"Actor: Gene Lockhart"

• Carousel | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £6.20   |  Saving you £9.79 (157.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The 1956 screen adaptation of Carousel, like its immediate predecessor Oklahoma!, boasted then state-of-the-art widescreen cinematography, stereophonic sound, a starring romantic duo with on-screen chemistry, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein imprimatur. Adding to its promise was a source (the venerable Ferenc Molnar play Liliom) that had already been filmed three times. Contributing to the lustre are the coastal Maine locations where 20th Century Fox filmed principal photography. Yet unlike the original Broadway production, and despite evident craft, Carousel proved a box-office disappointment. Why? Hindsight argues that movie-goers of the 1950s may have been unprepared for its tragic narrative, the sometimes unsympathetic protagonist, and a spiritual subtext addressing life after death. Whatever the obstacle, Carousel may well be a revelation to first-time viewers. The score is among the composers' most affecting, from the glorious instrumental "Carousel Waltz" to a succession of exquisite love songs ("If I Loved You"), a heart-rending secular hymn ("You'll Never Walk Alone"), and the expectant father's poignant reverie, "Soliloquy". Top-line stars Shirley Jones (as factory worker Julie Jordan) and Gordon MacRae (as Billy Bigelow, the carnival barker who woos and weds her) achieve greater dramatic urgency here than in the more successful Oklahoma!. MacRae in particular attains a personal best as the conflicted Billy, whose anxiety and wounded pride after losing his job are crucial to the plot. It's Billy's impatience to support his new family that drives him to an ill-fated decision, which transforms the fable into a ghost story. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com

• Carousel | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £9.15   |  Saving you £6.84 (74.75%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2006 Carousel tells the story of Billy Bigelow a smooth-talking carnival barker who falls in love with a mill-worker on the colourful coast of Maine. But right before the birth of his daughter Billy is killed while committing a robbery. Now in heaven years later he returns to earth for one day to attend his daughter's high school graduation and teach her one very important lesson... Featuring classics like 'If I Loved You' and the insp

• Joanna | Blu Ray | (25/04/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Billed on the film's original release as 'the female Alfie' seventeen-year-old Joanna is cool stylish and determined to start a new life as an art student in swinging London. Played with gusto by Genevive Wate Joanna indulges in the pleasures of casual sexual encounters colourful daydreams and an impromptu trip to Morocco with the wise and debonair Lord Peter Sanderson (wonderfully played by Donald Sutherland). But when Joanna falls in love with Gordon from Sierra Leone her life begins to get complicated.

• Bing Crosby Collection - Going My Way / The Bells Of St. Mary's | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Bells Of St. Mary's (Dir. Leo McCarey 1945): This Going My Way sequel stars Bing Crosby reprising his role as worldly-wise Father Chuck O'Malley and introduces Crosby's beloved song Aren't You Glad You're You? Father O'Malley is transferred to the soon-to-be-condemned school run by Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) and the two quickly match wits and stubbornness eventually finding a middle ground. A surprisingly light touch of sentimentality and humor gives this film by director Leo McCarey a glow of genuine feeling that effortlessly captures viewers' hearts. Going My Way (Dir. Leo McCarey 1944): Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley (Bing Crosby) led a colorful life of sports song and romance before joining the Roman Catholic clergy but his level gaze and twinkling eyes make it clear that he knows he made the right choice. After joining a parish O'Malley's worldly knowledge helps him connect with a gang of kids looking for direction and handle the business details of the church-building fund winning over his aging conventional superior (Barry Fitzgerald). Songs such as Swinging on a Star sparkle and both Crosby and Fitzgerald do a fine job tugging at the heartstrings in a gentle irresistible way that will make viewers return to this lovely film again and again.

• Leave Her to Heaven | DVD | (24/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Leave Her to Heaven is one of the most unblinkingly perverse movies ever offered up as a prestige picture by a major studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Gene Tierney, whose lambent eyes, porcelain features, and sweep of healthy-American-girl hair customarily made her a 20th Century Fox icon of purity, scored an Oscar nomination playing a demonically obsessive daughter of privilege with her own monstrous notion of love. By the time she crosses eyebeams with popular novelist Cornel Wilde on a New Mexico-bound train, her jealous manipulations have driven her parents apart and her father to his grave. Well, no, not grave: Wilde soon gets to watch her gallop a glorious palomino across a red-rock horizon as she metronomically sows Dad's ashes to the winds. Mere screen moments later, she's jettisoned rising-politico fiancé Vincent Price and accepted a marriage proposal the besotted/bewildered Wilde hasn't quite made. Can the wrecking of his and several other lives be far behind? Not to mention a murder or two. Fox gave Ben Ames Williams's bestselling novel (probably just the sort of book Wilde's character writes) the Class-A treatment. Alfred Newman's tympani-heavy music score signals both grandeur and pervasive psychosis, while spectacular, dust-jacket-worthy locations and Oscar-destined Technicolor cinematography by Leon Shamroy ensure our fixed gaze. Impeccably directed by the veteran John M. Stahl (who'd made the original Back Street, Imitation of Life, and Magnificent Obsession a decade earlier), the result is at once cuckoo and hieratic, and weirdly mesmerizing. Bet Luis Buñuel loved it. --Richard T. Jameson

• The Birdcage | DVD | (01/02/2000) from £11.26   |  Saving you £4.73 (42.01%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The great improvisational comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May reunited to (respectively) direct and write this update of the French comedy La Cage Aux Folles. Robin Williams stars as a gay Miami nightclub owner who is forced to play it straight and ask his drag-queen partner (Nathan Lane) to hide out when Williams's son invites his prospective--and highly conservative--in-laws and fiancée to a meet-and-greet dinner party. Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest play the straight-laced senator and his wife, and Calista Flockhart (from television's Ally McBeal) plays their daughter in a culture-clash with outrageous consequences. May's witty screenplay incorporates some pointed observations about the political landscape of the 1990s and takes a sensitive approach to the comedy's underlying drama. Topping off the action is Hank Azaria in a scene-stealing role as Williams's and Lane's flamboyant housekeeper, "Agador Spartacus." --Jeff Shannon

• Leave Her To Heaven | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Leave Her to Heaven is one of the most unblinkingly perverse movies ever offered up as a prestige picture by a major studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Gene Tierney, whose lambent eyes, porcelain features, and sweep of healthy-American-girl hair customarily made her a 20th Century Fox icon of purity, scored an Oscar nomination playing a demonically obsessive daughter of privilege with her own monstrous notion of love. By the time she crosses eyebeams with popular novelist Cornel Wilde on a New Mexico-bound train, her jealous manipulations have driven her parents apart and her father to his grave. Well, no, not grave: Wilde soon gets to watch her gallop a glorious palomino across a red-rock horizon as she metronomically sows Dad's ashes to the winds. Mere screen moments later, she's jettisoned rising-politico fiancé Vincent Price and accepted a marriage proposal the besotted/bewildered Wilde hasn't quite made. Can the wrecking of his and several other lives be far behind? Not to mention a murder or two. Fox gave Ben Ames Williams's bestselling novel (probably just the sort of book Wilde's character writes) the Class-A treatment. Alfred Newman's tympani-heavy music score signals both grandeur and pervasive psychosis, while spectacular, dust-jacket-worthy locations and Oscar-destined Technicolor cinematography by Leon Shamroy ensure our fixed gaze. Impeccably directed by the veteran John M. Stahl (who'd made the original Back Street, Imitation of Life, and Magnificent Obsession a decade earlier), the result is at once cuckoo and hieratic, and weirdly mesmerizing. Bet Luis Buñuel loved it. --Richard T. Jameson

• The House on 92nd Street | DVD | (24/09/2012) from £9.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The F.B.I.'s own tense, terrific story behind the protection of the Atomic Bomb!Nazi spies have infiltrated America, one of which tries to recruit a college graduate, who then becomes a double agent for the F.B.I.

• Going My Way/The Glenn Miller Story | DVD | (26/12/2006) from £10.78   |  Saving you £2.21 (17.00%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Going My Way (Dir. Leo McCarey): When an old and fading St. Dominic's church gets a young new priest (Crosby) things are bound to change. For starters young Father O'Malley meets the crusty old Father Fitzgibbons (Barry Fitzgerald) who doesn't think much of him or his ideas. The two have their differences but O'Malley is able to inspire some neighbourhood roughnecks to open their hearts and minds in a way the old priest simply could not do. Once the change has begun the church starts to find its way back into the lives of those who live near its doors and its meaning to all involved grows dearer to their souls. The air is filled with music from the classic 'Ave Maria' sung by Metropolitan Opera star Rise Stevens to the Academy Award-winning 'Swinging On a Star'. Also winner of the Oscar for Best Film in 1945. The Glenn Miller Story (Dir. Anthony Mann 1953): The true story of an unassuming band leader and trombonist Glenn Miller (played by James Stewart) who got his first break playing his own arrangement of 'Everybody Loves My Baby' at an audition. He never looked back. He married his childhood sweetheart and everything he played became an instant hit...songs like 'Moonlight Serenade' 'String of Pearls' and 'Tuxedo Junction'. Hollywood beckoned and success piled upon success. But then came World War II. A war from which Glenn Miller never returned. He was on his way to Paris to entertain the American Forces when his plane disappeared. But the show had to go on...and Glenn Miller became a legend. The film features all of Glenn Miller's hits and there are many guest performances who make this film an all time classic. Winner of an Oscar for Best Sound in 1955.

• Miracle On 34th Street | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £4.44   |  Saving you £1.55 (34.91%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The original 1947 version of this Valentine Davies story follows the misadventures of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) as he gets a job playing Santa Claus at Macy's department store in New York City. Natalie Wood is the little girl who tells him she doesn't believe in Santa, and Maureen O'Hara and John Payne are the couple who help Kris through a trial in which he must prove he's the jolly fellow from the North Pole. A sweet movie and perennial Christmas favourite, Miracle on 34th Street is one of those films that gets under your skin and must be revisited every so often. --Tom Keogh

• Going My Way | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £3.00   |  Saving you £6.99 (70.00%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When an old and fading St. Dominic's church gets a young new priest (Crosby) things are bound to change. For starters young Father O'Malley meets the crusty old Father Fitzgibbons (Barry Fitzgerald) who doesn't think much of him or his ideas. The two have their differences but O'Malley is able to inspire some neighbourhood roughnecks to open their hearts and minds in a way the old priest simply could not do. Once the change has begun the church starts to find its way back into the

• The Inspector General | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £6.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Arrested for vagrancy in a strange town Georgi is then mistaken by the corrupt town officials as a passing Inspector General. Worried that he will reveal they have been pocketing tax money they make a series of attempts on his life....

• Action in Arabia | DVD | (16/07/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  World War Two is raging, and the flames of conflict are spreading to the Middle East. When ace journalist Michael Gordon - George Sanders at his smoothest - lands in Damascus, he finds a city crackling with spies, double dealing and femmes fatales. Nazi agents are trying to ally the Arabs to their cause and Gordon must stop them. If he doesn't, the whole war could be lost...With a cast headed by the peerless Sanders (Man Hunt, Moonfleet) and featuring some of Hollywood's most beloved actors - Gene Lockhart (Hangmen Also Die), Alan Napier (Ministry of Fear) and Marcel Dalio (Casablanca) - Action in Arabia is a classic adventure from the Golden Age.

• South Pacific / Oklahoma / Carousel | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  South Pacific: Blessed with a treasure of timeless songs South Pacific combines the passionate heartwarming romance of a naive young Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) and an older French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi) with South Seas splendour and a world at war while the breathtaking score is highlighted by some of the most romantic songs ever written. Oklahoma!: Rodgers and Hammerstein's charming and vigorous tale of romance and adventure set in the Wild West. Songs include 'People Will Say We're In Love' 'Oh What A Beautiful Morning' and the title song 'Oklahoma!' Carousel: Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones are reunited in this second classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. In this bittersweet love story Billy Bigelow (MacRae) a smooth-taking carny barker falls in love with a milworker (Jones) in a little town on the coast of Maine. Although Billy is killed during a robbery before the birth of his daughter years later he is allowed to return to earth for one day to redeem himself - and to teach his daughter one very important lesson. This the most poetic and lyrical of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals features the classics If I Loved You and You'll Never Walk Alone.

• His Girl Friday | DVD | (09/12/2002) from £3.51   |  Saving you £10.74 (477.33%)   |  RRP £12.99

  His Girl Friday is one of the five greatest dialogue comedies ever made. Howard Hawks had his cast play it at breakneck speed, and audiences hyperventilate trying to finish with one laugh so they can do justice to the four that have accumulated in the meantime. Rosalind Russell, not Hawks' first choice to play Hildy Johnson--the ace newsperson whom demonic editor Walter Burns is trying to keep from quitting and getting married--is triumphant in the part, holding her own as "one of the guys" and creating an enduring feminist icon. Cary Grant's Walter Burns is a force of nature, giving a performance of such concentrated frenzy and diamond brilliance that you owe it to yourself to devote at least one viewing of the movie to watching him alone. But then you have to go back (lucky you) and watch it again for the sake of the press-room gang--Roscoe Karns, Porter Hall, Cliff Edwards, Regis Toomey, Frank Jenks, and others--the kind of ensemble work that gets character actors onto Parnassus. --Richard T Jameson, Amazon.com

• Miracle on 34th Street | Blu Ray | (04/11/2013) from £7.36   |  Saving you £1.63 (22.15%)   |  RRP £8.99

  The original 1947 version of this Valentine Davies story follows the misadventures of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) as he gets a job playing Santa Claus at Macy's department store in New York City. Natalie Wood is the little girl who tells him she doesn't believe in Santa, and Maureen O'Hara and John Payne are the couple who help Kris through a trial in which he must prove he's the jolly fellow from the North Pole. A sweet movie and perennial Christmas favourite, Miracle on 34th Street is one of those films that gets under your skin and must be revisited every so often. --Tom Keogh

• Carousel | DVD | (20/03/2006) from £4.96   |  Saving you £8.03 (161.90%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2006 Carousel tells the story of Billy Bigelow a smooth-talking carnival baker who falls in love with a mill-worker on the colourful coast of Maine. But right before the birth of his daughter Billy is killed while committing a robbery. Now in heaven years later he returns to earth for one day to attend his daughter's high school graduation and teach her one very important lesson... Featuring classics like 'If I Loved You' and the inspi

• His Girl Friday | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £6.48   |  Saving you £-2.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  His Girl Friday is one of the five greatest dialogue comedies ever made. Howard Hawks had his cast play it at breakneck speed, and audiences hyperventilate trying to finish with one laugh so they can do justice to the four that have accumulated in the meantime. Rosalind Russell, not Hawks' first choice to play Hildy Johnson--the ace newsperson whom demonic editor Walter Burns is trying to keep from quitting and getting married--is triumphant in the part, holding her own as "one of the guys" and creating an enduring feminist icon. Cary Grant's Walter Burns is a force of nature, giving a performance of such concentrated frenzy and diamond brilliance that you owe it to yourself to devote at least one viewing of the movie to watching him alone. But then you have to go back (lucky you) and watch it again for the sake of the press-room gang--Roscoe Karns, Porter Hall, Cliff Edwards, Regis Toomey, Frank Jenks, and others--the kind of ensemble work that gets character actors onto Parnassus. --Richard T Jameson, Amazon.com

• The Inspector General | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £12.96   |  Saving you £-7.97 (-159.70%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In this delightful period farce set in Russia in the 1800's Danny Kaye plays and illiterate buffoon who is mistaken by the villagers for their feared Inspector General. Hilarious situations ensue as Danny is caught up in court intrigue without having a clue of what is going on.

• Miracle On 34th Street | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £3.29   |  Saving you £2.70 (82.07%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The 1947 classic now in colour! Discover that miracles really do happen with one of the most spellbinding Christmas classic tales of all time. When Kris Kringle is hired to be Santa Claus in a department store's 34th Street branch his success is overwhelming much to the disdain of a rival store. When their attempts to discredit Santa take hold threatening all that is sacred and magical about Christmas prepare to find out that miracles really do happen...