"Actor: Barbara Bates"

• Ultimate Hammer Box Set | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £87.09   |  Saving you £62.90 (72.22%)   |  RRP £149.99

  20 of the greatest British films ever produced by the world renowned Hammer film studio! Includes: 1. Blood From The Mummy's Tomb (Dir. Seth Holt 1971) 2. Demons Of The Mind (Dir. Peter Sykes 1972) 3. The Devil Rides Out (Dir. Terence Fisher 1968) 4. Viking Queen (Dir. Don Chaffey 1967) 5. Dracula Prince Of Darkness (Dir. Terence Fisher 1966) 6. Fear In The Night (Dir. Jimmy Sangster 1972) 7. Frankenstein Created Women (Dir. Terence Fisher 1967) 8. The Horror Of Frankenstein (Dir. Jimmy Sangster 1970) 9. The Nanny (Dir. Seth Holt 1965) 10. One Million Years BC (Dir. Don Chaffey 1966) 11. Plague Of The Zombies (Dir. John Gilling 1966) 12. Quatermass And The Pit (Dir. Roy Ward Baker 1967) 13. Rasputin The Mad Monk (Dir. Don Sharp 1966) 14. The Reptile (Dir. John Gilling 1966) 15. The Scars of Dracula (Dir. Roy Ward Baker 1970) 16. SHE (Dir. Robert Day 1965) 17. Slave Girls (Dir. Michael Carreras 1967) 18. To The Devil A Daughter (Dir. Peter Sykes 1967) 19. The Vengeance Of SHE (Dir. Cliff Owen 1968) 20. The Witches (Dir. Cyril Frankel 1966)

• All About Eve (1950) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (23/08/2021) from £25.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In this devastatingly witty Hollywood classic from JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ (Cleopatra), backstage is where the real drama plays out. One night, Margo Channing (Now, Voyager's BETTE DAVIS) entertains a surprise dressing-room visitor: her most adoring fan, the shy, wide-eyed Eve Harrington (The Magnificent Ambersons' ANNE BAXTER). But as Eve becomes a fixture in Margo's life, the Broadway legend soon realizes that her supposed admirer intends to use her and everyone in her circle, including an acid-tongued critic played by GEORGE SANDERS (Rebecca), as stepping-stones to stardom. Featuring stilettosharp dialogue and direction by Mankiewicz, and an unforgettable Davis in the role that revived her career and came to define it, the multiple-Oscar-winning All About Eve is the most deliciously entertaining film ever made about the ruthlessness of show business. Special Features: 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Two audio commentaries from 2010, one featuring actor Celeste Holm, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's son Christopher Mankiewicz, and author Kenneth L. Geist; the other featuring author Sam Staggs All About Mankiewicz, a feature-length documentary from 1983 about the director Episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1969 and 1980 featuring actors Bette Davis and Gary Merrill New interview with costume historian Larry McQueen Hollywood Backstories: All About Eve, a 2001 documentary featuring interviews with Davis and others about the making of the film Documentaries from 2010 about Mankiewicz's life and career, the short story on which the film is based and its real-world inspiration, and a real-life Sarah Siddons Society based on the film's fictional society Radio adaptation of the film from 1951 Trailer PLUS: An essay by critic Terrence Rafferty and the 1946 short story on which the film is based

• 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

• Lust For A Vampire | Blu Ray | (12/08/2019) from £15.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Through the unholy rites of black magic, the notorious female vampire Carmilla Karnstein is reincarnated as a luscious young debutante (stunning Swedish starlet Yutte Stensgaard). But when the depraved seductress is enrolled at an exclusive girls' school, she begins to inflame the desires of her fellow students as well as her weak-willed teacher (Ralph Bates). Can these perverse hungers be quenched by the mere taste of blood or will an entire village be unwittingly consumed by their LUST FOR A VAMPIRE? Directed by Jimmy Sangster (THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS)

• Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens Classics | DVD | (22/08/2017) from £22.48   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The acclaimed BBC adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, Barnaby Rudge (1960) is now available to own on DVD for the first time. Starring John Wood (War Games) , Barbara Hicks (Brazil), Timothy Bateson (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and BAFTA-nominee Joan Hickson. On a stormy night in 1775 a ragged stranger (Nigel Arkwright) wanders into the Maypole Inn. Edward Chester (Bernard Brown), whose horse is lame, leaves the inn on foot to meet his beloved Emma Haredale (Eira Heath) at a masked ball. Joe Willet (Alan Hayward), quarrels with his father, Maypole landlord John (Arthur Brough), and joins the army, only saying goodbye to Dolly (Jennifer Daniel), the pretty daughter of locksmith Gabriel Varden (Newton Blick). Varden s household includes his formidable wife (Joan Hickson) and dithering maid Miss Miggs (Barbara Hicks). Simple-minded Barnaby Rudge (John Wood) wanders in and out of the story, chattering with his pet raven Grip. Barnaby s mother Mary (Isabel Dean) is visited by the stranger, and feels compelled to protect him. As the stories interweave, Barnaby is caught up in the Gordon Riots, a violent demonstration against Catholics. Jailed with the ringleaders, will he hang for their actions? Michael Voyseys 1960 BBC adaptation remains the only TV portrayal of Dickens tantalizing gothic drama.

• Town on Trial (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (29/05/2023) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Investigating the murder of a young woman in a small English town, a brusque Superintendent (John Mills - Hobson's Choice, Ice Cold in Alex, Young Winston) discovers that virtually everybody he encounters has something to hide. Setting the template for British crime thrillers for decades to come, director John Guillermin's audacious, often salacious, drama is untypical of mainstream British cinema of its time, and can be seen as both a direct antecedent of the Italian giallo and a blueprint for David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Town on Trial is a rare treat which is ripe for rediscovery. Product Features High Definition remaster Original mono audio The John Player Lecture with John Mills (1972, 96 mins): archival audio recording of an interview conducted by Margaret Hinxman at London's National Film Theatre Barry Forshaw on 'Town on Trial' (2018, 20 mins): appreciation by the author of British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order and Brit Noir Adventure in the Hopfields (1954, 59 mins): director John Guillermin's Children's Film Foundation drama starring Mandy Miller (The Snorkel) Shooting Hops (2018, 7 mins): focus puller Alec Burridge discusses working with John Guillermin and the production of Adventure in the Hopfields Original theatrical trailer Image gallery: original promotional material New English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• All About Eve | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £5.38   |  Saving you £7.61 (141.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's all about women.... and their men! From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door Eve Horrington (Anne Baxter) moves relentlessly towards her goal: taking the reins of power from the great actress Margo Channing (Bette Davies). The cunning Eve manoeuvres her way into Margo's Broadway role becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend (Gary Merrill) her playwright (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Celeste Holm). Only the cyni

• The Inspector General | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £6.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Arrested for vagrancy in a strange town Georgi is then mistaken by the corrupt town officials as a passing Inspector General. Worried that he will reveal they have been pocketing tax money they make a series of attempts on his life....

• The Inspector General | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £12.96   |  Saving you £-7.97 (-159.70%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In this delightful period farce set in Russia in the 1800's Danny Kaye plays and illiterate buffoon who is mistaken by the villagers for their feared Inspector General. Hilarious situations ensue as Danny is caught up in court intrigue without having a clue of what is going on.

• All About Eve | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that movies should be more than just picture postcards of people talking. Sometimes, though, dialogue is all that's needed. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's immaculately scripted All About Eve is a case in point. There are no special effects (unless one considers Marilyn Monroe's wiggle or a scene in which a car breaks down). What the movie offers instead is some of the most coruscating one-liners ever committed to celluloid. The top-name cast certainly know how to put Mankiewicz's words across. Anne Baxter is all doe-eyed charm as Eve, the ruthless aspiring actress who passes herself off as a little girl lost. George Sanders (eminent character actor and the voice of Shere Khan the tiger in The Jungle Book) shows his customary mellowness of sneer as Addison De Witt, theatre critic and professional cynic ("a venomous foot louse" as he's characterised) who helps push Eve up the greasy pole toward success, if not happiness. Best of all is Bette Davis, a soured but still resplendent stage diva, who takes Eve under her wing. ("I'll admit I've seen better days but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail--like a salted peanut", she tells her lover.) The plotting and double-dealing on the screen, described in Sam Staggs' All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made, were matched by what went on behind the scenes. Davis heartily loathed fellow actress Celeste Holm who--ironically enough--plays her best friend. She fell in love with another co-star, the handsome, good-looking Gary Merrill, whom she later married. Backstage dramas are often self-indulgent and stagy affairs, but this one dazzles. --Geoffrey Macnab

• 3 Classic Mickey Rooney Films Of The Silver Screen - Quicksand / My Outlaw Brother / Mickey The Great | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Fans of the evergreen Mickey Rooney need look no further! This compilation features three relatively obscure films fronted by ""the Mickster""! Quicksand (Dir. Irving Pichel 1950): Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) is a skirt-chasing auto mechanic who meets brassy blond temptress Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney - James Cagney's sister) and falls all over himself trying to please her which includes lying cheating and stealing. The problem is Nick Dramoshag (Peter Lorre) the owner of a seedy San Francisco carnival has the hots for her too! Dan's girlfriend Helen Calder (Barbara Bates) watches helplessly as Dan slides deeper and deeper into a quagmire of deception and desire. My Outlaw Brother (Dir. Elliott Nugent 1951): Mickey Rooney stars as a New York city slicker who goes out west to find the big brother he so looks up to. On his journey he hooks up with a lawman intent on bagging a big time criminal. Little do they know that they're after the same man! Mickey The Great (Dir. Jesse Duffy 1937): An anthology of Mickey McGuire (Mickey Rooney) comedies.

• Let's Make It Legal | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The nearly-final divorce of the Halsworths suddenly gets complicated when Miriam's old flame comes to town...

• Quicksand | DVD | (18/02/2013) from £8.48   |  Saving you £-1.49 (-21.30%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Mickey Rooney in Quicksand Drama DVD NEW

• Comedy Greats | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A "two-plus-one" package from Siren, Comedy Greats features classics from the two greatest silent-screen comics, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, plus a rather dreary effort from Danny Kaye. Never the most scintillating of comedians, Kaye's personable talents are thinly spread in 1949's The Inspector General. Distantly(!) based on a short story by Russian satirist Nikolay Gogol, this tale of mistaken identity enables Kaye to indulge in obvious wisecracks and not-so-smart dialogue. Sylvia Fine's songs are mildly amusing, and Henry Koster draws capable support from Walter Slezak and Elsa Lanchester, but it's a long haul. When he made Tilli's Punctured Romance in 1914, Charles Chaplin had yet to perfect the "little man" routine which made him the most popular 1920s screen star. His loveable rogue is well displayed opposite Marie Dressler's formidable country maid, whose unexpected windfall becomes the real object of his desire. Mabel Normand contributes an attractively period chic, and if, in the hands of Mack Sennett, the humour tends to fall back on music-hall slapstick, the historical significance of the film is undoubted. Yet it's Buster Keaton's 1928 classic Steamboat Bill Jr which comes out on top here. Keaton is perfectly cast as the put upon student, whose bravery saves both his father and his steamboat-owning rival, and wins the hand of the latter's daughter. Solid support comes from Ernest Torrence and the winsome Marion Byron, with Charles Riesner getting maximum drama from the cyclone sequence, but it's Keaton's soulful expression and breathtaking stuntwork which are the most potent reminders of a talent only later to receive its due. On the DVD: Comedy Greats is acceptably remastered, with 1.33:1 aspect ratio and 12 chapter headings per film, and decently packaged, this is worth acquiring--even though Keaton's film is the only one you're likely return to often. --Richard Whitehouse

• The Inspector General | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £9.35   |  Saving you £7.64 (81.71%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In this delightful period farce set in Russia in the 1800's Danny Kaye plays and illiterate buffoon who is mistaken by the villagers for their feared Inspector General. Hilarious situations ensue as Danny is caught up in court intrigue without having a clue of what is going on.

• Quicksand | DVD | (11/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Mechanic Dan Brady borrows out of his firm's till in order to take waitress Vera Novak out on a date intending to replace it on payday. When the accountant turns up earlier than expected Dan soon finds himself 0 out of pocket. Thereafter whenever he attempts to make good things just go from bad to worse.

• Quicksand | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £10.78   |  Saving you £-2.79 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Quicksand

• Ultimate Studio Classics Collection (Pack of 70 DVDS - Exclusive to Amazon.co.uk) | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £450.99

• All About Eve | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  It's all about women... and their men! From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door Eve Horrington (Anne Baxter) moves relentlessly towards her goal: taking the reins of power from the great actress Margo Channing (Bette Davies). The cunning Eve manoeuvres her way into Margo's Broadway role becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend (Gary Merrill) her playwright (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Celeste Holm). Only the cynic