"Actor: Anna Massey"

• The Importance Of Being Earnest | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Rupert Everett and Colin Firth star in this adaptation of the classic Oscar Wilde play as two men in 1890s London who happily bend the truth in order to escape the dullness of their lives.

• Mayor Of Casterbridge | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £19.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (1.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Thomas Hardy's powerful tale of a rich and respectable man who drunkenly auctions his wife and child at a West Country fair. The remorse of the Mayor of Casterbridge finally destroys him. The script was penned by Dennis Potter.

• Peeping Tom (Vintage Classics) | Blu Ray | (29/01/2024) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A piercing new 4K restoration of Michael Powell's iconic serial killer classic Peeping Tom, restored by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive. An influential cinematic masterpiece written by Leo Marks (Twisted Nerve) and starring Carl Boehm (Sissi), Anna Massey (Frenzy), Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes) and Maxine Audley (A King in New York). Now regarded as a ground-breaking masterpiece of the British horror movement, on its initial release in 1960, Peeping Tom received a savage reception from critics who were dismayed by its controversial subject matter and the sympathy it seems to engender for its murderous protagonist. The second film from visionary director Michael Powell, following his run of 1940s and 50s classics collaborating with screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, Peeping Tom left Powell's career in tatters and the film was made unavailable for many years. Peeping Tom has since become recognized as a watershed in genre cinema, its themes of voyeurism and psychopathy proving hugely influential on the evolution of the slasher movie. Mark (Carl Boehm), a focus puller at the local film studio, supplements his wages by taking glamour photographs in a seedy studio above a newsagent. By night he is a sadistic killer, stalking his victims with his camera forever in his hand trying to capture the look of genuine, unadulterated fear - an obsession that stems from his disturbing and terrifying childhood at the hands of his scientist father. Mark slowly becomes enamoured with Helen (Anna Massey), who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the flat downstairs, but how long before he turns the deadly gaze of his camera towards her?

• The Anthony Trollope Collection | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £15.95   |  Saving you £0.05 (0.31%)   |  RRP £16.00

  This collection features three of Anthony Trollope's highly regarded works brilliantly adapted for the small screen. With over 15 hours of timeless film from one of the nineteenth-century's greatest writers visit the fascinating world of Victorian England as the prolific and respected novelist illustrates the penetrating conflicts of the day. He Knew He Was Right: Louis Trevelyan's refusal to believe in his wife Emily's fidelity destroys a perfect marriage and drives him literally insane. Suspicious beyond reason that she is having an affair with Colonel Osbourne a man of dubious reputation he forces his wife out of their house hires the seedy private detective Bozzle to spy on her and organises the kidnapping of their son with devastating consequences. Throughout Emily's protestation of her innocence and the couple's enduring love for each other despite their estrangement render the story moving and tragic. The Way We Live Now: Set in the railway boom of the 1870s Anthony Trollope's epic tale of Victorian power and corruption captures the turmoil as the old order is swept aside by the brash new forces of business and finance. It is packed with the trials and tribulations of young love the enduring values of honourable men the raw energy of one of the most powerful cities in the world and the greed and corruption that lay below its glittering surface. The Barchester Chronicles: The acclaimed 1982 BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novels. The community of Barchester is shaken from its cosy complacency when a newspaper's crusade against the Church of England's practice of self-enrichment misfires. Overnight Rev. Harding (Donald Pleasence) becomes a pawn in a battle between his younger daughter's beau John Bold (David Gwillim) and his older daughter's husband. Little do they realise that the worst is yet to come until a regime change delivers Barchester into the hands of a most unholy trinity: the weak-willed Bishop Proudie (Clive Swift) the domineering Mrs. Proudie (Geraldine McEwan) and the insufferable Rev. Obadiah Slope (Alan Rickman).

• Mansfield Park (Repackaged) | DVD | (23/01/2012) from £6.85   |  Saving you £3.14 (45.84%)   |  RRP £9.99

  True virtue triumphs over superficiality in this distinguished BBC production of Jane Austen's celebrated novel Mansfield Park.Mansfield Park is the magnificent country residence of Sir Thomas Bertram and his family. It is here that their poor relation Fanny Price is brought up. Never allowed to forget her good fortune, Fanny is ignored by her cousins, with the exception of Edmund, who alone treats her with care and affection. But will she ever be able to win a valued place in the household and the heart of the man of her dreams?

• Another Country | DVD | (17/03/2008) from £5.38   |  Saving you £10.61 (197.21%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In a shabby apartment in Moscow an American journalist questions a retired spy about his betrayal of his native England and his subsequent defection to the USSR. The answers take them back to 1932 where in the closed atmosphere of a British boy's school young Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett) realizes that his attraction to his classmates is more than a passing phase. There in an environment permeated by desire and denial in the wake of a gay classmate's suicide Bennett falls desperately in love with a younger student James Harcourt (Cary Elwes) and is introduced to Marxism by Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) his most loyal friend.

• Peeping Tom (Vintage Classics) 4K UHD + BD | Blu Ray | (29/01/2024) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A piercing new 4K restoration of Michael Powell's iconic serial killer classic Peeping Tom, restored by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive. An influential cinematic masterpiece written by Leo Marks (Twisted Nerve) and starring Carl Boehm (Sissi), Anna Massey (Frenzy), Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes) and Maxine Audley (A King in New York). Now regarded as a ground-breaking masterpiece of the British horror movement, on its initial release in 1960, Peeping Tom received a savage reception from critics who were dismayed by its controversial subject matter and the sympathy it seems to engender for its murderous protagonist. The second film from visionary director Michael Powell, following his run of 1940s and 50s classics collaborating with screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, Peeping Tom left Powell's career in tatters and the film was made unavailable for many years. Peeping Tom has since become recognized as a watershed in genre cinema, its themes of voyeurism and psychopathy proving hugely influential on the evolution of the slasher movie. Mark (Carl Boehm), a focus puller at the local film studio, supplements his wages by taking glamour photographs in a seedy studio above a newsagent. By night he is a sadistic killer, stalking his victims with his camera forever in his hand trying to capture the look of genuine, unadulterated fear - an obsession that stems from his disturbing and terrifying childhood at the hands of his scientist father. Mark slowly becomes enamoured with Helen (Anna Massey), who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the flat downstairs, but how long before he turns the deadly gaze of his camera towards her?

• Hotel Du Lac | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £12.81   |  Saving you £3.18 (24.82%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Hotel du Lac is an impeccably produced BBC television adaptation of Anita Brookner's Booker Prize-winning novel. Middle-aged writer Edith Hope has fled London and romantic disappointment to find sanctuary at a luxury hotel on a Swiss Lake, but finding no escape from her loneliness must eventually face her past. Edith is played with compassion by Anna Massey, her intellect and wit acting as a defence against her own failings, and support comes from a superb cast including Denholm Elliott, Googie Withers, Julia McKenzie, Patricia Hodge, Irene Handl and Barry Foster. Brookner's apparently slight but multi-layered tale is skilfully crafted by writer Christopher Hampton, who has with such films as Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Quiet American (2002) become a master of literary adaptation. Giles Foster's direction focuses on bringing the best from his cast, rather than attempting any sort of cinematic sweep, and Carl Davis' eloquent theme music makes the introspection all the more touching. Ultimately, though, it is Anna Massey's insightful central performance which makes Hotel du Lac such a memorable slice of television. On the DVD: Hotel du Lac is presented in the original TV broadcast 4:3 ratio with a very poor, extremely grainy and soft picture. The sound is reasonable mono, clear and free from distortion though lacking in dynamic range. The only extra, though one well worth having, is a serious and highly informative commentary from Giles, Hampton and producer Sue Birtwistle. --Gary S Dalkin

• Frenzy | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  By the time Alfred Hitchcock's second-to-last picture came out in 1972, the censorship restrictions under which he had laboured during his long career had eased up. Now he could give full sway to his lurid fantasies, and that may explain why Frenzy is the director's most violent movie by far--outstripping even Psycho for sheer brutality. Adapted by playwright Anthony Shaffer, the story concerns a series of rape-murders committed by suave fruit-merchant Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), who gets his kicks from throttling women with a necktie. This being a Hitchcock thriller, suspicion naturally falls on the wrong man--ill-tempered publican Richard Blaney (Jon Finch). Enter Inspector Oxford from New Scotland Yard (Alex McCowan), who thrashes out the finer points of the case with his wife (Vivian Merchant), whose tireless enthusiasm for indigestible delicacies like quail with grapes supplies a classic running gag.Frenzy was the first film Hitchcock had shot entirely in his native Britain since Jamaica Inn (1939), and many contemporary critics used that fact to account for what seemed to them a glorious return to form after a string of Hollywood duds (Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz). Hitchcock specialists are often less wild about it, judging the detective plot mechanical and the oh-so-English tone insufferable. But at least three sequences rank among the most skin-crawling the maestro ever put on celluloid. There is an astonishing moment when the camera backs away from a room in which a murder is occurring, down the stairs, through the front door and then across the street to join the crowd milling indifferently on the pavement. There is also the killer's nerve-wracking attempt to retrieve his tiepin from a corpse stuffed into a sack of potatoes. Finally, there is one act of strangulation so prolonged and gruesome it verges on the pornographic. Was the veteran film-maker a rampant misogynist as feminist observers have frequently charged? Sit through this appalling scene if you dare and decide for yourself. --Peter Matthews

• The Chain | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £6.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Chain is linked by a series of moves. As one couple moves out of their current residence to live in posher quarters another moves in and so it goes all the way up to the lavish mansioned owned by self-made millionaire Leo McKern. The cycle starts all over again when McKern wishing to be closer to his roots returns to the working-class neighborhood whence he came. Each move is wryly commented upon by the team of professional movers headed by Warren Mitchell.

• Dead of Night (DVD) | DVD | (28/10/2013) from £18.75   |  Saving you £1.24 (6.61%)   |  RRP £19.99

  After years of unavailability the three surviving episodes from the legendary BBC horror anthology series Dead of Night finally come to DVD. Originally screened on BBC2 in 1972 and rarely seen since Dead of Night have been highly sought by fans of the BBC and British Horror for decades. In The Exorcism – perhaps the most terrifying of the episodes – four wealthy middle-class friends (Clive Swift Edward Petherbridge Anna Cropper and Sylvia Kay) gather for a Christmas dinner in a country cottage only to find that the past will not rest while they feast. In Return Flight the professionalism of an experienced and respected airline pilot (Peter Barkworth) is placed under scrutiny when he encounters the ghostly apparition of a WWII Lancaster bomber. In A Woman Sobbing a middle-class wife (Anna Massey – Peeping Tom) becomes increasingly paranoid when her nights are interrupted by the terrifying and unexplained sound of a female crying in one the rooms in her new house. Contents: First time on DVD for this rare and classic BBC TV horror series All three remaining episodes on one disc Fully illustrated booklet with original essays

• Bunny Lake Is Missing | DVD | (10/11/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) goes to pick up four year old Bunny at her new pre-school in London, she's told that no child by that name is enrolled there... Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) of Scotland Yard is assigned to the case. His suspects include Steven Lake (Keir Dullea) , the child's protective uncle; Horatio Wilson (Noel Coward), the Lake's decadent landlord; and Aida Ford (Martita Hunt), the school's eccentric ex-headmistress, but he soon learns that no one has actually seen the child and there is absolutely no proof that Bunny ever existed. Ann maintains the child's been kidnapped, but Newhouse begins to suspect that the hystarical young woman may just be insane. 'Bunny Lake Is Missing' is director Otto Preminger's controversial masterpiece of terror and suspense.

• Belonging | DVD | (26/07/2010) from £15.25   |  Saving you £-0.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  This high budget movie is based on the novel by Stevie Davies and written by Bafta award-winner Alan Plater whose previous television credits include A Very British Coup and The Last of the Blonde Bomb Shells. From Bafta award winner The Producers (The Politicians Wife Seeing Red) and directed by Christopher Menaul (Wall of Silence State of Mind) Belonging is a bittersweet drama set in the picturesque market town of Shrewsbury. At first glance it's just a domestic tale about marital breakdown but a closer inspection reveals a tender perceptive and at times deeply funny story. The range of rich and diverse characters and the closely observed trivia of family life are what transform this simple story into a glorious depiction of human endurance. Jess (Brenda Blethyn - Saving Grace Secrets And Lies) and Jacob Copplestone (Kevin Whately - Inspector Morse Auf Wiedersehein Pet Lewis The Children) have been happily married for twenty years and now live with Jacob's cantankerous and demanding mother May (Rosemary Harris - Spider-Man) his sweet and good natured aunt Brenda (Anna Massey - Pinochet In Suburbia) and his devout and elderly cousin Nathan (Peter Sallis - Last Of The Summer Wine Wallace & Grommitt). With selfless dedication Jess has given up her job as a librarian to care for the oldies. But when her husband disappears Jess's world starts to fall apart. She now has to question the entire basis on which her life has been built and come to terms with her new found freedom while contending with her exasperating relations.

• The Looking Glass War | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £15.44   |  Saving you £-2.45 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In exchange for political asylum Polish defector Leiser (Jones) agrees to return behind the Iron Curtain to confirm the suspicions of the British Security Chief that East Germany is building a rocket in violation of the disarmament pact. Once in East Berlin Leiser falls in love with a beautiful young girl and the couple decide to flee the espionage experts - both East and West - to start a new life together. But they soon find themselves pawns in the brutal game where the stakes are

• Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont | DVD | (07/07/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont is the story of an elderly lady (Joan Plowright) who is all but abandoned in a London retirement hotel by her family - so she strikes up a friendship with a young writer (Rupert Friend). Based on the best-selling book by Elizabeth Taylor.

• The Machinist | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £14.49   |  Saving you £1.50 (10.35%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Christian Bale headlines this dark drama about a tortured lathe operator who is blamed for an accident.

• He Knew He Was Right | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Louis Trevelyan's refusal to believe in his wife Emily's fidelity destroys a perfect marriage and drives him literally insane. Suspicious beyond reason that she is having an affair with Colonel Osbourne a man of dubious reputation he forces his wife out of their house hires the seedy private detective Bozzle to spy on her and organises the kidnapping of their son with devastating consequences. Throughout Emily's protestation of her innocence and the couple's enduring love for each other despite their estrangement render the story moving and tragic.

• Mansfield Park | DVD | (07/11/2005) from £10.92   |  Saving you £14.07 (128.85%)   |  RRP £24.99

  True virtue triumphs over superficiality in this distinguished BBC production of Jane Austen's celebrated novel Mansfield Park. Set in 18th century England Jane Austen's tale of virtue and vice tells of young impoverished Fanny Price who arrives at the elegant country estate of her uncle Sir Thomas Bertam. Snubbed by everyone except her cousin Edmund Fanny begins her long struggle for acceptance by her shallow relatives who believe wealth automatically means quality. When

• The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Volume 1 includes: 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit & Benjamin Bunny' 'The Tale of Flopsy Bunnies & Mrs. Tittlemouse' and 'The Tale of Tom Kitten and Jemima Puddleduck'.

• Dennis Potter | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £99.99

  This mammoth box set features eight works of Dennis Potter spread over eleven discs. The Singing Detective:Slowly recovering from a terrible skin disease in a busy National Health hospital cynical thriller writer Phillip Marlow continues to unravel the traumas of his wartime boyhood while working through the plot of his greatest detective story - with himself as a crooning '40s detective on the trail of murderous Nazi plotters. But what is real and what is imagined? As childh