"Actor: Dick Francis"

• Here Comes the Sun | DVD | (20/01/2014) from £5.95   |  Saving you £4.04 (67.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Crazy Gang stalwarts Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen embark on a series of hilarious adventures in this charming musical comedy from 1946. The legendary duo's last screen outing for more than a decade, Here Comes the Sun is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. When a wealthy newspaper proprietor passes away, his crooked business partner moves to secure the deceased's fortune by substituting a false wi...

• Celebrity | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £5.74   |  Saving you £9.25 (161.15%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Woody Allen's Celebrity--a portrait of the celebrity life as seen through the eyes of a newly divorced couple--is a black-and-white, New York-style La Dolce Vita that's a chillier flip side to Allen's earlier New York valentine, Manhattan. Despite a few missteps, though, it's an admirable (if dark) and worthy addition to the Allen pantheon. Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis (both boasting American accents) star as the ex-couple, each struggling to build new, separate lives in a media-saturated, celebrity-driven world. Branagh tries his hand at celebrity profiles (while peddling a screenplay to any star that will listen) and falls into the lap of a bosomy starlet (Melanie Griffith), the first in a long line of briefly attainable women. Davis runs into a producer (Joe Mantegna) who offers her a job as a TV personality as well as a loving relationship. This seemingly simple double plot is punctuated with twists and turns in the form of flashbacks and innumerable side trips, all ravishingly photographed in black and white by the legendary Sven Nykvist, and populated by one of Allen's largest casts ever; if you blink you'll miss countless cameos by Isaac Mizrahi, Donald Trump, Hank Azaria, Leonardo DiCaprio and a host of others. While Davis is splendid as usual (aside from the requisite nervous breakdown scene she's done one too many times), somebody should have told Branagh to put a kibosh on his Woody Allen imitation. His failure in the role, however, isn't entirely his fault, as it's another in a long line of unlikable male protagonists which Allen has created, as if daring audiences to hate his main characters after loving them in such movies as Manhattan and Annie Hall. Far more enjoyable misadventures with Branagh include Charlise Theron in the film's best performance as a libidinous supermodel with a penchant for Echinacea; a stunning Famke Janssen as a successful book editor; and Winona Ryder, acting like an adult for the first time, as an aspiring actress. But they all manage to slip through Branagh's fingers by the end of the film. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

• Dreaming | DVD | (21/04/2014) from £10.98   |  Saving you £1.00 (11.12%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Phenomenally successful entertainers Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen team up with larger-than-life vaudevillian Teddy Brown and future horror queen Hazel Court for this 1944 comedy feature presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements. Directed by John Baxter who collaborated with Flanagan and Allen on many of their wartime comedies Dreaming sees the duo seemingly proving that no good deed goes unpunished... When a pretty Wren faints in a crowded train Private Bud Flanagan and Captain Ches Allen are quick to render first aid. But over Bud's head a heavy kitbag wobbles; it falls and scores a direct hit knocking him unconscious. What follows is a dream sequence involving Ches the Wren and Bud himself in a series of hilarious adventures as well as a magical medley of the duo's best-loved musical numbers! SPECIAL FEATURES [] Image Gallery [] Promotional Material PDF