"Actor: Alun Owen"

• Every Day Except Christmas DVD | DVD | (13/04/2009) from £7.29   |  Saving you £8.70 (119.34%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Lindsay Anderson directs this 1950s Free Cinema documentary about working class life in London focusing on a day in the life of workers at the Covent Garden fruit and flower market. The film was made as part of the three-part 'Look at Britain' series which also includes 'We are the Lambeth Boys' and 'The Saturday Men'.

• The Servant | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £12.00   |  Saving you £1.99 (16.58%)   |  RRP £13.99

  For anyone interested in voyeurism, role playing, class envy and sexual humiliation, The Servant is an essential buy. Directed by Joseph Losey, scripted by Harold Pinter, it probes away remorselessly at areas other British film-makers would not go near. Dirk Bogarde, the golden boy of 50s British cinema, is transformed into a scheming, unctuous butler, Barrett. Hired by dapper young toff Tony (James Fox), he proceeds gradually to take over his master's life. In one scene, he seduces Tony's fiancée (Wendy Craig). Tony is soon slavering over the voluptuous but vaguely sinister Vera (Sarah Miles), whom he has been told is his butler's sister (in fact, she's Barrett's mistress). Gradually, the lines between master and servant are blurred. Tony becomes beholden to his butler's every whim.Nobody does queasy quite as well as Losey. The American-born director relishes the chance to disrupt the smooth workings of what seems a typical upper-class household. Compared to the bland comedies made at Pinewood in the late 50s, The Servant couldn't help but seem groundbreaking. Thanks to his performance, Bogarde, who'd starred in so many of those comedies, was at last taken seriously as more than a matinee idol. The critics adored the film, which was first released at around the time of the Profumo crisis. "Even if I make 10 better pictures in my lifetime", Losey observed, "I don't suppose one could expect to have such unanimous appreciation and approval again". --Geoffrey Macnab