"Actor: Charles McDevitt"

• Salesman | DVD | (30/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From the Maysles brothers (The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter (1969) Grey Gardens (1975)) comes this landmark American documentary Salesman - a fascinating non-narrated account of four Boston bible hawkers as they struggle to stay afloat in the cutthroat world of door-to-door sales. Capturing the remarkable detail of a bygone era the film documents their carefully delivered spiel to bored housewives widows immigrants and distracted blue-collar workers. The salesmen wheedle connive and cajole their way toward the Holy Grail but as the pressure of the job bears down one of the salesmen begins to crack exposing the dark and lonely underside of the American Dream. The salesmen each nicknamed according to their different selling style follow up leads of family names from the church. Motivated by the head of the company (who argues that the more sales they generate the stronger the faith) the salesmen sell their gold-embossed expensive Bibles to low-wage families who cannot afford them applying pressure simply by pointing out that 'they come recommended by the church'. Focusing on Paul 'The Badger' Brennan traveling with his colleagues 'The Gipper' 'The Rabbit' and 'The Bull' from their home territory of wintry Boston to the sunshine of Opa-Locka district Florida together they exchange the days highs and (mostly) lows in lonely motel rooms in between calls home. In today's society saturated with reality TV and lame documentaries Salesman stands tall as one of the first non-fiction films to show the lives of ordinary people in-depth without judgement or narration. The Library of Congress honoured Salesman in 1992 as one of the 25 best American films ever made

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

  Vacationing in northern California, Alfred Hitchcock was struck by a story in a Santa Cruz newspaper: "Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes". From this peculiar incident, and his memory of a short story by Daphne du Maurier, the master of suspense created one of his strangest and most terrifying films. The Birds follows a chic blonde, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), as she travels to the coastal town of Bodega Bay to hook up with a rugged fellow (Rod Taylor) she's only just met. Before long the town is attacked by marauding birds, and Hitchcock's skill at staging action is brought to the fore. Beyond the superb effects, however, The Birds is also one of Hitchcock's most psychologically complicated scenarios, a tense study of violence, loneliness, and complacency. What really gets under your skin are not the bird skirmishes but the anxiety and the eerie quiet between attacks. The director elevated an unknown model, Tippi Hedren (mother of Melanie Griffith), to being his latest cool, blond leading lady, an experience that was not always easy on the much-pecked Ms. Hedren. Still, she returned for the next Hitchcock picture, the underrated Marnie. Treated with scant attention by serious critics in 1963, The Birds has grown into a classic and--despite the sci-fi trappings--one of Hitchcock's most serious films. --Robert Horton

• Out Of Towners | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Neil Simon's curious comedy The Out-of-Towners concerns a pair of non-New Yorkers (Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis) having a hellish visit to the Big Apple on the eve of a job interview for Lemmon's character. Made in 1970 and directed by Arthur (Love Story) Hiller, this hectic film almost seems ahead of its time when compared to more recent misery-piled-on-misery comedies such as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The couple in this film endure everything that can go wrong on a trip, including being forced to spend the night in a mugger-happy Central Park. The strange element in Simon's script, though, is that Lemmon's character is so unpleasant. A middle-class, uptight guy who can't believe that New Yorkers in the service profession don't perform their jobs slavishly, he's kind of a one-note joke that quickly wears thin. It was remade with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn in 1999. --Tom Keogh