"Actor: Bob Steele"

• The Big Sleep | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made screen history together more than once, but they were never more popular than in this 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not). Bogart plays private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a wealthy socialite (Bacall) to look into troubles stirred up by her wild, young sister (Martha Vickers). Legendarily complicated (so much so that even Chandler had trouble following the plot), the film is nonetheless hugely entertaining and atmospheric, an electrifying plunge into the exotica of detective fiction. William Faulkner wrote the screenplay. --Tom Keogh

• Mermaids | DVD | (23/07/2001) from £10.00   |  Saving you £2.99 (29.90%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Richard Benjamin's off-beat 1990 comedy Mermaids found Cher at the peak of her big-screen form. She plays Mrs Flax to the manner born. The eccentric mother feeds her two daughters on hors d'oeuvres and sticks a pin in the map to decide the family's next destination when her love affairs have run their course. When they reach New England, however, events--and an unlikely but amiable suitor (Bob Hoskins)--interrupt her self-centred progress and bring the facts of life home to roost with a vengeance. It's a well-made comedy with good performances from Cher and Hoskins, although neither of them is particularly stretched. There is also enough tension in the relationship between Mrs Flax and her eldest child to make it poignant as well as funny. As the Flax daughters, Winona Ryder (neurotic, unworldly Charlotte) and Christina Ricci (swimming-mad "fishhead") show plenty of the promise which has since made them two of America's most appealing film actresses. Stuffed with authentic 1960s detail, Mermaids is actually a modern "woman's picture" which affirms the often precarious bonds of family relationships. On the DVD: Presented in widescreen format, optimised for high-resolution television sets, Mermaids is a vibrant visual treat for anybody with an affection for 1960s kitsch and fashion. The picture quality is superb and the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack sharp; some cracking dialogue has to share the sound waves with thumping hits of the day and, over the final credits, Cher's global smash hit rendering of "It's in His Kiss". But apart from a multilingual choice of soundtracks and subtitles and the original theatrical trailer, there are no extras. --Piers Ford

• Pork Chop Hill | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £6.20   |  Saving you £6.79 (109.52%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Lt. Joe Clemons has been given the order: take Pork Chop Hill. If it's taken by the Chinese US negotiators at the Panmunjom peace conference would lose face with their Communist adversaries - an unthinkable outcome. And so Clemons leads his troops into combat to fight for an objective that they know to be strategically pointless. But they also know that an order is an order. They must take Pork Chop Hill or die trying...

• Of Mice And Men | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-5.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Set in the U.S.A in 1930's California Of Mice and Men paints a bold vivid picture of life in the depression era and tells the tragic tale of George (Burgess Meredith) and Lenny (Lon Chaney Jr.) two itinerant farm hands searching for a safe haven from the cruelties of the world. Nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1939 ""Of Mice and Men"" features a moving Oscar-nominated score from legendary composer Aaron Copland.

• The Day The World Ended | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £6.73   |  Saving you £13.26 (66.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A far-fetched combination of psychological thriller and over-the-top horror movie, The Day the World Ended is a brash, rather ham-fisted piece of work. With Nastassja Kinski leading the cast, the odds were never on this being an example of great cinema, but Terence Gross's film is exceptionally ridiculous in parts.The director manages to pull a range of clichés out of the bag, from the Lynchian small-town American weirdos to the handy thunder storm during moments of high drama. The premise of a lonely, gifted child hiding a dark secret has been explored before but never quite to such a bizarre extent--the events involved here leading to a gory, tasteless finale. Kinski sleepwalks her way through her role with little conviction, matched by Randy Quaid's caricature villain. Much is made of the special effects skills of Stan Winston (Jurassic Park, Terminator 2), but without any degree of budget, his efforts are merely terrifyingly ordinary. On the DVD: one thing becomes clear from the DVD version of the film--despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the makers of The Day the World Ended consider it a fine example of the genre. The audio commentary from producers Winston and Shane Mahan is especially self-reverential, even going so far at one point as to praise the film's great character acting. A hectic visual style and suitably monstrous sound effects it may have (all admittedly enhanced by the digital format), but great character acting it does not. Likewise, there is an in-depth feature on the rather shoddy special effects. The last thing anybody wanted, the earnest voiceover tells us, was for the monster to look like some guy in a rubber suit. --Phil Udell

• Night Of The Living Dead / Revenge Of The Zombies | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This value-for-money Zombie Double Feature is billed as "Flesh Creepers, Volume 1", and offers a double billing of George A Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Steve Sekely’s rather less fondly remembered Revenge of the Zombies (1943). Night of the Living Dead is a masterpiece, but it has also slipped through a copyright loophole which means it has been issued on video and DVD by a great many distributors in as many variant versions. This one isn’t ruined by colorisation or dodgy new footage as a couple of rival releases are, but it is soft-looking print, free of censor cuts but very washed-out-looking. The background notes inexcusably get the date of the film wrong, crassly tagging it "think Blair Witch 1964", and mention the existence of extras-filled special DVD editions, which rather rubs in the fact that this no-frills effort has none of the commentaries or documentaries found on other releases. Revenge of the Zombies is a sluggish hour-long wartime B-picture, with John Carradine underplaying for once as a Nazi scientist creating an army of zombies (ie: a handful of shuffling extras) in the Louisiana swamplands. Comedy relief Mantan Moreland has the best moments and the trudging-around-the-backlot zombies ("things walkin’ ain’t got no business to be walkin’") are fun, but it isn’t especially good of its kind. On the DVD: The Zombie Double Feature presents both films in "horrorscope", which means letterboxing and blurry image. The only extra is a list-like essay about the habits of flesh-eating zombies in Romero films.--Kim Newman

• Humphrey Bogart Crime Collection | DVD | (06/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  THE BIG SLEEP: L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe takes on a blackmail case...and follows a trail peopled with murderers pornographers nightclub rogues the spoiled rich and more. Humphrey Bogart plays Raymond Chandler's legendary gumshoe and director Howard Hawks serves up snappy character encounters (particularly involving Lauren Bacall) a brisk pace and atmosphere galore in this certified classic. KEY LARGO: A hurricane swells outside but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) holes up and holds at gunpoint hotel owner Nora Temple (Lionel Barrymore) and ex-GI Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart). McCloud's the one man capable of standing up against the belligerent Rocco. But the postwar world's realities may have taken all the fight out of him. John Huston co-wrote and compellingly directs this film of Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play with a searing Academy Awardwinning performance by Claire Trevor as Rocco's gold-hearted boozy moll. In Huston's hands it becomes a powerful sweltering classic. THE MALTESE FALCON: A gallery of high-living lowlifes will stop at nothing to get their sweaty hands on a jewel-encrusted falcon. Detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) wants to find out why - and who's gonna take the fall. This third screen version of Dashiell Hammett's novel is a film of firsts: John Huston's directorial debut rotund 62-year-old Sydney Greenstreet's screen debut film history's first film noir and Bogart's breakthrough role after years as a Warner contract player. When George Raft refused to work with a first-time director Bogart took on the role of Spade - and launched the most acclaimed period of his career.

• Giant From The Unknown (1958) | Blu Ray | (19/01/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Oklahoma Cyclone | DVD | (14/02/2011) from £5.28   |  Saving you £-0.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Jimmy Henderson is looking for his missing father and believes McKim's gang might know something about his disappearance. He joins up with McKim's gang looking for clues but soon makes enemies among the gang.

• Giant From The Unknown (1958) | 4K UHD | (19/01/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A