter. It was a feel good film. It was miles away from the lives we were living, and yet there were so many similarities, simply because it was based on teen culture. The boys competing to be strongest male, girls sharing secrets and worrying about whether you can get pregnant if you do it standing up. Oh, for that summer loving! It still works today because my girls love it.



4. Never Too Young To Rock - 1975

Oh dear! Does anybody other than me remember this film? It was complete garbage, but one of my favourites because The Glitterband starred in it. I was madly in love with the drummer, and anything that showed as much as a glimpse of him would’ve been good in my eyes. The Rubettes were also in it, along with Mud. The film was released on 20th May and that was the day I went to see it. Talk about eager. The last half hour or so of the film was music music music, which was good, but the acting was crap. I saw it again a few years ago and wondered how on earth I’d managed to sit through it first time round, but I know the answer. It was the 70s, I was into glam rock, and Peter Phipps was gorgeous (a term reserved for the chosen few).



5. Star Wars - 1977

What can I say? The all time sci-fi classic. If you’ve never heard of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vadar, R2D2 or C3PO, then you must’ve been living in a sci-fi world on another planet somewhere. Evidently, this film was made on shoestring but became one of the most successful films ever made. The effects were stunning and unlike anything we’d ever seen before. I mean, just compare Star Wars to the old “Lost in Space”
series that we used to watch! This film knocked us for six!



6. Saturday Night Fever – 1977

Music and dancing. Need I say more? As far as I was concerned, that was a winning combination. This film launched disco-mania, with music from the Bee Gees, Tavaras and KC & The Sunshine Band. We were all on the dance floors with one hand on a hip and the other stabbing at the air, thinking we were well cool. You had to be a bit careful though; get in the way and you could easily get a finger stabbed in your eye. This is the film that turned John Travolta into a household name. Even if you’re too young to remember, you’ll no doubt know about the white suit. Thinking about it now, he looked a bit of a plonker really, but it was good at the time. I remember wishing my local disco had a floor like in the film; lots of colourful flashing squares. All we had to boast about were some plastic palm trees.



7. Carrie – 1977

A psychological horror. I thought Sissy Spacek played her part so well in this film. She plays Carrie, a teenager who uses her telekinetic powers to take revenge on schoolmates after they humiliate her cruelly at the school prom. Carrie was pretty sad and pathetic really, but she didn’t deserve the constant taunting at school or the abuse at home. I felt sorry for her. The two scenes that I imagine most people remember are the pig’s blood at the prom scene and that final scene that still makes me jump today, even though I know what’s coming. I’ve seen a lot of Stephen King adaptations and this is definitely one of the best. Oh, and in case you don’t know, John Travolta was in this one too. He certainly put himself around in the 70s.



8. Alien - 1979

Yet another horror, this time a sci-fi version starring John Hurt and Sigourney Weaver. I thought the effects were good in this one too, and it was really quite scary even though there w
ere few really gory scenes. Mind you, the chest-bursting scene made up for it and I don’t like lots of gore anyway. The story was actually good, and there was plenty of suspense, especially at the end when the ship’s blown up. This is one that I think has honestly stood the test of time. Ok, it doesn’t have the visual impact that it would’ve had if it’d been made today, but for a film made 20 odd years ago, it’s still good.



9. Jaws – 1975

Der-dum, der-dum, der-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. Or something along those lines. There’s a nasty shark lurking in the water and it likes to gobble up anybody who ventures into the sea for a swim. It was clever. The shark seemed quite real really, but that could be because we didn’t actually see it much. It didn’t scare me though. I still went swimming in the sea after seeing it, but it scared the living daylights out of my mum. This was the film that really put Steven Spielberg on the map and the music was so important that I don’t think the film would’ve had anywhere near the same impact without it.



10. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory – 1972

A musical version of Roald Dahl’s famous book. I liked Charlie Bucket (or is that Bouquet?). He was a good kid. The others were brats. The factory wasn’t as good as the one I’d created in my head; the one that was in the book, but it still seemed like a lot of fun and I really wished I could visit it. There was a moral to the story too. No good comes to kids that are selfish and rude. I watched it again with my own kids, and it’s still wonderful. Gene Wilder is magnificent in the role of Willy Wonka.



So that’s it. Notice that they are no Monty Python films in the list? I hated them. I was the only one who didn’t join in when a party got into “silly walks” mode. John Cleese and company did nothing
for me.

I’m not that keen on horror films anymore, but I suppose I was like most teenagers and went through a phase of wanting to have the poop scared out of me. Nowadays I’d much rather wet myself. Give me a good comedy any day.



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