Editing Cinema of the United Kingdom (section)

===1970s===
[[File:Glenda Jackson.JPG|upright|thumb|[[Glenda Jackson]] in 1971]]
American studios cut back on British productions, and in many cases withdrew from financing them altogether. Films financed by American interests were still being made, including [[Billy Wilder]]'s ''[[The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes]]'' (1970), but for a time funds became hard to come by.

More relaxed censorship also brought several controversial films, including [[Nicolas Roeg]] and [[Donald Cammell]]'s ''[[Performance (film)|Performance]]'', [[Ken Russell]]'s ''[[The Devils (film)|The Devils]]'' (1971), [[Sam Peckinpah]]'s ''[[Straw Dogs (1971 film)|Straw Dogs]]'' (1971), and [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' (1971) starring [[Malcolm McDowell]] as the leader of a gang of thugs in a [[dystopia]]n future Britain.<ref>[http://www.empireonline.com/100britishfilms/film.asp?film=11 "The 100 Best British Films Ever"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150723025531/http://www.empireonline.com/100britishfilms/film.asp?film=11 |date=23 July 2015 }}. Empire. Retrieved 5 January 2013</ref>

Other films during the early 1970s included the Edwardian drama ''[[The Go-Between (1971 film)|The Go-Between]]'' (1971), which won the [[Palme d'Or]] at the [[Cannes Film Festival]], Nicolas Roeg's Venice-set supernatural thriller ''[[Don't Look Now]]'' (1973) and [[Mike Hodges]]' gangster drama ''[[Get Carter]]'' (1971) starring [[Michael Caine]]. [[Alfred Hitchcock]] returned to Britain to shoot ''[[Frenzy]]'' (1972), Other productions such as [[Richard Attenborough]]'s ''[[Young Winston]]'' (1972) and ''[[A Bridge Too Far (1977 film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977) met with mixed commercial success. The British [[horror film]] cycle associated with Hammer Film Productions, [[Amicus Productions|Amicus]] and [[Tigon British Film Productions|Tigon]] drew to a close, despite attempts by Hammer to spice up the formula with added nudity and gore. Although some attempts were made to broaden the range of British horror films, such as with ''[[The Wicker Man (1973 film)|The Wicker Man]]'' (1973), these films made little impact at the box office, In 1976, British Lion, who produced ''The Wicker Man'', were finally absorbed into the film division of [[EMI Films|EMI]], who had taken over ABPC in 1969. The duopoly in British cinema exhibition, via Rank and now EMI, continued.

[[File:Sir Peter Ustinov Allan Warren.jpg|left|upright|thumb|[[Peter Ustinov]] (pictured in 1986) starred as [[Hercule Poirot]] in ''[[Death on the Nile (1978 film)|Death on the Nile]]'' (1978)]]
In the early 1970s, the government reduced its funding of the National Film Finance Corporation so the NFFC started to operate as a consortium, including with banks, which led to them using more commercial criteria for funding British films rather than focusing on quality or new talent, moving to fund films based on TV shows such as ''[[Up Pompeii (film)|Up Pompeii]]'' (1971).<ref>{{cite news|title=The film industry seeks another reprieve|newspaper=[[The Times]]|last=Harris|first=Derek|page=19|date=5 September 1974}}</ref>

Some other British producers, including Hammer, turned to television for inspiration, and big screen versions of popular sitcoms like ''[[On the Buses (film)|On the Buses]]'' (1971) and ''[[Steptoe and Son (film)|Steptoe and Son]]'' (1972) proved successful with domestic audiences, the former had greater domestic box office returns in its year than the Bond film, ''[[Diamonds Are Forever (film)|Diamonds Are Forever]]'' and in 1973, an established British actor Roger Moore was cast as Bond in, ''[[Live and Let Die (film)|Live and Let Die]]'', it was a commercial success and Moore would continue the role for the next 12 years. Low-budget British [[sex comedy|sex comedies]] included the ''Confessions of&nbsp;...'' series starring [[Robin Askwith]], beginning with ''[[Confessions of a Window Cleaner]]'' (1974). More elevated comedy films came from the [[Monty Python]] team, also from television. Their two most successful films were ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'' (1975) and ''[[Monty Python's Life of Brian]]'' (1979), the latter a major commercial success, probably at least in part due to the controversy at the time surrounding its subject.

Some American productions did return to the major British studios in 1977–79, including the original ''[[Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]'' (1977) at [[Elstree Studios (Shenley Road)|Elstree Studios]], ''[[Superman (1978 film)|Superman]]'' (1978) at [[Pinewood Studios|Pinewood]], and ''[[Alien (film)|Alien]]'' (1979) at [[Shepperton Studios|Shepperton]]. Successful adaptations were made in the decade of the [[Agatha Christie]] novels ''[[Murder on the Orient Express (1974 film)|Murder on the Orient Express]]'' (1974) and ''[[Death on the Nile (1978 film)|Death on the Nile]]'' (1978). The entry of [[Lew Grade]]'s company [[ITC Entertainment|ITC]] into film production in the latter half of the decade brought only a few box office successes and an unsustainable number of failures