"Actor: Don Herbert"

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £4.65   |  Saving you £18.34 (394.41%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Stepmom | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Although Stepmom was dismissed as a contender in the 1998 Oscar race, it's worth giving a second chance to this rather cogent, sharp-tongued look at second chances. Susan Sarandon's performance as a mum about to be replaced by her ex-husband's new girlfriend (played by Julia Roberts) has a lot of bite, and it's a shame the script opted to trivialise her plight in its final reel. Initially, the rancour that passes between divorced mum Jackie (Sarandon) and trendy fashion photographer Isabel (Roberts) rings true, aided by the sincerity of Jackie's ex-husband Luke (Ed Harris) and the emotional plight of their children, who have the most to lose in their parents' divorce. As the drama makes clear, the children are the real victims in the agony that ensues between old and new love. Director Chris Columbus, who is adept at showing familial chaos (he directed Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) with a sanitised minimum of lingering emotional damage, actually manages to dig a trifle deeper than usual in exploring the jealousy and hurt that occur when the baton is passed between a birth mum and the younger wife who steps into her shoes. Stepmom fortunately manages to touch on that chord--showing how an ambitious woman might feel hampered by the responsibility of children just because she's fallen in love with their dad--as well as the haunting grief that it causes their birth mum. It's an issue that haunts millions of second wives everywhere, and while Roberts conveys the confusion of being taken for granted in the melee that follows, it's Sarandon who walks off with the film. She's relentless in her fury, and everyone else in the film--the generally excellent Harris included--is sideswiped. It's just a shame that Hollywood once again wimps out in the end, solving the problem by giving Sarandon a terminal illness. Instead of allowing Jackie and Isabel's relationship to unfold on something less than a high note, the movie has to quell its best thing with a false payoff because it doesn't know what to do with real life. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com

• Battleground | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £5.56   |  Saving you £8.43 (151.62%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Director William Wellman (The Big Heat) offered up this 1949 treatment of the Battle of the Bulge, which won Oscars for best screenplay and best cinematography. The film concentrates on the camaraderie and the divisions between the troops as they prepare for the big offensive. Told in a taut narrative, the men of the 101st, led by Van Johnson, wait out the winter in the Ardennes forest to confront the German army in what would be the last major offensive of World War II. The men are demoralised and trapped, with no hope of support from the Allies as they are forced to band together and defend their position. A classically assembled war drama that nevertheless manages to be both engrossing and entertaining, Battleground is a mainstay of the genre. --Robert Lane

• Hud | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (77.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Paul Newman is Hud a man at odds with his father tradition and himself. Hud's only interests are fighting drinking hot-rodding his Cadillac and womanising. Melvyn Douglas is the father an old-line cattle rancher and Patricia Neal is the understanding and appealing housekeeper. Academy Awards went to Patricia Neal Melvyn Douglas and James Wong Howe's brilliant cinematography.

• Lord Peter Wimsey - The Nine Tailors | DVD | (06/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on the series of novels written by Dorothy L Sayers in the 1920s and 30s, Lord Peter Wimsey was dramatised for TV by the BBC between 1972-5. Ian Carmichael, veteran of British film comedy, played the genial, aristocratic sleuth; Glyn Houston was his manservant Bunter. The pair are similar to PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster (whom Carmichael played in an earlier TV adaptation) though here the duo are equal in intelligence, breezing about the country together in Wimsey's Bentley and stumbling with morbid regularity upon baffling murder mysteries to test their wits. Those for whom this series forms hazy memories of childhood might be surprised at its somewhat stagy, lingering interior shots, the spartan paucity of music, the miserly attitude towards locations, especially foreign ones, and the rather genteel, leisurely pace of these programmes, besides which Inspector Morse seems like Quentin Tarantino in comparison. It seems that initially the BBC was reluctant to commission the series and ventured on production with a wary eye on the budget. The Britain depicted by Sayers is, by and large, populated by either the upper classes or heavily accented, rum-do-and-no-mistake lower orders, which some might find consoling. However, the acting is generally excellent and the murder mysteries are sophisticated parlour games, the televisual equivalent of a good, absorbing jigsaw puzzle. There were five feature-length adaptations in all. "The Nine Tailors" weaves an especially elaborate tale, involving jewel theft, campanology (the art of bell-ringing) and dual identity. --David Stubbs

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £19.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (15.01%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Quatermass 2 | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Quatermass is intrigued by strange images on his radar. Thinking them to be meteorites he follows them to a village which on his arrival he finds has been completely destroyed...

• The Net | DVD | (07/10/2019) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Tense 1950 s Cold War thriller superbly directed by Anthony Asquith. Behind the net , the wire fencing surrounding the top secret British research establishment Port Amberly, researchers have produced a new weapon that could change the balance of power of the Cold War. Led by Professor Heathley (James Donald) an experimental supersonic jet aircraft code named M7 has been developed. All that remains is to test fly the prototype, and whilst Heathley wants to undertake testing himself his wife (Phyliis Calvert) and his boss believe it is too dangerous. The risks are increased by the presence of foreign agents who are trying to sabotage Heathley s work. Will they succeed or will Britain and her allies gain a crucial advantage in the Cold War?

• Dinner At The Sporting Club | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £4.85   |  Saving you £5.14 (105.98%)   |  RRP £9.99

  BBC drama about young boxers entertaining dressed diners at a club with a bout or two. Thaw plays the manager of one of the boxers. Written by Leon Griffiths (also the writter of 'Minder').

• Carry On Jack | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £4.50   |  Saving you £11.49 (255.33%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Carry On Jack was the 1963 offering from a team which had, by then, become a repertory company with special guests dropping in for a dose of innuendo. "What's all this jigging in the rigging?" demands Kenneth Williams, this time playing a ship's captain, and the scene is set for 90 minutes of ribaldry involving cross-dressing, press-ganging and plank walking. The plot scarcely matters. It's set after the Battle of Trafalgar and the sea is awash with Spanish galleons and pirates as the British navy sets about defending its shores with as much incompetence as possible. Sally, a barmaid at the Dirty Duck (Juliet Mills in feisty principal boy mode), knocks Bernard Cribbins on the head and steals his uniform so that she can go in search of her childhood sweetheart. He is promptly press-ganged and they end up on the same ship. Williams, on the brink of his ascendancy as a star turn, just about keeps the mannerisms under control enough to build the character of the naïve and neurotic captain. Familiar Carry On faces on top form include Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale, while Peter Gilmore--in his pre-Onedin Line days--appears as a pirate. Peter Rodgers' script is not quite vintage Carry On but the jokes keep coming and it's all good, clean fun. On the DVD: This was one of the first Carry On films to be made in colour. The print is in reasonable condition. The picture quality, apart from a couple of scratchy scenes of sailing ships that were probably drafted in from stock footage, is fair, as is the sound. But apart from the scene index there are no extras on the disc. Given the cult status of the Carry On films, and the wealth of documentary material which has been made about them and their stars, you'd think something extra could have been offered with the DVD releases to make them a more worthwhile alternative to the video. --Piers Ford

• The Bridge on the River Kwai/Das Boot/The Guns of Navarone | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Bridge Over The River Kwai: Set in Burma during World War II the story tells of British P.O.Ws who are forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese while a British Commando team is sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards. (Dir. David Lean 1957) Das Boot: Das Boot is a graphic and gripping tale that follows the daring patrol of U-96 one of the famed German U-Boats known as 'The Grey Wolves'. Prowling the North Atlantic they challenged the British Navy at every turn. The crew abroad the U-96 is portrayed in a desperate life-and-death struggle coping with life beneath the waves quickly gives way to terror when confronting the enemy... (Dir. Wolfgang Peterson 1981) The Guns Of Navarone: Exciting war film based on a novel by Alistair Maclean which tells of the attempts of a British raiding team to sabotage two giant German guns on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Carl Foreman brought Allistar MacLean's best-selling novel to the screen winning nominations for seven Academy Awards in 1961. (Dir. J. Lee Thompson 1961)

• Pot O' Gold | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  A rare musical/comedy outing for James Stewart then at the peak of his career. Stewart plays James Hamilton Haskell a former music store worker who joins his uncle's health food business and befriends a band along the way. His uncle hates music his hatred not being helped by the fact that the band practice next door to his factory. Based on a popular radio show of the time (also called POT O' GOLD) the film gave both James Stewart and Paulette Goddard the opportunity of displayi

• Sherlock Holmes In Washington | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £6.79   |  Saving you £-0.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are called to the American capital to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a top secret microfilm which was concealed in a box of matches carried by a murdered secret agent...

• The Royal Hunt Of The Sun | DVD | (01/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An epic tale of the Spanish conquest of Peru. This film will keep you glued to the screen in anticipation of the fateful ending. The world will remember me ” promises Spanish General Francesco Pizarro to the King of Spain. He tells of a land of endless gold enough to make Spain the most powerful of nations. But Pizarro is a dreamer a man of failures. The King allows him to search but at his own expense. Thus armed with a band of ruthless gold-seeking soldiers of fortune Pizarro journeys over vast mountains and harsh desert to reach Monchepechu. When faced with the life or death of the Inca God-King Atahualpa Pizarro struggles with his duty as a soldier and his loyalties to God his men and himself all of which are called into question by his fascination with the devotion and worship of the mystical man-god. Pizarro must choose between life or death and his god or another. This true epic adventure of undying faith brave yet greedy men loyalty to god king and country and one's own sense of morality hurtles towards an ending that answers humankind's hardest question Whose God is the real God?

• BEAUTIFUL BLONDE FROM BASHFUL BEND (1949) | Blu Ray | (01/11/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Trader Hornee | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Twenty-one years after two zoologists disapperaed in the jungle detective Hamilton Hornee leads an expedition into daftest Africa to search for their missing daughter Algona heiress to her father's fortune. Joining him are 'Sultry' Sommer a lesbian journalist Tender Lee two of Algona's greedy S & M loving relatives and Stanley Livingston on the lookout for Nabucco a legendary white gorilla. But Algona just so happens to be the magnificent blonde she-goddess worshipped by the Meshpokas 'the most feared humans in all Africa' while Nabucco turns out out to be an escaped Nazi in an ape suit.

• Scarecrows | DVD | (28/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Five men heist the Camp Pendleton payroll and kidnap a pilot and his daughter who are forced to fly them to Mexico. En route a double cross has one of the thieves parachute with the loot into an abandoned graveyard surrounded by strange scarecrows. The rest of the team jump after their loot and their former partner. Everything happens during the course of one very dark night.

• Dead Man Of Deadwood | DVD | (14/02/2005) from £15.58   |  Saving you £1.41 (9.05%)   |  RRP £16.99

  ""Roy"" is a member of Gabby's road show playing in the town of Deadwood. When ""Gabby"" is wired thirty-five thousand dollars he takes it in rare thousand dollar bills and is unfortunately robbed. ""Roy and Gabby"" have an idea of who is behind the theft but they have no proof. They break into the bank taking only its deposit and withdrawal records and then rob an armed coach of these bills. To the surprise of the robbers the bills are apportioned to each member of the civic association

• The Bridge on the River Kwai (65th Anniversary Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (07/06/2022) from £79.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Bridge On The River Kwai - The Reel Collection | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £19.95   |  Saving you £-6.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Set in Burma during World War II the story tells of British P.O.Ws who are forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese while a British Commando team is sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards