"Actor: Clive Francis"

• A Clockwork Orange | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.24   |  Saving you £9.75 (229.95%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The controversy that surrounded Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange while the film was out of circulation suggested that it was like Romper Stomper: a glamorisation of the violent, virile lifestyle of its teenage protagonist, with a hypocritical gloss of condemnation to mask delight in rape and ultra-violence. Actually, it is as fable-like and abstract as The Pilgrim's Progress, with characters deliberately played as goonish sitcom creations. The anarchic rampage of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a bowler-hatted juvenile delinquent of the future, is all over at the end of the first act. Apprehended by equally brutal authorities, he changes from defiant thug to cringing bootlicker, volunteering for a behaviourist experiment that removes his capacity to do evil.It's all stylised: from Burgess' invented pidgin Russian (snarled unforgettably by McDowell) to 2001-style slow tracks through sculpturally perfect sets (as with many Kubrick movies, the story could be told through decor alone) and exaggerated, grotesque performances on a par with those of Dr Strangelove (especially from Patrick Magee and Aubrey Morris). Made in 1971, based on a novel from 1962, A Clockwork Orange resonates across the years. Its future is now quaint, with Magee pecking out "subversive literature" on a giant IBM typewriter and "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van" on mini-cassette tapes. However, the world of "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" is very much with us: a housing estate where classical murals are obscenely vandalised, passers-by are rare and yobs loll about with nothing better to do than hurt people. On the DVD: The extras are skimpy, with just an impressionist trailer in the style of the film used to brainwash Alex and a list of awards for which Clockwork Orange was nominated and awarded. The box promises soundtracks in English, French and Italian and subtitles in ten languages, but the disc just has two English soundtracks (mono and Dolby Surround 5.1) and two sets of English subtitles. The terrific-looking "digitally restored and remastered" print is letterboxed at 1.66:1 and on a widescreen TV plays best at 14:9. The film looks as good as it ever has, with rich stable colours (especially and appropriately the orangey-red of the credits and the blood) and a clarity that highlights previously unnoticed details such as Alex's gouged eyeball cufflinks and enables you to read the newspaper articles which flash by. The 5.1 soundtrack option is amazingly rich, benefiting the nuances of performance as much as the classical/electronic music score and the subtly unsettling sound effects. --Kim Newman

• May To December - Series 1 | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Anton Rodgers stars as middle aged solicitor Alec Callender - a partner in Semple Callender and Henty - who pines for Perry Mason style cases however seldom is faced with anything more taxing than a simple house conveyancing. Through his work Alec meets Zoe Angell played by Eve Matheson a 26 year old PE teacher befuddled by her impending divorce although neither is looking for romance there is an unmistakable spark and soon they embark on the rocky road of a 'spring and autumn'

• The Piglet Files - The Complete First Series | DVD | (17/01/2011) from £8.38   |  Saving you £4.61 (55.01%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst Clive Francis and Michael Percival The Piglet Files is the sitcom that truly lifts the lid on the shadowy world of espionage during the early '90s - with quite startling results. Electronics lecturer Peter Chapman (Lyndhurst) may have fantasised about a James Bond lifestyle but disillusion quickly sets in when he finds himself coerced into working for M15 only to find his spymasters are a collection of misinformed bungling incompetents. Nevertheless as gadgets expert Piglet Puma and Panther were sadly already in use he uses all his skill to combat not only the Soviet agents who are his bosses are convinced as active as ever but a still greater menace: the French secret service! Peter's toughest challenge however seems to be dealing with wife Sarah's suspicions about her husband's increasingly strange activities...

• The Piglet Files - The Complete Series 2 | DVD | (16/04/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst (Only Fools and Horses), Clive Francis and Michael Percival, The Piglet Files is the sitcom that truly lifts the lid on the shadowy world of espionage during the early nineties with quite startling results. Coerced into working for M15 only to find his spymasters are a collection of misinformed, bungling incompetents, electronics lecturer Peter Chapman is hapless gadgets expert Piglet Puma and Panther being already in use and he s feeling the pressure. This series finds the unlikely agent attempting to steal a former agent's memoirs, searching for a mole near the top of MI5... and falling headlong into a KGB honey trap!

• A Clockwork Orange Ultimate Collector's Edition | Blu Ray | (04/10/2021) from £34.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap-dancing, violating. Derby-topped hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has a good time - at the tragic expense of others. His journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen and back again forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel. Controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director awards and earned four Oscarr* nominations, including Best Picture. Its power still entices, shocks and holds us in its grasp.This 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition includes:. •A Clockwork Orange on 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray. •Blu-ray Bonus Disc featuring Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures and O Lucky Malcolm! documentaries. •32-page booklet. •Double-sided Poster. •Set of 3 Art Cards. •Behind the scenes stills. •Newspaper prop replica. Special Features:. • Commentary by Malcolm McDowell and Historian Nick Redman. • Channel Four Documentary Still Tickin’: The Return of Clockwork Orange. • New Featurette Great Bolshy Yarblockos!: Making A Clockwork Orange. • Career Profile O Lucky Malcolm! [in High Definition]. • Theatrical Trailer.  

• New Scotland Yard: The Complete Fourth Series | DVD | (07/03/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The crime-busters of New Scotland Yard return with a new line-up for this fourth and final series of London Weekend's groundbreaking early-seventies police drama.Though Kingdom and Ward are replaced by DCS Clay and DS Dexter, the series remains as hard-hitting as ever in its portrayal of CID work in the increasingly violent London of the 1970s. Their cases include the murder of a Borstal boy, the organised hi-jacking of lorries, and a recently released armed robber's relentless quest for revenge. Featuring hard-hitting scripts from P.J. Hammond and contributor Tony Hoare, guest stars include Don Henderson, Michael Elphick, Ray Lonnen and Tony Caunter.

• Poldark - Series 1 - Part 1 | DVD | (05/05/2003) from £4.54   |  Saving you £13.45 (296.26%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Welcome to Cornwall England's westernmost county. The year is 1780 and the political and social atmosphere is as stormy as the sea that pounds the rocky shores. Into this landscape Captain Ross Poldark (Robin Ellis) returns from the American war to take up his inheritance and take up with his beloved Elizabeth (Jill Townsend). But with false reports of his death having reached Cornwall ahead of him what will he find? And what of the young urchin Demelza (Angharad Rees) the new ho

• The Rich Man's Wife | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £6.64   |  Saving you £8.35 (125.75%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Someone Is Playing A Very Deadly Game... This edge-of-your-seat thriller stars sexy Halle Berry (pre 'Monster's Ball') as a beautiful woman hopelessly trapped in a web of suspense and terror where nothing is what it seems! Josie Potenza (Berry) has it all: a fabulous home a life of privilege and a wealthy husband. But Josie's seemingly perfect life takes a nightmarish turn when her husband is brutally murdered making her the prime suspect in the police investigation...and the prime

• Poldark - Series 1 - Part 2 | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £9.98   |  Saving you £10.00 (125.16%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Welcome to Cornwall England's westernmost county. The year is 1780 and the political and social atmosphere is as stormy as the sea that pounds the rocky shores. Into this landscape Captain Ross Poldark (Robin Ellis) returns from the American war to take up his inheritance and take up with his beloved Elizabeth (Jill Townsend). But with false reports of his death having reached Cornwall ahead of him what will he find? First broadcast in 1975 this release features the second ha

• Poldark - Series 2 - Part 1 | DVD | (15/09/2003) from £3.44   |  Saving you £14.55 (422.96%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Welcome to Cornwall England's westernmost county. The year is 1780 and the political and social atmosphere is as stormy as the sea that pounds the rocky shores. Into this landscape Captain Ross Poldark (Robin Ellis) returns from the American war to take up his inheritance and take up with his beloved Elizabeth (Jill Townsend).

• Lord Peter Wimsey - Strong Poison | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Edward Petherbridge stars as the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey in this who-dun-nit from the pen of Dorothy L. Sayers. Mystery writer Harriet Vane is on trial for the murder of her lover. The evidence seems pretty conclusive. Not an hour after leaving her flat Philip Boyles was found dead in the back of a taxi cab - from arsenic posioning. Wimsey attends the trial and becomes beguiled by the writer. He also becomes convinced of her innocence of the crime. When the jury

• Poldark - Series 2 - Part 2 | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £5.63   |  Saving you £15.35 (581.44%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The second half of the acclaimed second series of the classic BBC drama. Welcome to Cornwall near the turn of the nineteenth century where an air of celebration pervades. However even as Admiral Lord Nelson defeats the french fleet in the battle of the Nile the situation between the recently returned Ross Poldark and George Warleggan is no nearer a conclusion. And things at home aren't much better for Ross for Demelza is playing a very dangerous game with Lord Falmouth's nephew

• Clockwork Orange | DVD | (13/11/2000) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The controversy that surrounded Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange while the film was out of circulation suggested that it was like Romper Stomper: a glamorisation of the violent, virile lifestyle of its teenage protagonist, with a hypocritical gloss of condemnation to mask delight in rape and ultra-violence. Actually, it is as fable-like and abstract as The Pilgrim's Progress, with characters deliberately played as goonish sitcom creations. The anarchic rampage of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a bowler-hatted juvenile delinquent of the future, is all over at the end of the first act. Apprehended by equally brutal authorities, he changes from defiant thug to cringing bootlicker, volunteering for a behaviourist experiment that removes his capacity to do evil.It's all stylised: from Burgess' invented pidgin Russian (snarled unforgettably by McDowell) to 2001-style slow tracks through sculpturally perfect sets (as with many Kubrick movies, the story could be told through decor alone) and exaggerated, grotesque performances on a par with those of Dr Strangelove (especially from Patrick Magee and Aubrey Morris). Made in 1971, based on a novel from 1962, A Clockwork Orange resonates across the years. Its future is now quaint, with Magee pecking out "subversive literature" on a giant IBM typewriter and "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van" on mini-cassette tapes. However, the world of "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" is very much with us: a housing estate where classical murals are obscenely vandalised, passers-by are rare and yobs loll about with nothing better to do than hurt people. On the DVD: The extras are skimpy, with just an impressionist trailer in the style of the film used to brainwash Alex and a list of awards for which Clockwork Orange was nominated and awarded. The box promises soundtracks in English, French and Italian and subtitles in ten languages, but the disc just has two English soundtracks (mono and Dolby Surround 5.1) and two sets of English subtitles. The terrific-looking "digitally restored and remastered" print is letterboxed at 1.66:1 and on a widescreen TV plays best at 14:9. The film looks as good as it ever has, with rich stable colours (especially and appropriately the orangey-red of the credits and the blood) and a clarity that highlights previously unnoticed details such as Alex's gouged eyeball cufflinks and enables you to read the newspaper articles which flash by. The 5.1 soundtrack option is amazingly rich, benefiting the nuances of performance as much as the classical/electronic music score and the subtly unsettling sound effects. --Kim Newman

• Inspector Clouseau | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £7.53   |  Saving you £6.72 (107.18%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Inspector Clouseau returns with Alan Arkin stepping into the bumbling shoes of Peter Sellers' most famous role. Chief-Commissioner Sir Charles Braithwaite is investigating a series of Swiss bank robberies while Clouseau - naturally - gets in the way. Meanwhile the criminals further add to the confusion by wearing Clouseau masks during their heists! Needless to say the inspector gets on the case...

• The Piglet Files - The Complete Series 3 | DVD | (12/11/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Nicholas Lyndhurst Clive Francis and Michael Percival star in the hit sitcom that truly lifts the lid on the shadowy world of espionage during the early nineties – with quite startling results.

• Girl Stroke Boy (UK Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (17/01/2022) from £13.59   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on David Percival's acclaimed play Girlfriend, Girl Stroke Boy is a one-of-a-kind comedy which tells of two everyday, middle-class parents who are confounded when their son brings home his new partner: an elegant, confusingly androgynous West Indian (actor and pop star Peter Straker in a pioneering performance). Directed with an affectionate, light touch by Bob Kellet (Up Pompeii, Space: 1999) and featuring a superb cast, including Joan Greenwood (Mysterious Island, Kind Hearts and Coronets), Michael Hordern (The Missionary, Barry Lyndon), Patricia Routledge (To Sir, with Love), and Clive Francis (A Clockwork Orange), Girl Stroke Boy still packs a punch today thanks to Straker's flamboyant performance (British cinema's first gay leading role to be played by a black actor) and the prescient subject matter. Long out of circulation, this new, restored edition marks the film's worldwide Blu-ray premiere.

• Sharpe's Enemy | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £4.49   |  Saving you £3.50 (77.95%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Action and romance follow Sharpe as he and his chosen men once again risk their lives on a dangerous and heroic mission.In Sharpe's enemy Sharpe first has to do battle with a gang of deserters led by the evil renegade Sergeant Hakeswill (Pete Postlethwaite).Hakeswill uses hostages including Sharpe's old flame the beautiful Isabella as innocent pawns in his wicked game to win a ransom. This is only the beginning of the problems facing Sharpe. A far greater threat is on the horizon. One where failure would mean the end of the war for the allied armies ....

• Sherlock Holmes - The Man With The Twisted Lip / The Six Napoleons | DVD | (09/06/2003) from £9.30   |  Saving you £0.69 (7.42%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Man With The Twisted Lip: The mysterious disappearance of Neville St. Clair one Monday draws Sherlock Holmes into a tale of intrigue amongst the opium dens of Victorian England. If he died on that Monday as Holmes believes how is it that his wife received a letter from him on the following Friday? The Six Napoleans: A batch of six busts of Napoleon Bonaparte which have been sold and spread throughout London are being systematically destroyed. When Horace Harker hears his bust being smashed in his home he pursues the perpetrator. In the pursuit he stumbles over a dead body and the case becomes the concern of the greatest detective in London.

• Sharpe's Company | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Sean Bean stars as maverick British rifleman Richard Sharpe in this romantic adventure set during the bloody conflicts of 19th Century Napoleonic Spain.Ordered to lay siege to the French stronghold - the walled city of Badajos - Sharpe is torn between overcoming the enemy and rescuing his lover - the beautiful guerrilla fighter Teresa (Assumpta Serna) - now trapped in the city on a secret mission spying for the British.There is one thing Sharpe hasn't counted on the evil presence of his old enemy Hakeswill who is determined to stop him at all costs.

• Amy | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £13.24   |  Saving you £-10.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The dramatic true story of Amy Johnson the first woman ever to go solo in an aircraft on May 5th 1930. Awarded the CBE by the king her happiness is almost complete untill her divorce from her husband JIm Mollison. Many years pass untill they see each other again. World War Two and their attempt at a reconcilliation is cut short when Amy leaves on a flight that was to be her last.