"Actor: Barbara Br"

• Between Two Women | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It was a forbidden love but they could not deny Both a surebly observed re-creation of working class life in 1950's industrial Northern England and a deeply moving romance the award-winning Between Two Women assembles an all-star British cast including Barbara Marten Andrina Carroll and Paul Shane. Against the backdrop of a bleak Northern England town in the 1950s an unlikely love story unfolds. Between Two Women is the intelligent and moving

• Carry On Girls | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Carry On Girls was the last really successful instalment of the epic series of British film comedies. It's studded with gems of cameo performances and a tremendously innuendo-laden Talbot Rothwell script that is easily the equal of any of its predecessors. The setting, a beauty contest to raise the profile of the dismal resort Fircombe-on-Sea, is ripe for politically incorrect activity of the sort that could only be conducted by Sid James at the height of his lecherous powers. Enter Bernard Bresslaw in a corset, Wendy Richard as Ida Downs, Barbara Windsor as Miss Easy Rider and a host of other semi-clad lovelies and watch as the whole thing rises to a slapstick climax of frisky old colonels, bikinis, bosoms and itching powder. In the smaller roles, Joan Hickson (BBC television's Miss Marple) is hilarious as an elderly woman who believes she is a man-magnet and the always under-used Patsy Rowlands excels as the downtrodden mayor's wife, a worm who finally turns. But in many ways this is June Whitfield's film. As the terrifying reactionary councillor Mrs Prodworthy, with a butch lesbian sidekick, she plots the downfall of her male colleagues with classic lines. "Rosemary, get the candle", she orders as Patsy Rowlands requests initiation into the cause. Margaret Thatcher never sounded so ominous. On the DVD: Like most of the other DVD Carry On releases, this one is presented in 4:3 format with a mono soundtrack. All right, you don't really need anything more sophisticated to recreate the cosy ritual of Carry On watching in your living room. And the print is good and sharp. But apart from the usual scene index, the lack of extras reflects a disappointingly unimaginative approach to celebrating a genre of film comedy that, for all its low budget reputation, provided a showcase for the cream of a whole generation of British comic actors. They deserve better.--Piers Ford

• Coronation Street - 1978 | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £12.13   |  Saving you £0.86 (6.60%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Coronation Street was first broadcast in December of 1960 and since then has gone from strength to strength in establishing itself as the nation's favourite soap opera. With a more light hearted slant on the genre Coronation Street has always drawn viewers from across the generations and its longevity is tribute to it's across the board appeal. On this DVD we take a look back to 1978 and eight classic episodes from that year.

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (19/05/2008) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  In protest at the corruption and hypocrisy he sees all around him an unemployed man calling himself John Doe has written to the New Bulletin newspaper pledging to throw himself from the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve. Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the bulletin's readers and the wider American public. Its real author Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is rehired and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional John Doe... Meet John Doe is often held to be part of a thematic trilogy that includes Mister Deeds Goes To Town and Mister Smith Goes To Washington. It explores a recurring notion in Capra's work that of the universal everyman exploited by a corrupt and powerful establishment. The film's reflections on corporate control of both the media and of ordinary people's lives is still as resonant as ever.

• Offenbach: Des Contes D'Hoffmann | DVD | (25/04/2001) from £19.85   |  Saving you £6.40 (34.43%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Unfortunately the qualities that make Jacques Offenbach's operetta The Tales of Hoffmann an irresistible melodic profusion of wit, dash and unfailing high spirits are only in evidence in the playing of the Lyon Opera Orchestra under Kent Nagano: operetta, more than its serious cousin, continues to be fair game for the whims of producers and designers. In this case an excellent cast including Daniel Galvez-Vallejo as Hoffmann, Natalie Dessay as Olympia, Brigitte Balley as Nicklausse and Isabelle Vernet as Giulietta, as well as Gabriel Bacquier who sings three roles, are obliged to perform Offenbach's operetta in a lunatic asylum designed by Philippe Starck as a three-dimensional grey set, topped with barbed wire. The production by Louis Erlo adapts and cuts scenes to fit this concept, so the tavern scene where Hoffmann sings his celebrated number "The Legend of Kleinzack" disappears, as do the chorus who are banished to the wings. In this environment there's no room for charm or even a kind of mad-hatter behaviour. The cast are reduced to stereotypes and of necessity singularly unlovable ones. What a wasted opportunity. The sound is excellent as it is on two fillers: a short film of Penderecki conducting his choral work, The Seven Gates to Jerusalem from the Midem festival at Cannes and a trailer for a Lyon Opera House production of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust. --Adrian Edwards

• Airplane! | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £9.57   |  Saving you £6.42 (67.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Ted Striker: ""Surely you can't be serious?"" Dr. Rumack: ""I am serious... and don't call me Shirley."" Voted ""one of the ten funniest movies ever made"" by the American Film Institute Airplane! is a masterpiece of off-the-wall comedy. Featuring Robert Hays as an ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning; Julie Hagerty as his girlfriend/ stewardess/ co-pilot; and a cast of all-stars inclu

• The Stunt Man | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Vietnam veteran Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police when he stumbles onto the set of a war movie directed by megalomaniac Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole). But when the young fugitive is forced to replace a dead stunt man he falls in love with the movies leading lady (Barbara Hershey) while trying to avoid getting arrested or killed. Is Eli trying to capture Cameron's death on film? And what happens to a paranoid stunt man when illusion and reality change places?

• Lust For A Vampire | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Through the unholy rites of black magic the notorious female vampire Carmilla Karnstein is reincarnated as a luscious young debutant (Yutte Stensgaard). But when the depraved seductress is enrolled at an exclusive girl's school she begins to inflame the desires of her fellow students as wellias her weak-willed teacher (Ralph Bates). Can these perverse hungers be quenched by theimere taste of blood or will an entire village be unwittingly consumed by their lust for a vampire?

• Three Sovereigns For Sarah | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Early in the 1690's a wave of witchcraft hysteria hit the Massachusetts village of Salem. More than 400 people were accused of witchcraft by a group of children seemingly possessed by the devil. Twenty were executed or killed and many others were jailed and were still awaiting trial when the Governor had them released. Sarah Coyle (Vanessa Redgrave) was one who survived after years imprisoned. Her two sisters (Phyllis Thaxter and Kim Hunter) were hanged as witches. Ten years later

• Two Evil Eyes | Blu Ray | (24/08/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Puppet Master | DVD | (13/11/2000) from £10.01   |  Saving you £-4.02 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Five psychics hear rumours that the secret of life has been discovered by Andre Toulon a puppeteer and decide to investigate. What they find are five mutated puppets which have been specially designed to kill...

• The Virginian | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £6.00   |  Saving you £3.99 (66.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Joel McCrea stars a s a local ranch hand who risks losing his best friend and the woman he loves when forced into a showdown with ruthless cattle thieves. When Molly Wood a well-educated Easterner arrives in a small Wyoming town to be the new schoolmarm the Virginian and his best friend Steve are immediately attracted to her and vie for her affection. In hopes of making quick money and against the warnings from his friend Steve falls in with the corrupt Trampas' gang and is caug

• Cracker - To Be A Somebody | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £6.04   |  Saving you £6.95 (115.07%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Albie Kinsella (Robert Carlyle) is at his father's funeral. This death compounded by Albie's marriage breakdown triggers some kind of post traumatic stress disorder and when an Asian newsagent refuses him 4p credit something snaps and Albie murders him. Initially shocked by his actions Albie tries to justify this needless killing with a twisted logic a logic which threatens the whole community. Convinced that this murder bears all the hallmark of a racist attack the police centre their investigation around local fascist sympathisers. However when all leads prove fruitless and another psychologist's profile is undermined Fitz's expertise is required. Fitz has to unlock the force that drives Albie to commit murder a philosophy that has no reason and is potentially explosive.

• The Furies (Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (20/04/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• That Was Then, This Is Now | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Two friends grow up like brothers in the rough east side of Minneapolis but then there comes a time for tough life decisions as that friendship is gradually ripped apart. Friends Mark Jennings and Byron Douglas have lived like brothers growing up together in the rough neighbourhood of St Paul along with a bunch of easygoing friends. But then a budding romance between Byron and Kathy puts a strain on the friendship and when Charlie the bar owner is killed helping them in a fight against two revengeful pool players the rift widens. Byron spends more time with Kathy leaves the old life behind and takes on a regular job while Mark falls into a rollercoaster world of revenge-fuelled fights and drugs. The two boys must learn to not only come to terms with their past but also to decide on how to face the future.

• The Bostonians | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Vanessa Redgrave (in an Oscar-nominated performance) and Christopher Reeve are the stars of THE BOSTONIANS Merchant Ivory Productions' acclaimed 1984 screen adaptation of the Henry James classic which charts the struggle between two charismatic forces - feminist and a chauvinist - to gain control over the destiny of a spirited young woman.The story takes place in Boston in the aftermath of the American Civil War - a time of political and social turmoil. Verena Tarrant (Madeleine Potter Slaves Of New York) a gifted young orator has attracted the attention of Olive Chancellor (Redgrave) who wished to nurture Verena as an inspirational force for the Woman's Movement But ranged against her is Basil Ransom (Reeve) a handsome male chauvinist who wants Verena as his wife. Against a backdrop of luminous New England landscapes battle is joined and for Olive the struggle will prove an odyssey that forces her to acknowledge her true nature.

• The Virginian | DVD | (02/11/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

• Maigret - The Complete Series 1 And 2 | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  An absolute must for fans of Georges Simenon's beloved sleuth, Inspector Jules Maigret, this four-volume Maigret Collection is the finest detective series from Granada Television since the late Jeremy Brett gave us his definitive portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the 1980s. The masterful Michael Gambon is the latest in a long tradition of familiar leading men (from Jean Gabin to Richard Harris) who have played Simenon's blunt but humane, occasionally whimsical, and magnificently insightful investigator. Yet Gambon is perhaps uniquely suited to the part: a popular star with none of the baggage of a brand-name icon or the self-effacing obligations of a character actor. He captures perfectly Maigret's measured but hardly inscrutable presence in the eruptive underworld of Paris crime. Among the 12 episodes here is "Maigret and the Burglar's Wife", which does honour to Simenon's compassionate tale of a retiring thief whose accidental encounter with a corpse sets in motion one of Maigret's most intense psychological duels. The equally compelling "Maigret's Boyhood Friend" finds the detective on a case drawing suspicion to an old school chum, while "Maigret Sets a Trap" is a wonderful production of Simenon's puzzler about a serial killer whose patterns of motivation and action must be deciphered before he can be caught. --Tom Keogh

• Box Of The Banned 2 | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A second volume of nasties that were at one time banned in the UK. Even more depraved and even more corrupt! Tenebrae (Dir. Dario Argento 1982): Shortly after American mystery-thriller novelist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) arrives in Rome to promote his new book (the Tenebrae of the title) an attractive young woman is murdered by a razor-wielding maniac who stuffs pages of Neal's latest novel into the mouth of his victim before slashing her throat. So begins a biza

• Devil At Four O'Clock | DVD | (19/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  They jumped into hell to save a part of heaven. A seaplane lands on the island of Talua to unload three criminals-including Harry (Frank Sinatra) plus a young priest Father Perreau (Kerwin Mathews) who has come to succeed aging irascible Father Doonan (Spencer Tracy). When an earthquake and volcanic eruption strike Talua Father Doonan persuades Harry to parachute with him into the mountains on a daring rescue to an isolated hospital. The party-mostly children - is menaced