"Actor: Brandon Hurst"

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Silent) | DVD | (16/11/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, was best known for playing Quasimodo and the Phantom of the Opera. But the former role in The Hunchback of Notre Dame was clearly the most ambitious of his illustrious career, full of such longing and anguish. It's as though his entire being was consumed by this ugly outcast with a heart as big and beautiful as Notre Dame itself. And the makeup is still astonishing. The rest of this unrequited love story is pretty effective as well, with the re-creation of medieval Paris a standout for its lavishness. Like all great silent films, it delivers a poetry of life that is abstract and tangible at the same time. --Bill Desowitz

• Bright Eyes | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £6.22   |  Saving you £6.77 (108.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When a maid is accidentally hit by a car and killed her young orphaned daughter is forced to live with the snooty couple her mother used to work for. A custody battle soon ensues between an aviator who adores the little girl and the couple's crotchety Uncle Ned.

• Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde | DVD | (23/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In this 1920 silent version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, John Barrymore is dignified and virtuous as Dr Henry Jekyll, and transforms into Id incarnate as the lascivious Mr. Hyde with almost no make-up beyond his gnarled, knobby fingers and greasy hair, relying almost solely on a bug-eyed grimace, a spidery body language and pure theatrical flourish. He tends to be hammy as the leering beast of a thug but brings a tortured struggle to the repressed doctor, horrified at the demon he's unleashed, guilty that he enjoys Hyde's unrestrained life of drinking and whoring and terrified that he can no longer control the transformations. Martha Mansfield co-stars as his pure and innocent sweetheart, and Nita Naldi (the vamp of Blood and Sand) has a small but memorable role as the world-weary dance-hall darling who first "wakens" Jekyll's "baser nature". --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• The Thief Of Bagdad | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dating from 1924 this Thief of Bagdad is justifiably billed here as "one of the truly great silent films of the 1920s." As the forerunner of generations of magical, effect-laden fantasy epics, its importance is practically immeasurable. And still, after eight decades, it has startling, thrilling qualities which the finest computer graphics would struggle to surpass. Douglas Fairbanks, co-founder of United Artists, is the eponymous hero, swindling, fighting and leaping his way to true love through a series of adventures which take him from a magnificently surreal Bagdad to enchanted forests, ocean bottoms and magic carpet rides. "Happiness must be earned," is the motto; Fairbanks and his director Raoul Walsh certainly don't short-change their audience in bringing it to life. The effects are stunning, with a particularly gruesome slaying of a monster. Every scene is crammed with detail and incident. Fairbanks is a whirlwind of muscular, balletic flamboyance. And while his princess (Julanne Johnson) is a stereotype of vapidity, there's gleamingly malevolent support from Anna May Wong as the evil Mongol Slave Girl. Over two hours of sheer enjoyment belie the notion that cinematic sophistication is a modern achievement. On the DVD: The Thief of Bagdad disc presents the restored and remastered print (the tints have a luminous quality) complete with a 1975 score by master organist Gaylord Carter--you can almost feel the Wurlitzer rising from the pit of your entertainment centre. The audio essay, written by film historian R Dixon Smith, is an invaluable extra, providing essential information on how the picture was made and how the art designers played with proportion to create many of the visual tricks and a fantastical atmosphere. --Piers Ford

• Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Silent Classics) | DVD | (01/02/2010) from £8.98   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Classic silent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel about a doctor who conducts experiments that are intended to reveal the dark hidden nature of man and unwittingly ends up developing a murderous alter ego.

• John Barrymore Collection | DVD | (14/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The John Barrymore Collection (3 Discs)

• White Zombie | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The tale is set in a smouldering descimated post World War II world in the town of Meridian which has the Halperin brothers made White Zombie in just 11 days back in 1932 with $50 000 and sets left behind from Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein. Keeping dialogue to a minimum they wisely let the cameraman cut loose on this odd fairy tale avoiding the stagey static feel that pervades most early makes. White Zombie doesn't tell us a story when it can show us one. One of the most visua

• The Thief Of Bagdad | DVD | (26/04/2004) from £4.98   |  Saving you £14.00 (468.23%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Fantasy adventure made in the 1920's and is just as entertaining in the 21st century. Ahmed the thief takes anything he wants until he meets the Princess. So besotted does he become that he is prepared to make himself worthy of her outrivalling even the challenge of the Mongol Prince. He has a variety of adventures with fantastic special effects.

• White Zombie | DVD | (24/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Dead Walk Among Us! For you my friend they are the angels of death. Thus replies Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi) to John Harron when he inquires about the zombies he encounters on the island of Haiti the locale of this horror classic. When Harron arrives on the isle with his lovely fianc''e Madeline (Madge Bellamy) a wealthy fellow traveler Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) offers his lush plantation home for their nuptials. Unfortunately Beaumont has become smitten with Madeline and enters into an unholy alliance with zombie master Legendre to win possession of her-alive or undead. They arrange for Madeline to fall ill and die and then be resurrected as a zombie-and Charles' love slave. Who will ultimately possess the beautiful bride is decided in the film's final deadly struggle. The tale is set in a smouldering descimated post World War II world in the town of Meridian which has the Halperin brothers made White Zombie in just 11 days back in 1932 with 000 and sets left behind from Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein. Keeping dialogue to a minimum they wisely let the cameraman cut loose on this odd fairy tale avoiding the stagey static feel that pervades most early makes. White Zombie doesn't tell us a story when it can show us one. One of the most visually interesting terror films ever made.