10 great British action films of the 1970s

With the emergence of New Hollywood, relaxed censorship and the growing popularity of Asian martial-arts movies, the 1970s was the decade in which the action movie truly established itself as a genre of its own. The signs were already there for the British film industry in the 60s, having seen critical and commercial success with action-heavy, American co-productions such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and the all-conquering Bond movies. These various market elements led to a spate of homegrown action-oriented releases, which sought to sate audiences’ tastes for more intense on-screen violence.

One such release was Brannigan (1975), starring John Wayne in a late career role as a grizzled Chicago detective who is sent to London to extradite an American mobster. The subject of a new BFI Blu-ray release, Brannigan was one of many tough-cop movies that tapped into the popularity of Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971). Jim Brannigan may be less morally complex than Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callaghan, but the film remains a no-nonsense tale packed with fistfights, impressive stunts and singular momentum.

The social mores may have dated, but these pre-CGI, pre-hyper-kinetic action movies are vivid testaments to British cinema’s place in the evolution of the genre. Here are 10 films from a decade when antiheroes often took centre stage and the industry’s stunt performers answered the call to up the ante in spectacular fashion. 

Director: Joseph Losey

Adapted for the screen by one of its leads, Robert Shaw, Joseph Losey’s undervalued Figures in a Landscape is about as stripped back as an action movie can get. Based on Barry England’s 1968 debut novel of the same name, the film’s tagline “The bird has come for its prey” succinctly sums up its plot. Two men – played by Shaw and Malcolm McDowell – are relentlessly pursued, and cruelly toyed with, across inhospitable, physically arduous terrain by a black helicopter. Exposition is limited – instead, the visual storytelling is boldly foregrounded. 

What the viewer gleans from the dialogue is that the two men, who we eventually find out are called MacConnachie (Shaw) and Ansell (McDowell), seem to be prisoners of war fleeing enemy captors. Figures in a Landscape is tense and intriguing precisely because of its bare-bones premise and assured execution.

Director: Étienne Périer

Adapted for the screen by Alistair MacLean from his own 1966 novel of the same name, When Eight Bells Toll is a Bond-style action thriller starring Anthony Hopkins as secret agent Philip Calvert. Less glamorous and more tonally subdued than Ian Fleming’s fictional world, Étienne Périer’s espionage adventure plays out with the rugged Scottish Highlands, and their inclement weather, as its evocative backdrop. Calvert himself is every bit as efficient, intelligent and lethal as Bond when required, with Hopkins bringing a gravitas not usually demanded for the role of an action-hero protagonist.

A spate of cargo ship hijackings sends Calvert north of the border and into the heart of an increasingly perilous mystery. Replete with vicious henchmen, an untrustworthy love interest and near-death escapes, the narrative template may be a familiar one, but When Eight Bells Toll is an enjoyable tale of intrigue, suspense and action sequences. 

Director: Douglas Hickox

Somewhat obscured by the releases of similar titles Villain and Get Carter around the same time, Douglas Hickox’s pacy crime drama Sitting Target foregrounds action in a seedy tale of revenge. Starring Oliver Reed and Ian McShane as vicious convicts Harry Lomart and Birdy Williams, it sets audiences’ moral compasses spinning wildly in the face of the spiritual corruption, hollow greed and unfettered violence on display.

When Lomart’s wife Pat (Jill St John) informs him that she is pregnant by her lover and seeking a divorce, Lomart becomes obsessed with escaping from prison, coldly murdering Pat and retrieving £200,000 stashed from an earlier armed robbery. The audacious prison escape is truly breathtaking, shot Rififi-style with minimal dialogue. Containing fistfights, shootings and a high-octane car chase climax, Sitting Target rarely lets up on the violent action throughout. 

Director: Guy Hamilton

Without a vodka martini in sight, Guy Hamilton’s Live and Let Die signalled the changing of the guard after Sean Connery had departed the Bond franchise for the second time. The eighth entry in the series saw Roger Moore assume the mantle of 007 as the producers sought to make a break with the Connery era. Introducing a voodoo-themed supernatural element for the first and, so far, only time, Live and Let Die dispensed with the usual megalomaniacal attempts at world domination, instead hitching itself to the zeitgeist of the Blaxploitation genre by turning its attentions to the international drugs trade. 

The affable Moore slipped into the role with ease, and Hamilton’s movie sowed the seeds for the action-propelled, ever more humorously excessive entries that were to follow. Armed with Paul McCartney’s famous title song, Moore’s Bond debut may have infuriated Fleming purists, but cinema audiences lapped it up.

Director: Richard Lester

A fabulous swashbuckling adventure from the off, Richard Lester’s take on the first half of Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 novel was highly successful critically and commercially. Its winning combination of elaborate swordplay, witty dialogue and romance drew numerous award nominations. Adapted by Flashman author George MacDonald Fraser and scored by Michel Legrand, it’s an enduringly popular tale of Machiavellian politics, passionate loyalties and incriminating stolen diamonds.

Michael York’s brave but naive d’Artagnan joins King Louis XIII’s musketeers, including Oliver Reed’s Athos, to thwart the underhand plans of Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) to exert greater power over the king. The film’s swordfights and action sequences were expertly choreographed by acclaimed fight director and stuntman William Hobbs. In our contemporary CGI-dominated era, The Three Musketeers’ old-school style has more than stood the test of time.

Director: Peter R. Hunt

Controversially shot in then-apartheid era South Africa, Peter R. Hunt’s film of Wilbur Smith’s 1970 novel Gold Mine was one of numerous big-screen versions of the Rhodesian-born British/South African novelist’s works to appear in the 1960s and 70s. Released under the shorter title Gold, this action-thriller centres on nefarious plans to flood a large mine to manipulate the global gold markets. Starring Roger Moore as the mine’s newly promoted manager, Rod Slater, Gold doesn’t escape the colonialist and misogynistic traits evident in Smith’s works, but otherwise presents a satisfyingly muscular tale of greed, murder and deception.

Despite his philandering, Slater is the narrative’s moral centre, risking his life to save the miners’ lives and the mine from destruction. With a strong supporting cast including Susannah York, Ray Milland and John Gielgud, Gold kicks off and climaxes with superbly rendered action sequences that provide a visually arresting snapshot of the perils of mining.

Director: Peter R. Hunt

Another Wilbur Smith adaptation directed by Peter R. Hunt, Shout at the Devil again stars Roger Moore, this time alongside Lee Marvin, with Barbara Parkins and Ian Holm in support. A ramshackle, two-and-a-half-hour action epic spanning 1913 to 1915, Shout at the Devil contains scenes that are undeniably distasteful to watch. The nominal ‘heroes’ – Moore’s upper-class Sebastian Oldsmith and Marvin’s alcoholic Colonel Flynn O’Flynn – happily slaughter elephants for their ivory and, in one narratively crucial but cringeworthy sequence, Moore’s character appears in blackface.

Apart from these elements and clunky tonal shifts, Hunt’s adaptation of Smith’s East Africa-set 1968 novel is an entertaining romp, with Moore and Marvin making for engaging leads, regardless of their characters’ moral flaws. After the brutal murder of Oldsmith’s baby daughter and the outbreak of the First World War, the film’s action sequences become driven by revenge and patriotism.

Director: David Wickes

One of numerous big-screen excursions for British TV series during the 70s, this 1977 production sought to expand on the homegrown popularity of gritty small-screen police drama The Sweeney, which ran on ITV from 1975 to 1978. While local audiences knew what they were getting with DI Jack Regan (John Thaw) and DS George Carter (Dennis Waterman), the film also looked to capture international attention with an action-strewn narrative that took in a political scandal, the oil markets and global energy consumption.

Freed from broadcasting restrictions, Sweeney! ramped up the violence, nudity and profanity, earning itself an X-rating in line with the edgier, more graphic theatrical releases that cinema-going audiences of the 70s had become accustomed to. A murdered sex-worker, a compromised politician and Regan nosing about the corridors of power lead to more killings, uncovered corruption and a decidedly downbeat climax. Popular enough to spawn a sequel the following year, Sweeney! remains one of Britain’s most memorable small-to-big-screen transfers.

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Loosely based on Rhodesian author Daniel Carney’s then-unpublished novel The Thin White Line (later published as The Wild Geese), Andrew V. McLaglen’s action-packed film drew inspiration from Irish mercenary Michael ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare and his Five Commando Armée Nationale Congolaise’s activities in Africa in the mid-to-late 1960s. Hoare acted as the production’s military advisor and later championed its realistic portrayal of mercenary life, which includes the essential camaraderie, compromised personal lives and unreconstructed world views.

Producer Euan Lloyd assembled a heavyweight cast headed by Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore to portray a squad of ageing, hardened mercenaries hired to parachute into southern Africa and rescue fictional president Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) from captivity. Lloyd’s provocative decision to shoot much of the movie in South Africa unsurprisingly drew the ire of anti-apartheid groups in Ireland and England. Despite this, The Wild Geese did brisk business at the British box office on general release. 

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Featuring one of the great motorbike chases yet committed to film, George P. Cosmatos’s Escape to Athena is a genre-hopping mix of comedy, action-adventure and POW drama. The sequence in question was shot around the narrow streets and back alleys of Rhodes, with British stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong overseeing every aspect of the thrilling, edge-of-your-seat chase. Reportedly taking a fortnight to complete, it’s the action highlight of a film which bursts into life in its third act after incrementally building up a head of steam. 

Escape to Athena’s stellar cast includes David Niven, Elliott Gould, Stefanie Powers and Roger Moore, with the plot seeing WWII prisoners of war incarcerated on an unnamed, Nazi-controlled Greek island plan to abscond with the ancient treasures they have been tasked with unearthing. The rag-tag would-be escapees’ plans go dramatically, dangerously awry as the film reaches its explosive climax.