"Actor: Donald Kerr"

• M.A.S.H. - Single Disc Edition | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £9.95   |  Saving you £8.04 (80.80%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Ensemble drama from acclaimed director Robert Altman centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer (Neve Campbell) who's poised to become a principal performer.

• M.A.S.H. | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ensemble drama from acclaimed director Robert Altman centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer (Neve Campbell) who's poised to become a principal performer.

• M*A*S*H | Blu Ray | (04/11/2013) from £19.19   |  Saving you £-4.94 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  MASH--a 1970 comedy-drama set among surgeons drafted into the Korean war--was a breakthrough not just for director Robert Altman but for movie-making in general. Although set in the 50s, there are few who did not realise that the film's anti-war messages were directed at the US involvement in Vietnam. Indeed, the Pentagon banned US servicemen from seeing the film. Starring Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce and Elliot Gould as Trapper John McIntyre, two hip young surgeons drafted against their will. Their general attitude--while never corroding either their humanity or their professionalism as surgeons--is one of insolence towards military authority and the arbitrary structures and regulations continually droning from the tannoy system. The film, too, thrives on a lack of attention to conventional order, with its cross-dialogue and random, episodic style reflecting the vivacious and unbuttoned feel of the content. However, MASH has dated and much of what seemed like "liberating" high jinks, today smacks of sexist, frathouse boorishness and harassment, especially at the expense of Major "Hotlips" Hoolihan (Sally Kellerman), while the episode in which "Painless" plans a suicide out of a fear of being gay reflects the persistence of homophobia even in 60s counterculture. Despite this MASH feels ahead of its time and certainly sharper and blacker than the too-cute sitcom it spawned. On the DVD: this is an excellent restoration, overseen by Altman himself, in which any obfuscation from the original have been cleaned up, especially the sound quality. As well as a commentary from Altman, there are three separate documentaries, featuring interviews with Altman, the cast and screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr, who had been blacklisted during the anti-Communist witch-hunt which swept through Hollywood in the 1950s. We learn he was initially appalled at how little of his script Altman actually used but was mollified by the Academy Award he received. Altman is candid about the making of the movie ("It wasn't released by Fox, it escaped from Fox"). There's an abundance of similarly rich, anecdotal material here. --David Stubbs

• Path To War | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £15.17   |  Saving you £-9.18 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  As the successor to a martyred president Lyndon B. Johnson sought to transform America into a 'Great Society' of equal opportunity. Instead he became the symbol for the most unpopular war in U.S. history. Michael Gambon (as President Johnson) Donald Sutherland (as Clark Gifford) and Alec Baldwin (as Robert McNamara) star in a compelling drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams set inside the LBJ White House in the volatile years leading up to and during Vietnam. This HBO production was decorated director John Frankenheimer's final film.

• Martina Coles Ladykillers | DVD | (23/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  British crime writer, Martina Cole, examines the life and times of the most notorious female serial killers across history and asks: Why do women kill and why are we surprised when they do? Each programme tells the story of an individual killer with expert analysis and dramatic reconstruction. The first programme looks at Myra Hindley, who along with Ian Brady was responsible for a spate of child murders in the 1960s, and features interviews with Hindley s lawyer and prison chaplain. Crime writer Martina Cole examines the backgrounds, personalities and behaviour of the notorious female murderer, re-examining evidence and providing a portrait of the sociological backgrounds that may have moulded her. The case of Rose West, who is currently serving a life sentence without parole for 10 separate counts of murder, committed during the 1970s and 80s. Her husband and partner in the sexually motivated crimes committed suicide in prison in 1995. Herself a victim of abuse, Rose directed her appetites toward her own children as well as at least eight other girls, whose dismembered remains were found buried at their home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester. Profile of nurse Beverley Allitt, dubbed the Angel of Death, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 for the murders of four children in her care at a hospital in Lincolnshire. Although she had repeatedly failed her exams, she was granted a six-month nursing position, during which she attacked 13 young patients before being arrested and eventually charged. Bristol-born Amelia Dyer qualified as a nurse and became a baby-farmer, looking after others babies. After deaths of children in her care she was charged with neglect and served six months in jail. Later she spent time in a mental asylum but carried on baby-farming. In 1896 she was hanged for the murder of Doris Marmon, a child in her care, but is suspected of having killed many more infants.

• M.A.S.H. (Special Edition) | DVD | (08/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ensemble drama from acclaimed director Robert Altman centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer (Neve Campbell) who's poised to become a principal performer.

• Devil Bat, The / The Corpse Vanishes | DVD | (16/05/2005) from £12.15   |  Saving you £4.84 (39.84%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In the Forties the studios of Hollywood's Poverty Row used Bela Lugosi to lure audience into theatres. The dark promise of Lugosi's name never ceased to pack them in.Lugosi made nine pictures for Sam Katzman and Monogram. The Corpse Vanishes (1942) might be the best. Bela's a scientist (aided by a sinister dwarf) who used the bodily fluids of virgin brides in his attempts to keep his ancient wife alive. This is just one of many many films Wallace Fox directed for Monogra