"Actor: George Donald"

• Comic Book Heroes | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Yes, they were originally Comic Book Heroes, although The Lone Ranger and Zorro's Black Whip are probably best remembered as the 1949 TV series and the 1944 Republic cinema serial respectively. This excellent three-disc set gives us the first three episodes of the former and the entire 12 episodes of the latter. The origin of the Lone Ranger is quite an extraordinary tale by any standards, let alone those of the fizzy blandness of 1940s American TV: originally one of the Texas Rangers, recruited to act as a mobile police force during the lawless days of the West, his entire patrol is massacred and he himself is left for dead, prompting him to become the masked vigilante of the title. The stark brutality of this event is depicted in chilling, slow-paced detail in the first episode, the distinctive voice-over narrative adding a dream-like detachment to the proceedings. Zorro's Black Whip, though slicker, is also innovative in that the main protagonist is female. The sister of a crusading newspaper editor who moonlights as the Black Whip, another masked righter of wrongs, she takes over both his day job and his crime-fighting role when he is murdered. Conveniently, she's a descendant of the legendary Zorro himself, with whip-wielding skills seemingly in her genes. But does this stuff stand up after all these years? In short, absolutely; this is first-rate period entertainment and as such is self-recommending. On the DVD: Comic Book Heroes has been transferred in its original 1.33:1 ratio and has been lovingly remastered--never has old monochrome footage glowed so richly. There are no subtitles or other extra features, though. --Roger Thomas

• Perfect Storm, The (Limited Edition DVD Box Set with Senitype Signed by George Clooney) (2000) | DVD | (27/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £124.99

• The Perfect Storm (Deluxe Series) | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  George Clooney & Mark Wahlberg star in this spectacular tale of a fishing boat caught at sea during the worse storm ever recorded.

• The Dirty Dozen | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller. Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialised soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds. Of course, there's a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin's band of badmen must agree to a suicide mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It's a hazardous path to glory, but the men have no other choice than to accept and regain their lost honor. What makes The Dirty Dozen special is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is the Oscar-nominated standout as one of Marvin's most rebellious yet heroic men, but it's the whole ensemble--combined with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich--that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser. The script by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller (from the novel by E.M. Nathanson) is strong enough to support the all-star lineup with ample humour and military grit, so if you're in need of a mainline jolt of testosterone, The Dirty Dozen is the movie for you. --Jeff Shannon

• In Old Cheyenne | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £15.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (5.90%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Newspaper reporter Steve Blane pays a visit to Cheyenne to expose the infamous outlaw Arapahoe Brown. However Arapahoe saves Blane's life and the two soon learn who is begind the spate of crimes that earn't Brown his reputation....

• My Pal Trigger | DVD | (14/02/2005) from £15.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (5.90%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Gabby refuses to breed his horse the Golden Sovereign with Roy's. When the Sovereign and Roy's horse escape Skoville shoots the Sovereign by mistake but Roy is blamed and jailed. A year later Roy returns with Trigger the son of the Sovereign. When Skoville slips and reveals he was present when the horse was shot Roy sees a chance to clear his name.

• George Raft - Follow The Boys | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Hollywood's biggest stars come together for a great cause! Produced during World War Two as a morale boosting effort for the troops Follow The Boys features all of Universal's biggest stars of the day. It tells the story of young Tony who is seeking fame and fortune in Hollywood and the beautiful actress Vera who meet and fall in love.

• Straw Dogs | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  According to critic Pauline Kael Straw Dogs was "the first American film that is a fascist work of art". Sam Peckinpah's only film shot in Britain is adapted from a novel by Gordon M Williams called The Siege of Trencher's Farm which Peckinpah described as a "lousy book with one good action-adventure sequence". The setting is Cornwall, where mild-mannered US academic David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) has bought a house with his young English wife Amy (Susan George) in the village where she grew up. David is mocked by the locals (one of whom is Amy's ex-boyfriend) and treated with growing contempt by his frustrated wife, but when his house comes under violent siege he finds unexpected reserves of resourcefulness and aggression. The movie, Peckinpah noted, was much influenced by Robert Ardrey's macho-anthropological tract, The Territorial Imperative. Its take on Cornish village life is fairly bizarre--this is a Western in all but name--and many critics balked at the transposition of Peckinpah's trademark blood-and-guts to the supposed peace of the British countryside. A scene where Amy is raped caused particular outrage, not least since it's hinted she consents to it. Not for the first time in Peckinpah's movies there are disquieting elements of misogyny, and it doesn't help that the chemistry between Hoffman and George is non-existent. (Impossible to believe these two would ever have clicked, let alone married.) But taken as a vision of irrational violence irrupting into a civilised way of life Straw Dogs is powerful and unsettling, and the action sequences are executed with all Peckinpah's unfailing flair and venom. Oh, and that title? A quote from Chinese sage Lao-Tze, it seems, "The wise man is ruthless and treats the people as straw dogs." The film was long withheld from home viewing in Britain by nervous censors, but this release presents it complete and uncut. --Philip KempOn the DVD: Straw Dogs is as jam-packed a disc as is possible for a film made before the days of obligatory "making of" features. Both the sound and visuals have transferred well, and, like the script, have aged well. There's a bumbling original interview in the style of Harry Enfield's Mr. Cholmondley-Warner, along with stills and original trailers. The new material includes a feature on the history of the film's censorship and commentaries by Peckinpah's biographers musing over interesting fan-facts (though none of the speakers have any first-hand experience of the making of the film). However, Katy Haber's commentary, and interviews with Susan George and Dan Melnick, offer a much more in-depth and intimate portrayal of the man and the making of the film. --Nikki Disney