"Actor: Alec"

• Charles Dickens Box Set (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist & A Tale Of Two Cities) | DVD | (06/02/2012) from £9.74   |  Saving you £3.25 (33.37%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In Celebration of Charles Dickens' Bi-Centenary, this box set brings together some of the finest ever adaptations of his classic novels: Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale Of Two Cities Great Expectations:David Lean's adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphan boy, Pip, who aspires to be a gentleman, won Oscars(r) for Best Art Direction and Cinematography and was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing. Great Expectations stars John Mills as Pip, Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham, Jean Simmons, Finlay Currie and Alec Guinness. Oliver Twist:David Lean's lavish adaptation of Oliver Twist, one of Charles Dickens enduringly popular tales, fully restored. Alec Guinness provides a masterly performance as arch villain Fagin. Also stars Anthony Newley, John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Kay Walsh and Diana Dors.A Tale Of Two Cities:Highly Acclaimed and digitally remastered adaptation of Charles Dickens' powerful story of love and redemption during the French Revolution, starring Dirk Bogarde as Sidney Carton, a disillusioned lawyer, whose world is turned upside down when events in France encroach on his decadent London life. Dorothy Tutin stars as Lucie Manette.

• Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - The Movie | DVD | (15/11/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Competing with the time-tested, 1964 original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with the abominable snowman, the misfit toys, the lovably clunky motion, and Burl Ives as narrator, is no easy task. So this feature-length, animated musical skirts a straight squaring-off of versions. The storyline is a bit more complex, with the abominable snowman's antagonist role played by the Whoopi Goldberg-voiced Ice Queen, Stormella, and Rudolph's running buddies depicted as a polar bear (excellently voiced by Bob Newhart) and, not surprisingly, a cutesy doe, Zoey. The animation is first-rate and completely convincing, making this new Rudolph ideal for the discriminating 3- to 7-year-old viewer. Stormella looks for all the world like a hybrid of King Triton and Ursula, the Sea Witch from Disney's The Little Mermaid. As for the story, none of it is either heavyhanded on the good vs. evil front for the younger set, or so sappy that it's intolerable for adults. As with so many animated features this decade, the presence of seasoned actors with experience in comedy makes for dialogue that's entertainingly nuanced. Since there are moments of tension and conflict, the comic relief is important and unmistakable, even for younger viewers. The themes are the same as the original, and the ultimate embrace by Santa (done well by John Goodman) of Rudolph's difference still packs a good lesson. --Andrew Bartlett

• Smiley's People | Blu Ray | (09/11/2020) from £14.91   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  WINNER OF FOUR BAFTAS, INCLUDING BEST ACTOR AND BEST ACTRESS. FULL RESTORATION FROM ORIGINAL FILM TO BLU-RAY FOR THE FIRST TIME. Smiley and Karla in the final confrontation. The acclaimed BBC production of John Le Carré's espionage classic. The bespectacled spymaster is once more called from retirement to come to the aid of ˜the Circus' - and he returns with a vengeance. The murder of an émigré Soviet General, who was also a British agent, sends him digging into the past on a twisted trail across Europe that moves, inexorably, towards a final showdown with his old adversary, Karla of Moscow Centre. Special Features: Includes Collectors' Booklet with production notes. Interview footage with John Le Carré and John Irvin Restoration Featurette Original transmission 20th September 1982 to 25th October 1982.

• Blue Jasmine | DVD | (17/02/2014) from £6.39   |  Saving you £13.60 (212.83%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Woody Allen's new drama BLUE JASMINE is the story of the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife.

• Lawrence of Arabia - Two Disc Set | DVD | (09/04/2001) from £4.87   |  Saving you £20.12 (413.14%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In 1962 Lawrence of Arabia scooped another seven Oscars for David Lean and crew after his previous epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, had performed exactly the same feat a few years earlier. Supported in this Great War desert adventure by a superb cast including Alex Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole gives a complex, star-making performance as the enigmatic TE Lawrence. The magnificent action and vast desert panoramas were captured in luminous 70mm by Cinematographer Freddie Young, here beginning a partnership with Lean that continued through Dr Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970). Yet what made the film truly outstanding was Robert (A Man For All Seasons) Bolt's literate screenplay, marking the beginning of yet another ongoing collaboration with Lean. The final partnership established was between director and French composer Maurice Jarre, who won one of the Oscars and scored all Lean's remaining films, up to and including A Passage to India in 1984. Fully restored in 1989, this complete version of Lean's masterpiece remains one of cinema's all-time classic visions. --Gary S Dalkin On the DVD: This vast movie is spread leisurely across two discs, with Maurice Jarre's overture standing in as intermission music for the first track of disc two. But the clarity of the anamorphic widescreen picture and Dolby 5.1 soundtrack justify the decision not to cram the whole thing onto one side of a disc. The movie has never looked nor sounded better than here: the desert landscapes are incredibly detailed, with the tiny nomadic figures in the far distance clearly visible on the small screen; the remastered soundtrack, too, is a joy. Thanks are due to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg who supervised (and financed) the restoration of the picture in 1989; on disc two Spielberg chats about why David Lean is his favourite director, and why Lawrence had such a profound influence on him both as a child and as a filmmaker (he regularly re-watches the movie before starting any new project). Other features include an excellent and exhaustive "making-of" documentary with contributions from surviving cast and crew (an avuncular Omar Sharif is particularly entertaining as he reminisces about meeting the hawk-like Lean for the first time), some contemporary featurettes designed to promote the movie and a DVD-ROM facility. The extra features are good--especially the documentary--but the breathtaking quality of both anamorphic picture and digital sound are what make this DVD package a triumph. --Mark Walker

• It's Complicated | DVD | (10/05/2010) from £3.80   |  Saving you £16.19 (426.05%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Writer/director Nancy Meyers ("What Women Want", "Something's Gotta Give", "The Holiday") directs Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in "It's Complicated", a comedy about love, divorce and everything in between.

• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | Blu Ray | (02/09/2019) from £12.70   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The classic BBC drama series is available on Blu-ray and in true HD for the very first time. In BAFTA-winner Sir Alec Guinness's first major TV role he plays George Smiley, a retired agent who is secretly brought into ˜the Circus' (the code name for British Secret Intelligence Service) to root out a top-level mole. Gradually piecing together the story, the weary but determined Smiley trawls through the murky waters of Cold War espionage and his own past. Extras: The Secret Centre

• Walking with Cavemen | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £24.74   |  Saving you £-6.75 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Breaking the mould of previous "Walking with" offerings, the BBC's Walking with Cavemen sees Professor Robert Winston follow in the footsteps of ancient man in a series that traces the history of humanity from bipedal ape-men (Australopithecus Aphaeresis) to the awakening of the human mind's potential with Homo Erectus. Spread over four fascinating half-hour instalments, Wilson presents an accessible and populist, but still suitably anthropological study on how apes became human and the traits that we inherited from our earliest ancestors. Unlike Dinosaurs and Beasts, Cavemen combines CGI with actors to portray the characters in the story of man. Initially this seems to make it far less technically impressive than the earlier programmes--memories of Kubrick's 2001 are inevitable--but fortunately the acting is superb and the viewer soon forgets that these are people in monkey suits. The series also makes use of a special effect called "deep time-lapse", which shows in a matter of dramatic seconds the thousands of years of geological changes that sped up our ancestors' evolution. Wilson himself takes part in the action as if he is a modern-day naturalist following lions across the Serengeti rather than creatures long extinct. This approach makes for a more immediate as well as poignant interpretation of history: the result is an enlightening and moving tribute to the human journey. On the DVD: Walking with Cavemen on disc has production interviews with series producer Peter Georgi, executive producer and director Richard Dale, director of animated extras Ben Palmer and actor David Rubin. There are also location interviews, the best of which is two of the actors in full costume explaining the difficulties involved in eating lunch. There are sequences explaining the creation of the digital effects, and the original score can be accessed as an audio-only option. A fact file for each episode and a picture gallery complete the extras package. --Kristen Bowditch

• Sherlock Holmes And The House Of Fear | DVD | (26/05/2008) from £8.85   |  Saving you £-2.86 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sherlock Holmes ever abetted by the trusty Watson investigates a series of deaths at a castle with each foretold by the delivery of orange pips to the victims...

• Ammonite | Blu Ray | (14/06/2021) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  1840s England. Acclaimed but overlooked fossil hunter Mary Anning and a young woman sent to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever. Extras: The Costumes of Ammonite The Making of Ammonite

• 30 Rock: Seasons 1-4 | DVD | (25/10/2010) from £7.73   |  Saving you £0.88 (11.38%)   |  RRP £8.61

  30 Rock: Seasons 1 - 4 (12 Discs)

• Motherless Brooklyn | DVD | (13/04/2020) from £7.19   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set against the backdrop of 1950s New York, Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely-guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York's power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honour his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.

• The Rag Nymph | DVD | (29/10/2008) from £7.60   |  Saving you £-2.61 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Ten year old Millie is taken in by 'Raggie Aggie' after her mother dies in a Newcastle brothel. Aggie soon has to hide Millie in a convent after the brothel owner turns his attentions to Millie. Years later and a beautiful young woman she returns to her Aunt but after a desolate relationship she is abducted into the same brothel in which her mother died...

• Hancock's Half Hour - Vol. 3 | DVD | (24/04/2006) from £6.03   |  Saving you £6.96 (115.42%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The mercurially talented comedian Tony Hancock returns to DVD with more from his epoch-making comedy series Hancock's Half Hour. Containing all 10 episodes from the fifth series originally broadcast in 1959.

• David Lean Collection | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A collection of classic films from famed British director David Lean. Bridge On The River Kwai (1957): When British P.O.W.s build a vital railway bridge in enemy occupied Burma Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure The Bridge on the River Kwai. Spectacularly produced The Bridge on the River Kwai captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards including Best Picture Be

• Downsizing | Blu Ray | (28/05/2018) from £5.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in order to get small and move to a new downsized community a choice that triggers life-changing adventures.

• Frank Herbert's Dune--TV series | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Frank Herbert's Dune is a three-part, four-and-a-half-hour television adaptation of the author's bestselling science fiction novel, telling a more complete version of the Dune saga than David Lynch's 1984 cinema film. The novel is a massive political space-opera so filled with characters, cultures, intrigues and battles that even a production twice this length would have trouble fitting everything in. While television is good at setting a scene, it loses the novel's capacity to explain how the future works, and as with Lynch's film, Frank Herbert's Dune focuses on Paul Atreides, the young noble betrayed who becomes a rebel leader--an archetypal story reworked everywhere from Star Wars (1977) to Gladiator (2000). Top-billed William Hurt is only in the first of the three 90-minute episodes, and while he gives a commanding performance, carrying the show falls to the less charismatic Alec Newman. This version is at its strongest in the ravishing Renaissance-inspired production and costume design and gorgeous lighting of Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor). The TV budget special effects range from awful painted backdrops to excellent CGI spaceships and sandworms. The performances are variable, from the theatrical camp of Ian McNeice as Baron Harkonnen to the subtlety of Julie Cox's Princess Iruelan. John Harrison's direction is less visionary than Lynch's, but he tells the story more coherently and ultimately the tale's the thing. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Monsignor Quixote | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The story of a friendship between a Catholic priest and a Communist Mayor. Together they travel from their remote village to Madrid and back exploring their friendship the demands of belief and constancy of faith. This lavish production filmed entirely on location captures the wit warmth and vitality that make the original novel by Graham Greene a unique work of literature.

• The Good Shepherd | DVD | (05/07/2010) from £5.27   |  Saving you £14.72 (279.32%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life.

• The Boss Baby | Blu Ray | (31/07/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  DreamWorks Animation and the director of Madagascar invite you to meet a most unusual baby. He wears a suit, speaks with the voice and wit of Alec Baldwin, and stars in the animated comedy, DreamWorks' The Boss Baby. The Boss Baby is a hilariously universal story about how a new baby's arrival impacts a family, told from the point of view of a delightfully unreliable narrator, a wildly imaginative 7 year old named Tim. With a sly, heart-filled message about the importance of family, DreamWorks˜ The Boss Baby is an authentic and broadly appealing original comedy for all ages.