![\"Villain,](\"http:\/\/modculture.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/22\/villain.jpg\")
I suspect that, if you were to ask many people with a passing familiarity with the UK film industry, to name some British crime films made in the 1970s, they\u2019d come up with one (Get Carter<\/b>) or possibly two (Get Carter<\/b> and The Long Good Friday<\/b>) titles. In fact, there were handful of them made, especially during the first half of the decade, and they often featured a-grade stars. John Wayne was imported to clean up the London streets in Brannigan <\/b>(75), Sean Connery was a cop on the edge in The Offence <\/b>(72) and Oliver Reed was causing all kinds of trouble in Sitting Target<\/b> (72). Where the genre seems to have differed from Italy, in particular, was that the lower to mid budgeted programmers simply didn\u2019t get made: there are no equivalents to a Stelvio Massi or even Umberto Lenzi, and no homegrown genre stars in the style of Maurizio Merli or Franco Nero, or even Jean-Paul belmondo and Alain Delon in France.\nIt\u2019s a shame, as there were a number of personable young actors around at the time who could have gone on to forge worthwhile – or at least interesting – careers, if the industry had been there to support them. Hwyel Bennett, for instance, made an impression in films such as Loot <\/b>(70) and Endless Night<\/b> (71), but then spent most of the 70s in television. Edward Woodward may have made a name for himself in Callan<\/b>, but his film career tailed off after The Wicker Man<\/b> (73). That there was such a wasted generation of talent is purely down to the fact that the types of productions that should have been employing them became almost solely the preserve of television, and actors follow the work. Instead, the only film genre that had any kind of impact was the sex comedy, and there\u2019s no further evidence of how screwed up British cinema was than that Robin Askwith became a bigger star than Simon Ward.<\/p>\n