In the first half of the decade Gielgud made seven films and six television dramas. Morley describes his choice as indiscriminate, but singles out for praise his performances in 1974 as the Old Cardinal in Joseph Losey's "Galileo" and the manservant Beddoes in Sidney Lumet's "Murder on the Orient Express". In a 1971 BBC presentation of James Elroy Flecker's "Hassan", Gielgud played the Caliph to Richardson's Hassan. The critic of "The Illustrated London News" said that viewers would "shiver at a towering performance by Gielgud, as a Caliph with all the purring beauty and ruthlessness of a great golden leopard". In the theatre Gielgud directed Coward's "Private Lives" and Somerset Maugham's "The Constant Wife" (both 1973, London and 1974, New York). His final production as a director was Pinero's "The Gay Lord Quex" (1975).