"Actor: Alan Young"

• Battle Of The Planets - Vol. 2 | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  G-Force Princess Tiny Keyop Mark Jason and watching over them from Centre Neptune their computerised co-ordinator 7-Zark-7! Watching warning against surprise attacks by alien galaxies beyond space! Fearless young orphans protecting earth''s entire galaxy. Always five acting as one... Dedicated Inseparable Invincible!

• A Soldier's Story | DVD | (17/08/2009) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (-66.60%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Charles Fuller adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play for the big screen in 1984. The film version, A Soldier's Story is essentially a murder mystery, played out against a background of inter and intra-racial conflict at a Second World War training camp. To the consternation of his white opposite number at the camp, a black captain (Howard W Rollins) arrives to investigate the death of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar). Suspicion immediately falls on a pair of bigoted white officers but as the tale unfolds in a series of flashbacks, it soon becomes clear that a different kind of prejudice is also at work. Assisted by some excellent performances, director Norman Jewison opens the story out from its stage roots. There's a wonderful baseball scene (filmed on location at Little Rock) in which the double standards of Dennis Lipscomb's fidgety white captain are exposed with neat irony; he'll cheer his successful black team all the way home in the name of sport. His gradual, forced liberalisation provides the film with an important comic element. A Soldier's Story wears its heart on its sleeve without being superficial in any way. It's a compelling tale, well told and often highly entertaining, in which nobody gets off lightly, least of all the good guy. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation helps give an epic feel to what could, in other hands, have been a claustrophobic production. The picture quality is fine. But the monaural sound track is often rather muffled, leaving you straining to catch some of the dialogue. This is also a shame because the blues music--an inspired job by Herbie Hancock, assisted by Patti Labelle singing her lungs out as bar owner Big Mary--is an important element of the film's underlying theme and deserves to be better heard. The extras are valuable. Norman Jewison's commentary is detailed and sensitive. As he says, the film deals with "ideas in racism never seen on screen before", and he acknowledges the strength of his actors in getting those ideas across. "March to Freedom" is an excellent short documentary which features the moving testimonies of black servicemen on the insufferable prejudices they encountered while attempting to defend their country during the Second World War; A Soldier's Story is thus put sharply into context. --Piers Ford

• Black Beauty / Huckleberry Finn | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £22.96   |  Saving you £-13.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  One of the most beloved children's stories of all time. All of the warmth and pathos of Anna Sewell's classic novel is captured in this touching animated feature. Also contains the classic tale of Huckleberry Finn in a cartoon classic's double feature.

• The Time Machine (Deluxe Box) | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  In 1960 producer-director George Pal's The Time Machine reshaped HG Wells' thoughtful, ironic novel into a two-fisted action movie, but one that still appeals to children and adults immensely and deserves its classic status. Wells' themes of biological and social evolution are played down, but there is a surprisingly melancholy thread as Rod Taylor's Time Traveller keeps stopping off at future wars to find that human stupidity still persists. In the first week of 1900 a group of fussy Victorians gather in Taylor's chintzy, overstuffed parlour to hear him tell of his expedition to the future, where the world is divided between the surface-dwelling, childish, beautiful Eloi and the hideous, underground, cannibal Morlocks. Wells intended both factions to seem degenerate, the logical final evolution of the class system, but Pal has Taylor pull a Captain Kirk and side with the Eloi and teach them to fight against their oppressors. The time travel sequence remains a tour de force, with a shop window mannequin demonstrating a parade of fashions as the years fly by in seconds and charming but still-effective stop-motion effects. The future is a wonderfully coloured landscape with properly gruesome cave-dwelling monsters and a winning Eloi heroine in Yvette Mimieux. It may not be totally Wells, but it's a treat. On the DVD: The Time Machine arrives on disc in a lovely widescreen print which makes the film seem new all over again. The featurette "Time Machine: The Journey Back" combines some mild behind-the-scenes stuff about the film (and its star prop) with a moving mini-sequel reuniting stars Rod Taylor and Alan Young in a scene that actually addresses a plot point skipped over in the original. --Kim Newman

• Battle Of The Planets - Vol. 2 - Rescue Of The Astronauts | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

• Battle Of The Planets - Vol. 3 - The Jupiter Moon Menace | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99