"Actor: Hanna Hertelendy"

• Rosemary's Baby | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (93.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  For Rosemary’s Baby, his modern horror tale about Satanic worship and a pregnant woman’s decline into madness, Roman Polanski moves from the traditional monolithic mansions of Gothic flicks to an apartment building in New York City. Based on Ira Levin’s novel, the story concerns Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse who find the apartment of their dreams in a luxurious complex in Manhattan. Soon after moving in and making friends with a group of elderly neighbours, Guy’s career takes off and Rosemary discovers she is pregnant. Their happiness seems complete. But gradually Rosemary begins to sense that something is wrong with this baby, and slowly and surely her life begins to unravel. Polanski uses such subtle means to build up the sense of preternatural disquiet that initially you suspect Rosemary’s prenatal paranoia to be a figment of her imagination. But the guilty parties and their demonic plan to make Rosemary the receptacle of their master’s child are eventually revealed and, as Rosemary looses her grip on reality, she realises that no one can be trusted. The performances are excellent throughout; Farrow as the young wife is so fragile that you wonder how she made it unscathed to adulthood and John Cassavetes is horrifyingly duplicitous as her husband Guy. But the real star is Polanski’s masterful direction. The mood is at the same time oppressive and hysterical with the mounting terror coming from the situation and gradually unravelling plot rather than any schlock horror moments. On the DVD: the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack shows off Christopher Komeda’s eerie "lullaby" score to it’s haunting best. The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and is relatively free of speckle and dust, some scenes filmed in low light are slightly grainier but this adds to the oppressive tension that Polanski is building up in the film. In terms of extras there is a 20-minute "making of" feature from 1968 and retrospective interviews with Polanski, production designer Richard Sylbert and producer Robert Evans. --Kristen Bowditch

• In Like Flint / Our Man Flint | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £14.35   |  Saving you £0.64 (4.46%)   |  RRP £14.99

  There's really been only one rival to James Bond: Derek Flint in the swinging-60s action-comedies Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). That's because of James Coburn's special brand of American cool. He's so cool, in fact, that he doesn't care to save the world. That is, until he's personally threatened. He's a true libertarian, with more gadgets and girls than Bond, but with none of his stress or responsibility. Our Man Flint finds our unflappable hero thwarting mad scientists who control the weather--and an island of pleasure drones. Lee J Cobb costars as Flint's flustered superior, and Edward Mulhare plays a British nemesis with snob appeal. For fans of Austin Powers, incidentally, the funny-sounding phone comes from the Flint films. However, Our Man Flint's best gadget remains the watch that enables Flint to feign death. There's a great Jerry Goldsmith score, too. There was bound to be a sequel, and In Like Flint delivers the same kind of zany fun as its predecessor. Flint is recruited once again by Lee J Cobb to be the government's top secret agent, this time to solve a mishap involving the President. It turns out, the Chief Executive has been replaced by an evil duplicate. The new plan for world domination involves feminine aggression, and Flint, with his overpowering charisma, is just the man to turn the hostile forces around. In Like Flint is still over the top, but some of the novelty has worn off, and it doesn't have quite the same edge as the original. Even Jerry Goldsmith's score is a bit more subdued. But the film still has James Coburn and that funny phone. --Bill Desowitz