"Actor: David Holiday"

• Thunderbirds Complete Series Digistack--9-Disc Box Set | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £23.99   |  Saving you £101.00 (421.01%)   |  RRP £124.99

  Filmed in VIDECOLOR [explosions, drum roll, music builds to a climax] and SUPERMARIONATION"! The opening sequence of Thunderbirds is itself a masterclass in Gerry Anderson's marionette hyperbole: who else would dare to make a virtue out of the fact that (a) the show is in colour and (b) it's got puppets in it? But everything about this series really is epic: Thunderbirds is action on the grandest scale, pre-dating such high-concept Hollywood vehicles as Armaggedon by 30 years and more (the acting is better, too), and fetishising gadgets in a way that even the most excessive Bond movies could never hope to rival. Unsurprisingly, it transpires that the visual effects are by Derek Meddings, whose later contributions to Bond movies like The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker echo his pioneering model work here.As to the characters, the clean-cut Tracey boys take second place in the audiences' affections to their cool machines--the real stars of the show--while comic relief is to be found in the charming company of Lady Penelope and her pink Rolls (number plate FAB1), driven by lugubrious chauffeur Parker, whose "Yes, milady" catch phrase resonated around school playgrounds for decades. (Spare a thought for poor old John Tracey, stuck up in space on Thunderbird 5 with only the radio for company.) The puppet stunt-work is breathtakingly audacious, and every week's death-defying escapade is nail-bitingly choreographed in the very best tradition of disaster movies. First shown in 1964 and now digitally remastered, Thunderbirds is children's TV that still looks and sounds like big-budget Hollywood. In this box set: all 32 episodes on eight discs, plus a bonus DVD featuring "The Thunderbirds Companion", an action-packed compilation which features the very best Thunderbirds rescues and scenes and tells the whole story behind Gerry Anderson's legendary action adventure series. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Gerry Anderson, David Graham (the voice of Parker, Brains and Kyrano), Thunderbirds directors Alan Patillo and Bob Bell, and puppeteer John Blundall. --Mark Walker

• The Apartment | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £5.94   |  Saving you £10.05 (169.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele

• Thunderbirds | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £99.99

  Featuring all 32 'Thunderbirds' episodes ever made plus a bonus CD this strictly limited edition box set is the collection of the classic TV series to own! Episode Titles Trapped In The Sky Pit of Peril Perils of Penelope Terror in New York City Edge Of Impact Day Of Disaster 30 Minutes After Noon Desperate Intruder End Of The Road The Uninvited Sun Probe Operation Crash-Dive Vault Of Death The Mighty Atom City Of Fire The Impostors The Man From MI5 Cry Wolf Danger At Ocean Deep Move and You're Dead The Duchess Assignment Brink Of Disaster Attack Of The Alligators Martian Invasion The Cham Cham Security Hazard Altantic Inferno Path of Destruction Alias Mr Hackenbacker Lord Parker's Oliday Ricochet Give or Take A Million.

• La Garçonnière | DVD | (04/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A