If the 1970s was a turbulent decade for the British cinema industry, this was especially true for the National Film Finance Corporation. It was a difficult time for the state-owned film bank. The corporation had not made a profit since 1964. Its statement of accounts for 1970 reported a loss of £386,126 for the year and an accumulated deficit of over £5.3 million. At the turn of the decade the NFFC was caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand the withdrawal of a large amount of American capital from the British film industry presented an opportunity for the corporation: there would be more need of its support than at the height of the ‘Hollywood UK’ boom during the 1960s when the corporation had been looking more and more redundant as a lender to British producers. On the other hand the increasing demand for its support came at a time when the corporation's resources were severely depleted. The NFFC's ability to support the ailing British production sector was also compromised by wider political uncertainty over official film policy. The 1970s was a period of considerable economic and political instability: the toing and froing between a Labour Party inclined to supporting the film industry and a Conservative Party opposed in principle to public subsidy made this an especially difficult period for the NFFC, which had to respond to frequent and often sudden shifts in government policy.

The new decade had in fact started on an auspicious note for the NFFC. The Films Act of 1970 extended the corporation's lending powers until the end of 1980 and, moreover, made provision for a further advance of £5 million from the public purse to be provided in instalments over the ten-year period.