"Actor: David Lodge"

• San Ferry Ann | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £4.23   |  Saving you £5.76 (136.17%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A motley crew of British characters ride the 'San Ferry Ann' from Dover to the shores of Calais where they embark on a weekend of calamity. A campervan family led by Dad and Mum (David Lodge and Joan Sims) cause chaos from the moment they set their tires on the shore resulting in frequent run ins with the Gendarme. Lewd Grandad (Wilfred Brambell) finds his own misadventures with a newly acquainted friend a crazy German ex-soldier (Ron Moody). Also aboard for the ride is a saucy hitchhiker (Barbara Windsor) who causes a few heads to turn including that of a fellow traveller (Ronnie Stevens) who pursues her affection with comic results. By the end of this weekend though the French may well be wishing to say 'au revoir' to these trouble making tourists.

• Carry On Girls | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Carry On Girls was the last really successful film in the epic series of British film comedies. It's studded with gems of cameo performances and boasts a tremendously innuendo-laden Talbot Rothwell script which is easily the equal of any of its predecessors. The setting, a beauty contest to raise the profile of the dismal resort Fircombe-on-Sea, is ripe for politically incorrect activity of the sort that could only be conducted by Sid James at the height of his lecherous powers. Enter Bernard Bresslaw in a corset, Wendy Richard as Ida Downs, Barbara Windsor as Miss Easy Rider and a host of other semi-clad lovelies and watch as the whole thing rises to a slapstick climax of frisky old colonels, bikinis, bosoms and itching powder. In the smaller roles, Joan Hickson (BBC television's Miss Marple) is hilarious as an elderly woman who believes she is a man-magnet, and the always under-used Patsy Rowlands excels as the downtrodden mayor's wife, a worm who finally turns. But in many ways this is June Whitfield's film: as the terrifying reactionary councillor Mrs Prodworthy, with a butch lesbian sidekick, she plots the downfall of her male colleagues with classic lines. "Rosemary, get the candle", she orders as Patsy Rowlands requests initiation. --Piers Ford

• Edge of Sanity | Blu Ray | (20/06/2022) from £9.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Anthony Perkins builds upon his legendary status as cinema's seminal psycho in Edge of Sanity, a delirious conflation of Robert Louis Stephenson's classic horror novella ˜Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and Jack the Ripper's real-life reign of terror over Victorian London. When his experiments into a powerful new anaesthetic go hideously awry, respected physician Dr Jekyll (Perkins) takes off into the night, casting aside the shackles of upper-class propriety as he disappears into the shadowy decadent demimonde of Whitechapel in pursuit of sensual pleasures under the guise of ˜Mr Hyde'. As his wife Elisabeth (Glynis Barber) passes her time in charitable work, rehabilitating the district's fallen women, Hyde is drawn into an escalating cycle of lust and murder that seems to know no bounds. Produced by exploitation maestro Harry Alan Towers (The Face of Fu Manchu, Count Dracula) and directed with a hallucinogenic intensity by Gérard Kikoïne (Lady Libertine, Buried Alive), Edge of Sanity plunges the viewer into a labyrinth of depravity from which there is no escape. Product Features Brand new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original uncompressed stereo audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Brand new audio commentary by writer David Flint and author and filmmaker Sean Hogan Over the Edge, a brand new interview with Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA Jack, Jekyll and Other Screen Psychos, a brand new interview with Dr Clare Smith, author of Jack the Ripper in Film and Culture French Love, a career-spanning interview with director Gérard Kikoïne Staying Sane, Gérard Kikoïne discusses Edge of Sanity Original Theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jon Towlson

• Never Let Go | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £11.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Remembered dimly as Peter Sellers' only venture into "serious" acting, Never Let Go has a lot of other things to recommend it, mostly because it manages to include a lot of the lurid elements that gained it an X certificate in 1960. It has a near-demented melodrama plot, as two desperate obsessives collide in a bizarre feud. Richard Todd, doing meek and put-upon, is a sales rep for smug Peter Jones' cosmetics firm whose life is turned upside-down when his Ford Anglia, bought on hire purchase and uninsured, is stolen by teddy boy Adam Faith. Looking like an inhabitant of Royston Vasey in The League of Gentlemen, Sellers plays a grinning, jumped-up spiv who runs a legitimate garage which is a front for the car thieves and is sugar daddy to teenage tartlet Carol White. Typical of Sellers' demonic rottenness is a scene in which he breaks down-and-out Melvyn Johns' heart by stamping on his beloved terrapin. "Peanut" Todd's crusade to get back his motor (catchphrase "what about my car?") brings trouble too: he gets repeatedly beaten up, abandoned by his wife (Elizabeth Sellars) and dragged to the edge of madness for a final punch-up in a garage. With a delightfully sleazy, jazzy John Barry score, lots of local colour in the caffs and gaffs of criminal London circa 1960 and a parade of welcome character actors (John le Mesurier, David Lodge, Noel Willman, Nigel Stock), this has its soapy spells, but it's a fascinating relic. On the DVD: Never Let Go's menu plays under Faith's theme song ("When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again--Oh Yeah Oh Yeah!"). The print is slightly letterboxed but looks a few generations away from the master with some careless transfer work that greys shadows and overexposes some scenes. --Kim Newman

• Watch Your Stern | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £14.86   |  Saving you £-0.87 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  All hands on deck for Titanic seaside laughs with the saucy Carry On crew! When an accident-prone sailor damages a secret blueprint his only hope is to get another from London. But then the Admiral arrives and he's forced to pose as a scientist - a female scientist!

• Bulldog Breed, The / One Good Turn | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1960, Norman Wisdom was left all at sea in The Bulldog Breed. He had already made a farce of the army in The Square Peg (1958), so what better than to join the navy? Back in the real world, the Russians had kick-started the space race putting Sputnik into orbit, so Norman rapidly finds himself selected to be the first Brit in space. Playing to type, the result is excellent physical comedy and copious tomfoolery at the expense of the upper ranks. With support from John Le Mesurier and Edward Chapman (the legendary "Mr Grimsdale") and uncredited appearances from Oliver Reed and Michael Caine, this is a notable British comedy, with an unusually direct reference to the risqué Carry On movies. For his second starring role Norman Wisdom played the oldest orphan of Greenwood Children's Home in 1954's One Good Turn. Not only does he have to find the money to buy one of the orphans a model car, but after a visit to Brighton he discovers Greenwood is due to be closed down by the home's own unscrupulous chairman, a property developer with plans to build a factory on the site. Also starring Thora Hird, One Good Turn was surely a film with a personal resonance for Wisdom who was himself brought-up in an orphanage after his mother died and his father was unable to raise him. As would become a tradition, he contributes a song, "Please Opportunity", and the movie, though produced by Rank, now sits easily in that classic Ealing era where the ordinary man took on the big guys and won. The innocent knockabout humour remains appealing. --Gary S Dalkin

• Blood Suckers | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Whilst on holiday in Greece Richard Fountain (Patrick Mower) an Oxford don and the foreign secretary's son falls into the evil clutches of Chriseis (Imogen Hassall) leader of a coven of perverted socialites who murder innocent victims in pursuit of their blood. Richard's long absence from Oxford prompts his close friends Tony Seymour fiancee Penelope and Bob Kirby to instigate a search for him. The clues they find take them across the Aegean Sea to Hydra a small island where the two men find Richard drugged and unconscious in an old castle. A pagan orgy is building to a climax as Chriseis is preparing herself for her next victim. After a horrific struggle Chriseis flees her mouth dripping with blood and in a tussle with Kirby falls to her death. Richard is saved and returns to the sheltered life at Oxford but the nightmare is just beginning: the spirit of Chriseis is not yet dead!

• Edge Of Sanity | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The lead role or roles is performed perfectly by the talented horror actor ANTHONY PERKINS of Psycho fame. His delightfully insane dual performance brings the film to life. While experimenting with anaesthetics Dr. Henry Jekyll accidentally inhales fumes from an altered drug and creates his alter ego Jack Hyde. This unleashes not only ability to act out his inhibitions and sexual desires; it unleashes a need to kill!

• Further Up The Creek | DVD | (12/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Crikey! The Royal Navy has finally entered the nuclear age and is selling off its obsolete old frigates to the Arabs!

• Saturday Night Out | DVD | (23/03/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Five sailors are on overnight leave in London. Lee (John Bonney 633 Squadron) a young Australian meets and falls in love with Penny (BAFTA Winner Heather Sears.) Arthur the old salt vanishes to see his regular ladyfriend in Docklands. Harry Jamie and Paddy decide to drink their evening away. Harry ends up at a clip joint where he is eventually thrown out penniless while Jamie falls in love with Jean (Francesca Annis Cranford Revolver) and next morning jumps ship to marry her. George Hudson (Bernard Lee M in 11 James Bond Films) is a businessman taking an extended cruise who finds himself with a seductive blackmailer. A wonderful piece of nostalgia with strong performances by all and terrific location footage of 60's London.

• Press For Time | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £6.28   |  Saving you £3.71 (59.08%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In Press for Time Norman Wisdom offered his version of the crusading reporter movie, though by 1966 time was running out for Norman's style of big-screen comedy. Wisdom had played duel roles in The Square Peg (1958) and On the Beat (1962), but perhaps a sign of his growing frustration with the formulaic nature of his pictures was that he stretched himself to play not just his usual underdog hero, but also his own mother and his grandfather, the Prime Minister. Wisdom also co-wrote the movie, and as a reporter in a small seaside town causes chaos for the council, organises a beauty parade and manages to reprise his drag act (he dressed as a female nurse in A Stitch in Time) as a suffragette. This was really the penultimate Norman Wisdom comedy, since apart from What's Good for the Goose (1969), he has only made two more features, William Friedkin's The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and the belated thriller Double X (1992). Though now nearing the end of his years as a movie star, Wisdom shows himself to still be as polished as ever at his own brand of good-natured slapstick. Fans can be sure that with Norman around there's Trouble in Store (1953). --Gary S. Dalkin

• Carry On Girls | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £15.05   |  Saving you £-5.06 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Carry On Girls was the last really successful instalment of the epic series of British film comedies. It's studded with gems of cameo performances and a tremendously innuendo-laden Talbot Rothwell script that is easily the equal of any of its predecessors. The setting, a beauty contest to raise the profile of the dismal resort Fircombe-on-Sea, is ripe for politically incorrect activity of the sort that could only be conducted by Sid James at the height of his lecherous powers. Enter Bernard Bresslaw in a corset, Wendy Richard as Ida Downs, Barbara Windsor as Miss Easy Rider and a host of other semi-clad lovelies and watch as the whole thing rises to a slapstick climax of frisky old colonels, bikinis, bosoms and itching powder. In the smaller roles, Joan Hickson (BBC television's Miss Marple) is hilarious as an elderly woman who believes she is a man-magnet and the always under-used Patsy Rowlands excels as the downtrodden mayor's wife, a worm who finally turns. But in many ways this is June Whitfield's film. As the terrifying reactionary councillor Mrs Prodworthy, with a butch lesbian sidekick, she plots the downfall of her male colleagues with classic lines. "Rosemary, get the candle", she orders as Patsy Rowlands requests initiation into the cause. Margaret Thatcher never sounded so ominous. On the DVD: Like most of the other DVD Carry On releases, this one is presented in 4:3 format with a mono soundtrack. All right, you don't really need anything more sophisticated to recreate the cosy ritual of Carry On watching in your living room. And the print is good and sharp. But apart from the usual scene index, the lack of extras reflects a disappointingly unimaginative approach to celebrating a genre of film comedy that, for all its low budget reputation, provided a showcase for the cream of a whole generation of British comic actors. They deserve better.--Piers Ford

• Crossroads - Part 2 | DVD | (29/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Here in all its glory is the second volume of Crossroads including episodes released on DVD for the very first time. Meg and Sandy Richardson Benny Hawkins Adam Chance Shughie McFee - the names still strike a chord in the memories with a generation of people who sat entranched watching the latest escapades of the staff and customers of Crossroads motel. Unrepeated for many years the general perception of Crossroads is coloured by that of Acorn Antiques

• On The Beat / Man Of The Moment | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1962's On the Beat, Norman Wisdom's Pitkin, the most famous incarnation of his riotous buffoon character, is dreaming of something better as usual. Pitkin wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a policeman, but being decidedly on the short side, has to settle for washing police cars. Of course it's not long before Norman is impersonating an officer of the law. Wisdom also plays his nemesis here, the German General Schreiber, as well as the chief suspect in a series of jewel robberies which only Pitkin's chaotic antics can solve. Terence Alexander effectively reprises his character from The Square Peg (1958), and Wisdom regular David Lodge, previously seen costarring in The Bulldog Breed (1960), is also on hand, though otherwise the supporting cast is less stellar than before. By the time of 1955's Man of the Moment, Wisdom was firmly established as Britain's favourite movie comedian, his shy, helpful and good-natured "gump" character forever unintentionally causing catastrophe in the great tradition of Charlie Chaplin. However, while Chaplin ventured into politics in Modern Times (1936) for satirical purposes, when Norman's minor civil servant here accidentally becomes the UK delegate at a conference in Geneva the emphasis is on farce and pratfalls. The plot sees Norman sticking up for the rights of the fictional kingdom of Tawaki against less-than-honest government interests, while his new-found status brings the attention of the ladies, including the return of his Trouble in Store (1953) costar Lana Morris. Continuing his collaboration with veteran director John Paddy Carstairs, the film is a polished laughter machine that continues to entertain. --Gary S Dalkin

• I Only Arsked | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An Arab King who finds oil in his country faces civil unrest. He recruits the services of a crack British Army Brigade.... Well at least the services of seven men from Army Stores!

• Carry On England | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  By way of an experiment, a mixed-sex anti-aircraft battery is set up during World War II. The result is Carry On England, and the sex is indeed pretty mixed, although the drafting in of Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson rather demonstrates the need for at least some of the cast to be attractive in order to make this premise feasible. For the most part, of course, it's tits-out sex-comedy slapstick all the way, but there's a nicely ambivalent performance from Kenneth Connor, who portrays the wartime British officer class as being pretty much bonkers, a telling interpretation which Stephen Fry was to perfect years later in Blackadder Goes Forth. The location is of course typically Carry On cheap-and-cheerful, but its inevitable drabness, together with the indistinguishable khaki uniforms, tends to put a bit of a damper on the adult-panto atmosphere which the best Carry Ons deliver. The cast commendably manage to transcend this, though, so there's still plenty of fun to be had. On the DVD: The feature is presented in 1.77:1 aspect ratio, but the disc has no added features. --Roger Thomas

• The Return Of The Pink Panther | DVD | (02/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Peter Sellers's third go-around as the prideful but bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Return of the Pink Panther is funny enough, but this 1975 Blake Edwards revival of the Sellers-Clouseau connection is a little weak in comparison to predecessors The Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark (both made in 1964). Co-star Christopher Plummer actually gets some of the most interesting screen time as a retired cat burglar whom Clouseau accuses of getting back into the business. (If it sounds like there might be a To Catch a Thief vibe mixed in here, you're right.) Herbert Lom is hilarious as Clouseau's psychologically eroding boss, and Clouseau's ritualistic collisions with valet Cato (Burt Kwouk) are great examples of Edwards' delicious comic timing. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Champions: The Complete Series (Special Edition) | DVD | (31/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Craig Sterling (Damon) Sharron Macready (Bastedo) and Richard Barrett (Gaunt) are agents for an international intelligence organisation called NEMESIS. After a plane crash and being rescued by an unknown civilisation the trio make their way back Geneva to continue their work only to discover they have mysteriously developed super-human abilities like telepathy amazing memories and abnormal strengths. Instead of telling anyone about these developments they keep their secret quiet but use their new powers to help complete a range of dangerous assignments... This 8 DVD box set features all 30 episodes from the ITC series The Champions. Episodes Comprise: 1. The Beginning 2. The Invisible Man 3. Reply Box No. 666 4. The Experiment 5. Happening 6. Operation Deep-Freeze 7. The Survivors 8. To Trap A Rat 9. The Iron Man 10. The Ghost Plane 11. The Dark Island 12. The Fanatics 13. Twelve Hours 14. The Search 15. The Gilded Cage 16. Shadow of the Panther 17. A Case of Lemmings 18. The Interrogation 19. The Mission 20. The Silent Enemy 21. The Body Snatchers 22. Get Me Out Of Here! 23. The Night People 24. Project Zero 25. Desert Journey 26. Full Circle 27. Nutcracker 28. The Final Countdown 29. The Gun-Runners 30. Autokill

• The Amazing Mr Blunden | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £50.00   |  Saving you £-44.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Amazing Mr. Blunden

• On The Beat | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £8.96   |  Saving you £1.03 (11.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Having proved himself a war hero in The Square Peg (1958), Norman Pitkin, Norman Wisdom's most famous incarnation of his riotous buffoon character, is here demobbed and, as usual for a Wisdom movie, dreaming of something better. Norman wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a policeman, but being decidedly on the short side, has to settle for washing police cars. Of course it's not long before Norman is impersonating an officer of the law. As in The Square Peg, Wisdom also plays his nemesis here, the German General Schreiber, as well as the chief suspect in a series of jewel robberies which only Pitkin's chaotic antics can solve. In fact, as if emphasising that On the Beat really is The Square Peg with different uniforms, Terence Alexander, who later found fame as Charlie Hungerford in the long running BBC series Bergerac, also returns, albeit playing a different character. Wisdom film-regular David Lodge, previously seen co-starring in The Bulldog Breed (1960) is also on hand, though otherwise the supporting cast is less stellar than before. Solid if very predictable feel-good entertainment, Wisdom's particular brand of charming anarchy proves again his box-office formula could withstand endless variations. --Gary S Dalkin