Some Other Movies From 1977 (2)

For further background on the year in film please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1977 entry.

That said, I always feel like 1977 was the beginning of the modern movie.  You had Star Wars, you had Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you had Smokey and the Bandit.  Sure, a lot of the special effects used in these movies aren't all that special by modern standards, but directors were learning how to trim the fat off their movies; how to make them less talky.  Not every movie from 1977 exemplifies this trend - especially not most of the movies below, which were chosen for their relative obscurity - but we were getting there, slowly but surely.

Some things that happened in 1977:

• The world's first all-in-one computer, the Commodore PET, was released.
• It snowed in Miami, Florida.  This was the only time that ever happened.
• Jimmy Carter was elected President of the U.S.
• Fleetwood Mac released Rumors, still their most famous album.
• Uranus' rings were discovered.
• The Cambodian-Vietnamese War erupted.
• The first Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurant opened in California.
• Star Wars opened in theaters across the U.S.  People then set about losing their minds.
• Spain held its first democratic elections in a long, long time.
• NASA launched Voyager 2.
• The Atari 2600 was released.
• Billy Joel released The Stranger (great album).
• The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack became the best selling album up to that point.
• Djibouti and Vietnam joined the United Nations.

Linked entries below can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.

Excellent

1. The Man Who Loved Women

No, not the Burt Reynolds version.  That came six years later.  This is the original French version.

With as many French movies as I've seen, I'm still not that familiar with Francois Truffaut.  I've seen Day for Night, perhaps his most celebrated film, but that's it.

The Man Who Loved Women details the exploits of a womanizer, and while I'm not proud to say it, I did relate to this character a lot.  Truffaut paints a vivid picture of the womanizer's dilemma, and I found myself liking this film a lot more than Day for Night.

This movie, however, just wouldn't work in 2020.  Nowadays that would be called stalking, and that would be bad.  Perhaps yesterday's romanticism is grounds for today's restraining order?

2. The Hobbit

If you want my unprofessional opinion, this animated version of Tolkein's first book is much better than Peter Jackson's later, bloated attempt.  It tells the same story, but in a way that kids can relate to.  Oh, and the music's great too.

Like Wizards (below), a nice pipe might add to your enjoyment of this movie.  But unlike Wizards, I had no trouble either concentrating upon or enjoying this one.

Fun Fact 1: This was an American-Japanese production.  The Japanese end of things was handled by Topcraft, a studio that eventually morphed into Studio Ghibli, best known for Sprited Away.

Fun Fact 2: In 1978 Ralph Baksi (see Wizards below) released his Lord of the Rings.  After the release of that movie Rankin/Bass released an adaptation of The Return of the King on television.  The Return of the King, even less reliant on American artist Lester Abrams' original designs, looks even more like a Studio Ghibli production.

3. Joseph Andrews

Familiar with Thackeray's Vanity Fair?  If so, you'll appreciate this movie's worldly cynicism.  It's not sparing in its honesty, and there are neither heroes nor villains populating the story it tells.

In Joseph Andrews Peter Firth.stars as a footman to a wealthy woman.  It was the.film Tony Richardson directed after his firing from Mahogany (see Some Other Movies From 1975 (2)) and it's much, much better than that earlier effort.  It's also genuinely funny, and moreover funny in a way that would have made John Waters proud.

4. The Man with No Name

BBC documentary on Clint Eastwood.  It asks a lot of the questions people were asking about Eastwood at the time.  Is he a good actor?  Is he a good director?  Do his films promote violence?  Do his films have an agenda?  By way of context, in 77 The Gauntlet would hit theaters (a very overlooked movie), and The Outlaw Josey Wales was released the year before.

Some Good Ones

1. Slap Shot

The script had some issues, but this story of a hockey team's final season is one of the better sports movies.  Paul Newman is engaging as the team's star player/coach, and the rest of the cast is good too.  It's easy to understand why this movie has such a following - and not only because of Canadians.

Fun Fact 1: Towards the end of this movie you can see Deep Throat on the theater's marquee.

Fun Fact 2: George Roy Hill, the director of this movie, also directed Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.

Fun Fact 3: This movie's screenwriter went on to write Coming Home and Straight Time, two other good movies.

2. The Ascent

Black and white Russian movie about soldiers taken captive by the Nazis during World War II.  It's as depressing as you'd expect.  

I recommend watching this on a sunny day.  That way, when it's over, you can go outside, get some sunshine, and think happier thoughts.

As far as Russian movies about WWII go, I didn't find this one as devastating as 1985's Come and See.  The production values in this movie were also a lot lower.  It's a good movie if you're looking for that introspective, Crime and Punishment vibe, and the ending will definitely stay with you, but it requires a certain frame of mind to "enjoy"... if enjoy is the right word.

3. Wizards

A good wizard contends with an evil wizard in a post-apocalyptic future.

And hey, it's Ralph Bakshi, remember him?  By 1977 he'd established himself as an adult-oriented alternative to Disney, and he enjoyed quite a cult following.

I think you'd want to smoke some of your best before approaching this one.  I went into it stone cold sober, and while I could kind of follow what was going on, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on it.  A good buzz would have evened things out nicely.

4. That Obscure Object of Desire

A rich man becomes obsessed with a much younger woman.  This was director Luis Bunuel's last movie, ending a career in French cinema which lasted decades.  The only thing stopping me from placing this movie in the "Excellent" category is Bunuel's decision to cast two actresses in the same role.  It seems like an unnecessary flourish on the director's part.

Fun Fact 1: before Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina were both cast as the younger woman, Maria Schneider was set to play the part.  Her argument with the director prior to filming led him to the idea of casting two women in her place.

Fun Fact 2: Carole Bouquet would go on to star opposite Roger Moore in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only.

Fun Fact 3: Fernando Rey, who stars in this, appeared as the French drug dealer in The French Connection years before.

5. Night Journey

South Korean film about a young woman searching for happiness in a society dominated by men.  I liked it, but I'm not exactly sure what that "rape" scene was about.

6. The Making of Star Wars

"A full-fledged social phenomenon."  Yeah, in 1977 Star Wars was the biggest thing ever.  With all the sequels, prequels, technological advances and corporate takeovers that followed it's probably hard for younger viewers to realize how truly special this movie was, but this documentary does go some distance toward highlighting the scope of its achievement.

The interview with Carrie Fisher in the arcade was the best part of this film for me.  So young, so beautiful.  I haven't seen the most recent Star Wars movie, but the idea of a cgi version of her really bothers me.

7. Anyplace But Here

Bill Moyer takes a camera crew into a New York mental institution.  Some things have changed since the 70s, other things sure haven't.

8. Executioners From Shaolin 洪熙官

The character Pai Mei 白眉 (literally "White Brows") in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 was taken directly from this movie.  Yes, Pai Mei was also a historical figure, but I think we can agree that Tarantino lifted him from Executioners From Shaolin.

Gordon Liu, who plays Pai Mei in Kill Bill, is also in this.  He doesn't play Pai Mei here, but rather a Shaolin student (monk?) who sacrifices himself early on in the movie.  Liu would star in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin the following year.

Executioners From Shaolin isn't as memorably cheesy as The Shaolin Invincibles (below), but it's a good kung fu movie that never wears out its welcome.  The ending is also delightfully gruesome.

9. Rolling Thunder

Revenge picture starring William Devane as a POW newly returned to the States.  It's not the post-Vietnam statement that Coming Home is, and it lacks the sheer testosterone of First Blood, but it's a glimpse of what up-and-coming screenwriter Paul Schrader was doing around the time he wrote Taxi Driver.

10. Roots (the TV miniseries)

6 episode-adaptation of Alex Haley's book.  Both the book and the TV miniseries are good, but in my opinion the miniseries skips over important parts of the book.  Roots the TV show feels a lot like watching a play, even if the performances are all great and this 6+ hour spectacle has held up very well.

Fun Fact: "Tom's" son look familiar?  That's Todd Bridges, who'd go on to fame as "Willis" (i.e. "What you talkin' 'bout Willis?" in Diff'rent Strokes.

Weirdness

1. House (Hausu)

Several young girls visit a spooky mansion in the countryside.  In some ways it feels like a Japanese response to the Italian giallo pictures, in other ways it's just weird in the way that the weirdest Japanese movies are weird.

Some Bad Ones

1. Gulliver's Travels

Maybe not bad, exactly, but there's nothing here for adults, and modern-day kids will find it boring.  Richard Harris stars in this talky mixture of live action and animation, and the results are decidedly underwhelming.

Fun Fact: The director of this movie, Peter Hunt, started his directorial career with the Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

2. The Amazing Spider-Man

TV movie (later released theatrically) starring Nicholas Hammond as the famous web-slinger. I'd already seen this of course, but it had been decades. The soundtrack is memorably funky, but between bits of superheroism it moves at a glacial pace. 

Fun Fact 1: Stan Lee, who assisted in the production, regarded this show/movie as "juvenile."

Fun Fact 2: CBS canceled the show after only 13 episodes. Part of their reason for doing so was a desire not to appear as "the superhero network." Around the same time The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Shazam and Isis all received the live action treatment on CBS.

Fun Fact 3: They tried to revive this show in the 80s. The revival would have teamed Hammond's Spider-Man (in his black costume!) with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno's Incredible Hulk.

So Bad It's Good

6. The Shaolin Invincibles

In the descriptions of a lot of these Hong Kong movies I'm tempted to write "kung fu."  I mean really, who cares what the plot really was?  For what it's worth, two sisters orphaned during the Ching Dynasty seek revenge against the official that killed their family.  Is it a historical drama that continues to enrich our understanding of the time period and our awareness of human nature?  Nope.  Is there kung fu?  Yep.

The More You Know: At a certain point in this movie the bad guys square off against a pair of gorillas.  AND THE GORILLAS KNOW KUNG FU.  The boss gains control over the gorillas by kicking them in the top of their heads.  If you're ever threatened by a pair of kung fu gorillas, now you know what to do!

Erotica (Definitely not Porn)

1. Goodbye Emmanuelle

Emmanuelle and her sexually liberated friends bang each other in the Seychelles.  The star of this one is Sylvia Kristel, not Laura Gemser (the "black" Emmanuelle).  I find Laura Gemser much hotter, but Kristel is definitely a better actress.  This movie's also far more polished than anything in the "Black Emmanuelle" series.  It's still far from great, but the Seychelles sure are pretty.

Comparing the two versions of Emmanuelle, the original Emmanuelle and "Black Emmanuelle," I'd have to say the more solitary version played by Gemser makes a lot more sense to me.  Setting Emmanuelle among a group of like-minded libertines does make it easier to write a story around her, but their shared sexual obsessions makes them harder to relate to.

There's also something off-putting about Kristel's circle of friends.  While watching them recruit third and fourth-string sex partners I kept imagining myself in those situations.  People like that, in real life, would probably seem gross.

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Some Other Movies From 1977

In 1977 I turned two.  I doubt I saw any movies that year.  I was probably too busy watching Sesame Street.

The top 5 movies of 1977 were Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Saturday Night Fever and The Goodbye Girl.  I love the first four of these movies, but I don't think The Goodbye Girl deserves to be in the top 5.

Other good movies of that year were A Bridge Too Far, The Deep, The Spy Who Loved Me, Oh, God!, Desperate Living, The Duellists, The Last Wave, Martin, Pumping Iron, Rabid, and Suspiria.

Woody Allen fans are going to hate me, but for worst movie I'd nominate Annie Hall.  I've never been able to get into that movie, and for me it was the beginning of a long-standing dislike for Woody Allen.  Something about that guy and his films really gets under my skin.

Excellent

1. Sorcerer

On one level: it's about four guys trying to transport six boxes of dynamite across 218 miles of South American jungle.  On another level: it's about four guys trying to escape the consequences of bad decisions.  On yet another level: it's about Man trying to escape fate - or death - or the contingent nature of his existence.

However you choose to interpret this movie, director William Friedkin was at the top of his game when he made it.  The cast is excellent, and the visuals are arresting.  In some ways this movie reminded me of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, in that its characters set themselves herculean tasks, but the characters in Friedkin's movie exist on a more individual level, where Herzog's protagonist is beholden to a larger cultural obsession.

2. 3 Women

Director Robert Altman puts it on a slow boil for this story of three women who cross paths in rural California.  Sissy Spacek would of course go on to win an Oscar for Coal Miner's Daughter, but the relatively overlooked Shelley Duvall more than holds her own in this movie.  The weird paintings in this film are almost a character in and of themselves.

3. Cross of Iron

It's not Stalingrad, it's not Come and See, but this Sam Peckinpah-directed movie is both very entertaining and full of his characteristic kind of violence.  James Coburn and Maximilian Schell star as Nazi officers stranded in Russia, and the film is chock full of irony (if you'll excuse the slight pun).

Fun Fact #1: Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of this movie.  It served as inspiration for his film Inglorious Basterds.

Fun Fact #2: This movie was plagued by production difficulties, many centered around Peckinpah's substance abuse.  It went 2 million pounds overbudget, and every 2 or 3 weeks production was halted so that Peckinpah could recover his "cognitive abilities."  Once in the editing room, Peckinpah started snorting cocaine to speed up the editing process.

Fun Fact #3: Before settling on this movie, Peckinpah was offered the job of directing the first Superman.  Hard to imagine, but true.

Unusual and Interesting

1. The Message*

The story of the Prophet Muhammad, told without recourse to either his likeness or his voice.  This absence where the main character would be makes some scenes confusing, while it makes others more interesting than they would have otherwise been.  Anthony Quinn is the most famous member of the cast, and the public reaction, although tinged with controversy, was generally positive.

Fun Fact 1: None other than Muammar al-Gaddafi put up most of the money for production.

Fun Fact 2: This movie was shot in both English and Arabic versions.  The two versions feature different casts.

Some Good Ones

1. The Amazing Howard Hughes

A LONG time before 2004's The Aviator, Tommy Lee Jones starred in this made-for-TV movie about the famous pilot, tycoon and eccentric.  The low budget shows in certain transitions between periods of Hughes' life, but Jones was good in the role.  My biggest complaint about this one is the actress who plays Katharine Hepburn.  Her accent is all over the place.

2. The Gauntlet

In 2019 this movie would have twice the number of car crashes, and twice the number of stunts.  Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, or Keanu Reeves would also be in it... and it would be WRONG, so wrong.  It would be wrong because in the end it doesn't come down to the number of car crashes or the difficulty of the stunts.  It also doesn't come down to the realism of computer generated imagery.  It comes down to the characters, and in most action movies - whether they were made this year or in 1977 - that element is usually lacking.

In The Gauntlet Clint Eastwood stars as a cop charged with bringing back an important witness.  The dialogue is first-rate, the action scenes are gripping, and the performances are all memorable.  Yeah, in 2019 they could reboot it and make it more like The Fast and the Furious, but why do that?  Why try to capitalize on something that was great the way it was?

Fun Fact: Before Clint Eastwood and future ex-partner Sandra Locke signed on to star in this, Marlon Brando and Barbara Streisand were in talks to co-star.

3. Black Sunday

In the 70s they also worried about terrorism.  Back then discussions tended to revolve around a Beirut/Israel-Palestine/Iran axis, rather than an Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan axis, but the concerns were mostly the same.  Should we negotiate with terrorists?  Were American commitments throughout the world making Americans more safe, or less so?

Long before 9/11, John Frankenheimer directed this movie about terrorism coming home.  Robert Shaw stars as an Israeli counter-terrorism expert, with Bruce Dern as a damaged man just returned from Vietnam.  It's a very suspenseful movie that works on many levels.

Not-So-Fun Fact: The real-life even that inspired this movie also served as inspiration for Steven Spielberg's Munich.

4. The Car

What I liked most about this movie is that it doesn't bother to explain anything.  There's a car careening around and killing people, and it's left to local law enforcement to pick up the pieces.  James Brolin (father of Josh!) stars as one of those law enforcement types, with Ronny Cox as one of his fellow officers.  If you ask me, I'd say it was one of the best horror movies of the 70s.

Fans of Christine may be wondering which came first, Stephen King's novel or this film.  For the record The Car came first, though it was preceded by Steven Spielberg's Duel and the movie Killdozer!.

5. Demon Seed

Whatever happened to Julie Christie?  Wikipedia says she's still around, but I sure haven't seen her in anything for a while.  She was a much bigger deal in the 70s.

In Demon Seed she plays a woman terrorized by a form of artificial intelligence.  The "synthesized RNA" which composes the A.I.'s brain is plausible, even if the manner in which the characters interface with this brain is somewhat ridiculous.  That floppy disk the scientist uses?  Your cell phone stores that amount of information many times over.

Given the level of technology at the A.I.'s disposal, and the fact that no one ever seriously considers rendering it "blind," I'd have to put Demon Seed in the B movie category.  This said, it's still a lot of fun, anticipating movies like WarGames and Transcendence by several years.

It's worth noting that even though The Turning Point (below) won a couple Golden Globes that year, Demon Seed has a higher score on Rotten Tomatoes.  This is, I think, a fair assessment of how entertaining these movies would be for modern viewers.

6. Semi-Tough

The perfect antidote to a movie like Equus (below).  Semi-Tough even gets all "zany" in the end, in the way that you just don't see anymore.

And it should be said that in 1977 Burt Reynolds was at the height of his power.  He starred in Smokey and the Bandit the same year, he'd been in The Longest Yard - another great football movie - three years before, and he was definitely one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.

In Semi-Tough Reynolds stars with Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh as three friends mixed up in both the NFL and a self-improvement craze.  It's a consistently funny movie, even if it lags a bit toward the end.

Fun Fact #1: Brian Dennehy is in this.  It was his first movie.

Fun Fact #2: Carl Weathers is also in this.  He appeared as Apollo Creed in the first Rocky the previous year.

7. Raid On Entebbe

Hostage drama based on the real-life hijacking of a French airplane on its way to Israel.  This movie would have been a lot better if they'd skipped the soldiers' training and instead kept the focus on the hostages.  As it is it loses momentum about 3/4 of the way through.

Fun Fact 1: Director, Irvin Kirshner would go on to helm The Empire Strikes Back three years later.

Fun Fact 2: This is one of two movies based on the same event.  Victory at Entebbe, featuring an even more idiosyncratic cast, was released the previous year.  Can you imagine a movie featuring Linda Blair, Elizabeth Taylor AND Anthony Hopkins?  Me neither!

8. Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

Sinbad (no, not the guy from A Different World and Jingle All The Way) tries to turn a baboon back into a prince.  Or something.  Honestly I wasn't paying that much attention, and even when I was I found this movie hard to focus on.

My main takeaway is that Jane Seymour was FINE back in the day, and this movie puts her in a lot of revealing outfits.  Were I a time traveler, I'd definitely attempt to visit the 70s and become one of her many husbands.

Ray Harryhausen aficionados' have probably already seen this movie.  This was the last Sinbad movie from Columbia Pictures and also the last movie in a trilogy.

The real question being: Jane Seymour, who appears in this movie, or Caroline Munro, who appears in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad before it?  Golden Voyage is a better film, but as to which is the more beautiful of the two beauties I know not.

Fun Fact: Star Patrick Wayne is John Wayne's son.

It's Icky and Doesn't Make a Lot of Sense but You'll Probably Try to Sit Through it Anyway

1. Eraserhead

I have the idea that this is a movie about cancer: cancerous thoughts, cancerous relationships, and cancers of the body.  But don't quote me on that.  I'm really not sure.

It's a hugely influential film, whatever it's about.  In some ways David Lynch would only get weirder later on, in other ways he'd get less weird.  It's in black and white, it could be called ponderous, and those without a taste for the eccentric should give it a wide berth.

Some Bad Ones

1. The Turning Point

It starts out alright, but sprains its ankle soon after.  Rather than focusing on Anne Bancroft's character - the aging ballerina - this movie gets sidetracked into one subplot involving Shirley Maclaine's character - a former dancer trying to recapture her vanished youth - and another subplot involving her daughter's affair with another dancer.  The dance scenes also distract from the movie, rather than add to it.  On the whole, a movie that's less than the sum of its parts.

2. The American Friend

Uh... why would you believe the medical report handed to you by the gangster who wants you to kill someone?  And why would the gangster bother hiring someone outside his immediate circle if he's going to send his henchman along anyway?  I feel like people gushing over this movie are, like the film's main character, taking a lot of things on faith.

3. Equus

Acting with a capital "A" + a fair amount of pretentiousness = Equus.  Richard Burton stars as a psychiatrist in a facility for adolescents, tasked with counseling a young man after he's been convicted of animal cruelty.  It's definitely one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a while, but I can't say it's entertaining.

Fun Fact: Sydney Lumet directed Network (one of my favorite guilty pleasures) the previous year.

4. Bilitis

Director/photographer David Hamilton's "soft focus" style doesn't translate well to low resolution files, and that's probably the only way modern viewers are going to see Bilitis -- as a low resolution file.

I hate to reuse the phrase "young girl's sexual awakening," but yeah, it was the late 70s and this is another movie about a young girl's sexual awakening.  An offshoot of the "porno chic" aesthetic was a lot of softcore films trying very hard to be Art.

Aspects of Bilitis' plot are hard to buy into, but I suppose that was beside the point.  Why are girls in a Catholic school allowed to bathe in the nude?  Why are some of them wearing so little during their performances?  And where's the Catholicism in this supposed Catholic school?

A Fact: David Hamilton (probably) killed himself in 2016 after a series of sexual assault accusations leveled by women who were as young as 13 when the alleged assaults occurred.

So Bad It's Good

1. (Alien) Prey

British science fiction/horror outing that strays into softcore porn.  It's ostensibly about an alien attempting to survive on Earth, but there's also a love triangle involving two lesbians and the alien visitor.  The alien has vampire teeth and cat makeup, and the characters spend a lot of time searching for things.

Certain critics like to (over)analyze gender roles and sexual themes in this movie, but in my opinion it wasn't executed well enough to justify that level of analysis.

2. Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

Back in 1977 we were primitives - too primitive for Transformers - and we had to make do with Herbie the Love Bug and shit like that.  I joke, but in both conceptual and moviemaking terms it was a long way from 1977 to whenever the first Transformers came out.  Western culture had to incorporate certain Japanese elements for Transformers to happen, and in 1977 people wouldn't have been able to make that kind of leap.

In Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo Don Knotts and Some Other Guy race Herbie - or Herbie races them? - across France.  And OF COURSE there's a jewel heist subplot.  Oh, and another subplot involving romance between TWO CARS because fuck it.  Ocean's Eleven it ain't, Smokey and the Bandit it ain't, but it can be a pleasant hour and a half if you decide not to overthink it.

Fun Fact: Eric Braeden, who appears as one of the race car drivers in this movie, would go on to play Victor in The Young and the Restless TV show.  Almost four decades later, he's STILL playing that role.

Porn

1. Barbara Broadcast

I haven't been writing these entries in chronological order (neither forward nor backward in time), but let the record show that this is the last film from the "porno chic"/Golden Age of Porn era that I plan on watching.  I think I've seen enough of these movies to know what they're about, and I've also seen enough of them to know that I don't like them very much.  I now know where the dividing line between porn and not-porn was in the 70s, just as I now know why porn in the 80s took such a sharp turn away from story and dialogue.

Barbara Broadcast is one of Radley Metzger's movies.  About half of the movie is set in a restaurant where the patrons engage in random sexual acts.  The rest of the movie is even more random, involving scenes of bondage and whatever else the director thought would turn people on at the time.  To me the whole thing felt very juvenile, and I can't imagine most women getting anything out of this film.  The producers probably thought it was very "liberated," but with all the stock sexual positions and penis worship is just seemed very immature to me.

This film is also sad when you consider the fate of one of its stars.  Wade Nichols (a.k.a. Dennis Parker), who plays the cook, would go on to have a disco hit (Like an Eagle), appear in a soap opera, and then die in 1985 of AIDS-related complications.  The circumstances of his death must have terrified former costars, especially given the combined facts of his being a gay man and the AIDS-related paranoia prevalent at the time.

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*Wikipedia and IMDb assign this movie to the year 1976, not 1977.  I'm not sure where people are getting 1977, but that date seems to occur with equal frequency.