"Actor: Hardy"

• Laurel And Hardy Collection - Vol 1 (Silent Comedy) | DVD | (27/08/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £23.99

  Stan Laurel in 'The Home Wrecker' Discharged from the 372nd infantry on account of a bean shortage Smithy (Laurel) seeks employment as a labourer. Given a note to take to the Foreman who upon reading it asks ""Do you know anything about building?"" ""No "" Smithy replies to which the foreman says ""Just the man we're looking for"". So starts a wonderful little comedy. Oliver Hardy in 'The Four Wheeled Terror' Hardy plays ""Dangerous Dan McGraw"" who along with his henchmen try to pr

• Farscape 1.5 | DVD | (30/10/2000) from £4.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (120.24%)   |  RRP £10.99

  Farscape is genre television at its most ambitious, inspired both by the cult appeal of Babylon 5 and the continuing success of the Star Trek franchise, but taking a visual and conceptual leap beyond those shows. Making extensive use of CGI, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the Farscape concept has a freshness that makes it look and feel completely original. The production design is all bio-mechanical curves and the script, which is peppered with post-modern pop culture references and film in-jokes, never takes itself too seriously. It may be expensive to make, but it certainly looks (and sounds--in Dolby Digital 5.1) like every penny made it to the screen. Ben Browder plays leading man John Crichton as a latter-day Buck Rogers but with an entirely believable sense of bewilderment, not to mention loss; the rest of the living ship Moya's crew also has plenty of difficult issues to deal with, allowing Farscape's writers licence to develop their characters in often unexpected ways. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the format. Box Set 5: these four episodes lead up to the climax of the show's first season. "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory" make for a bold two-parter in which Crichton is reunited with his Peacekeeper Tech girlfriend, Gilina, and emotions are strained as he infiltrates a Peacekeeper base to find a cure for Aeryn's wound. But the story's most important function is to introduce the dreaded Scorpius, who uses his Aurora chair torture device to extract what he mistakenly believes is vital knowledge from Crichton. Scorpius, it soon becomes clear, is just not going to go away. In "Bone to be Wild" the crew is still on the run from the vengeful Scorpius and take refuge on a strange vegetation-covered asteroid where there's a deadly role-reversal of the beauty and the beast story taking place. Finally in "Family Ties" the season ends on a tense cliffhanger as Rygel plots with Scorpius, Crais intervenes unexpectedly, Moya's child turns out to be something of a handful, and Crichton and D'Argo must take a desperate gamble. Also on the disc is an interview with costume designer Terry Ryan and a profile of the Australian Creature Shop. --Mark Walker

• Hollywood Comedy Collection - Vol. 1 | DVD | (30/04/2007) from £30.93   |  Saving you £-9.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Road To Rio (Dir. Norman Z. McLeod 1947): To avoid being charged with arson after burning down a circus Hot Lips Barton (Bob Hope) and Scat Sweeney (Bing Crosby) stow away on an ocean bound ship. Aboard the vessel the duo fall for Lucia Maria de Andrade (Dorothy Lamour) who is under the spell of her evil aunt (Gale Sondergaard) who has arranged a marriage for the young beauty. This film was in good hands since many of Hope's best collaborators worked on the picture. Direct

• Lassie | UMD | (10/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Lassie has to try and make her way home in time for Christmas in this charming family movie.

• Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  It's easy to forget that, though fronting the British war effort through most of World War Two, Winston Churchill had spent the previous decade isolated in Parliament and in an internal opposition to the Conservative party. Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years dramatises this period, in which the growing menace of Nazism in Germany was met with indifference, even fear by governments of the day who were more concerned with their survival than in serving those who had elected them. Churchill is perceptively played by Robert Hardy who confirms the image without falling into caricature. Visionary and obstinate by turns, he galvanises his supporters and enrages his enemies with a passion borne of conviction. A seasoned British cast includes Peter Barkworth as the amiable but ineffectual Stanley Baldwin, Eric Porter as the truly "out of time" Neville Chamberlain, Edward Woodward as the scheming Samuel Hoare, and Nigel Havers as the tragically flawed Randolph Churchill. Martin Gilbert has done a persuasive job transforming his novel into a TV script, the scenes in the House of Commons having a gritty reality that makes compulsive viewing. On the DVD: It's a pity that the Southern Pictures production first screened in 1981 has emerged so dimly in this incarnation. Has the master tape eroded so badly, or was it simply not available? However, it's worth putting up with the technical defects to enjoy this historically informed and grippingly dramatic serial. --Richard Whitehouse

• Treasures Of The Trust | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £18.99

  From the breathtaking remains of 12th century Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the dramatic splendor of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall this tour takes you through Britain's most famous homes castles and ruins - all restored to their original design by the National Trust. Visit Tatton Park a stunning 19th century mansion in Cheshire with a spectacular Japanese garden. Browse through a unique collection of 16th century paintings at the Dorset estate of Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacy

• Farscape 3.4 | DVD | (19/08/2002) from £17.98   |  Saving you £7.01 (28.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Well over half way through its third season and Farscape has plenty more surprises in store. This box set concludes the cliffhanger of "Infinite Possibilities" with the extraordinarily brave "Icarus Abides", in which the battle between Crichton and his Scorpius clone is resolved, but with fatal consequences. Then, in a dizzying change of pace, we return to Moya and the "other" Crichton for "Revenging Angel", part of which is a madcap Farscape take on the Road Runner cartoons, with a furious D'Argo standing in for Wiley Coyote. Matters turn sombre again as Aeryn communes with the spirits of the dead in "The Choice", but the reappearance of her mum, the vengeful Xhalax Sun, creates problems for Rygel and Stark. Across these four episodes the action seesaws between the crews of Moya and Talyn until a reluctant and painful reunion takes place in "Fractures", setting the scene for the final quartet of episodes of this enthralling season. Anyone who has not followed Farscape extremely closely from the very first episode of season one should go right back and begin at the beginning. On the DVD: four uncut episodes are accompanied by the now-familiar gallery of extras. There are "Info Pods" on D'Argo and Pilot, some deleted scenes, "Farscape Facts", Sci-Fi channel promos and a picture gallery. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 4.1 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £7.99   |  Saving you £17.00 (212.77%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In its fourth series Farscape is as much dramatic and romantic fun as it's ever been and it's even more stylish than ever before. A pity, then, that this series is also the show's last, following its abrupt cancellation by the Sci-Fi Channel. If at times the tone seems a little lighter here than in its gloriously doom-laden predecessor, that is because its story arc is the first half of what was intended to cover two series and some of the material is clearly here for the long run. It is, for example, probably no coincidence that the priests' chant in "What Was Lost" has been part of the show's signature tune from the beginning. There are five episodes here. In "Crichton Kicks", Crichton has been a castaway for months on a senile Leviathan which is waiting its time to die. He has worked out wormhole technology, trained an orchestra of DRDs to sing the 1812 Overture, and is generally content, until his worldly resignation is shattered by the arrival of the beautiful, bossy and untrustworthy Sikozu, a bunch of aggressive butchers and a somewhat battered Chiana and Rygel. "What Was Lost Part 1: Sacrifice" takes them to an archaeological dig where they join Jool, D'Argo and the mysterious, annoying old woman Noranti and start to uncover lost secrets that change everything. In "What Was Lost Part 2: Resurrection" Crichton, drugged into bed by the seductive evil Peacekeeper Grayza, regains his self-respect by helping save yet another world. "Lava's a Many-Splendored Thing" is a puzzle episode: how to rescue an amber-encased Rygel from the bottom of a pool of lava without getting crisped or shot by renegades and how to use D'Argo's ship to rescue him when it is keyed to his DNA. Finally, "Promises" takes everyone back to Moya to find a dying Aeryn Sun and a Scorpius she has promised to protect--the issue here is how to outwit both a Peacekeeper torpedo and an extortionist with a big ship and a taste for hiding behind holograms. On the DVD: Farscape 4.1 has a very useful guide to the show's back-story as well as an interview with Anthony Simcoe ( D'Argo) and various character profiles and galleries. The deleted and extended scenes are unusually interesting--there is an exchange between Scorpius, Braca and Grayza which turns out later in the season to have been especially important. The DVD is presented in 4:3 visual aspect ratio and has Dolby Digital 5:1 sound. --Roz Kaveney

• 3 Classic Comedies Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 2 - Jack And The Beanstalk / Utopia / Spooks Run Wild | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Jack And The Beanstalk: The legendary comedic duo Abbott and Costello provide fairy tale fun for kids (of ALL ages!). The wacky pair pretty much stick to the outline of the original childrens fairytale but add their own signature comic flourishes and slapstick details. Utopia: Stan and Ollie inherit a yacht along with a small island. They set sail accompanied by a stateless refugee and a stowaway. A violent storm causes our heroes to crash on their island. Together

• Farscape 3.3 | DVD | (01/07/2002) from £4.00   |  Saving you £20.99 (524.75%)   |  RRP £24.99

  By now it's clear that the third season of Farscape is the show's most exciting but also the most convoluted to date. The story so far: the crew has been divided across Moya and her troublesome offspring, Talyn; Crichton is literally divided into two; and Scorpius is sometimes real (but with a Crichton clone in his head) and sometimes the neural clone "Harvey" inside Crichton's head. Confused? Better follow events closely as multiple plot strands diverge and intertwine, characters from previous seasons pop up when you least expect them, and weird stuff generally keeps on happening. The four episodes in this box set take the various story threads still further apart. "Incubator" has the real Scorpius showing his Crichton neural clone the tragic truth about his upbringing. Scarrans, it seems, are the real enemy after all. In "Meltdown", Talyn is captured by a Siren Sun and Stark becomes even more unhinged, while Chrichton and Aeryn just can't keep their hands off each other. "Scratch 'n' Sniff" provides some welcome comic relief with an episode shot like a kinky David Fincher pop video and co-starring Ben Browder's real-life wife as the incredibly annoying Raxil. Finally, the gripping and action-packed "Infinite Possibilities, Part 1: Daedalus Dreams" returns us to the season's primary story-arc: the search for wormhole technology and its potentially dire consequences. The cliffhanger ending will have you yelling at the TV for more. On the DVD: only four episodes instead of the usual five, it's true, but every one is a corker. There are a handful of extras, including more "Info Pods", some deleted scenes and fact files to round out the set. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 1.3 | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (60.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  An international co-production of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Australia's Channel 9 and Hallmark Entertainment, Farscape is genre television at its most ambitious, inspired both by the cult appeal of Babylon 5 and the continuing success of the Star Trek franchise. Making extensive use of CGI, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, Farscape takes a visual leap beyond previous shows. Admittedly, the basic premise may be borrowed from Buck Rogers (American astronaut catapulted to far-flung galaxy populated by strange aliens), while the crew have something of Blake's 7 about them (a motley bunch of escaped convicts pursued by a relentless foe), and ideas such as the living ship are borrowed from Babylon 5, but the Farscape concept has a freshness that makes it look and feel completely original. The production design is all bio-mechanical curves and the script never takes itself too seriously (fart jokes and double-entendres pop up when you least expect them). It must have been expensive to make, but it certainly looks (and sounds-in Dolby Digital 5.1) as if every penny made it to the screen. In true Buck Rogers style, Ben Browder plays leading man John Crichton as an all-American astronaut, although with a more believable sense of bewilderment; the supporting cast is a mixture of Australian and British actors, mostly disguised under heavy make-up.There are five more episodes from Season One on this third DVD box set. "They've Got a Secret" has D'Argo being accidentally ejected into space, as a result of which, secrets of his imprisonment are revealed. "Till the Blood Runs Clear" finds Crichton and Aeryn confronting bounty-hunters. In "The Flax", the crew get all tangled up with some Zenetan pirates. Blue-skinned Delvian priestess Zhaan meets more of her kind in "Rhapsody in Blue", but madness is the result. Finally, "Jeremiah Crichton" finds our human hero stranded on an earthly paradise where no machines will function; falling in love is just the beginning of his troubles.On the DVD: Special features here are a gallery of conceptual art and another star profile, this time of Anthony Simcoe's Luxan warrior character, D'Argo. --Mark Walker

• Scenes Of A Sexual Nature | DVD | (03/05/2010) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Sex and love. Some seek it, some need it, some spurn it and some pay for it, but we're all involved in it.

• The Inside Man | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  A scientist invents a device that can detect submerged submarines but when thieves break into the lab and steal it the government suspects an inside job and no one is safe...

• Farscape 2.5 | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £14.80   |  Saving you £10.19 (68.85%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The second season of Farscape expands upon and develops the characters introduced in the ambitious first season. John Crichton's new nemesis is the deadly Scorpius, replacing Crais who has taken the living ship Moya's offspring on a voyage into the unknown. Moya's regular crew--Aeryn, Zhaan, Chiana, D'Argo and Rygel--remain as divided and suspicious of each other as ever, yet somehow manage to pull together at times of crisis. The writers continue to exploit the show's gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development, while the CGI effects, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry--courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop--continue to make Farscape the most original-looking sci-fi show on TV. The witty scripts, peppered with post-modern pop culture references and film in-jokes, are also a breath of fresh air. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the genre. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 4.4 | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £14.97   |  Saving you £10.02 (66.93%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The fourth volume of Farscape's fourth (and final) series does all those things that the later stages of any season should do: individual episodes play interesting games with how we think television works, while the tension of the overall story arc builds and builds. Of the individual episodes here, "Mental as Anything" is an ensemble piece for the male members of Moya's crew: D'Argo's back-story gets some sort of resolution and Scorpius puts John Crichton through hell for the best of reasons. "Bringing Home the Beacon" is rather more fun-- the women of Moya frustrate a Sebacean/Scarren peace treaty--but ends in stark tragedy. In "Constellation of Doubt", Moya picks up, and the crew obsessionally watch, a documentary from American television about their recent visit to earth: Crichton gets to see human paranoia and wishful thinking through cold, intelligent alien eyes. Finally, in "Prayer", Aeryn suffers terribly at the hands of her Scarren captors and Crichton makes a devil's bargain with Scorpius to save her. By this point the season is building to the surprises of its last episodes: Farscape was about to be cancelled, but it never lost its edge. On the DVDs: Farscape, Series 4 Vol. 4 includes a dictionary of alien slang and technical terms with illustrative clips from the show, as well as text files on the villainous Peacekeepers Braca and Grayza. The high point of the extras, though, is an interview with the wonderfully flakey Gigi Edgeley (Chiana) and a lot of deleted scenes from "Constellation of Doubt", with footage of Chiana, Aeryn and Noranti interacting with Crichton's family in bizarre and touching ways. --Roz Kaveney

• James Dean - The Rare Movies | DVD | (17/03/2003) from £25.00   |  Saving you £-12.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In some ways, calling this collection James Dean: The Rare Movies is a little misleading. After all, the "all-purpose delinquent"--as described in David Dalton's fascinating booklet notes--made only three feature films and, in true iconic style, died a youthful, violent death. Yet the collection works somewhat on an ironic level. The 1950s was a decade in which television established itself as the biggest threat to the cinematic medium, and this is a selection of some of the television dramas and commercials that Dean made on his way up to Hollywood stardom, presented with the same introductions and sponsors' messages of the original transmissions. So how good was he at the beginning? All the raw material was there: the restless misfit, the damaged juvenile and the complex punk. In 1954's "I am a Fool" he stars with Natalie Wood in what turned out to be a rehearsal for Rebel Without a Cause on the big screen. At times he moves with an almost balletic grace, at others he twitches with that awkwardness that still leaves new generations of fans totally enthralled. Television was never going to contain him. This is like watching history in the making and is all the more compelling because we know the tragedy that lay but a short way ahead. On the DVD: It scarcely matters that these television dramas and commercials are presented in 4:3 format. The picture quality is inevitably poor and the sound rough, sometimes to the point of inaudibility. Made in television's explosive adolescence, they were never intended to be monuments to technological brilliance. We're just lucky they've survived at all. The track selection offers a maze-like array of choices for you to skip between films, introductions and commercial breaks and occasionally this can be confusing. A chronology on the DVD itself would have helped.--Piers Ford

• TNA Turning Point 2012 | DVD | (25/03/2013) from £18.88   |  Saving you £-3.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Farscape 4.5 | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This last ever sequence of Farscape episodes is as effective and powerful a climax as those of earlier seasons. The three-parter "We're So Screwed" (a title censored by the BBC in the UK) starts with "Fetal Attraction", in which the crew of Moya attempt to rescue the pregnant Aeryn Sun from her Scarren captors and end up starting a dangerous epidemic on a space station. They get Aeryn back and lose Scorpius; in "Hot to Katratzi", the necessity of saving his worst enemy--who just knows too much to be left a captive--forces John Crichton to gate-crash the Sebacean-Scarren peace conference and bluff his way to success. Seemingly betrayed by Scorpius, John snatches victory in "La Bomba", striking another deadly blow against the Scarren empire. The title of the last episode "Bad Timing" refers both to the show's cancellation--the cast and crew felt real bitterness towards the SciFi Channel over this--and to the cliff-hanger ending; the crew of Moya have to prevent a Scarren ship finding its way through the worm-hole to Earth. Farscape was perhaps the best ever television space opera and certainly the most sexy, stylish, funny and dramatic; it will be greatly missed. On the DVD: Farscape, Series 4 Part 5 presents the shows in 16:9 format with impressively loud Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The special features include a documentary about the cancellation of Farscape, in which the cast talk about their shock and grief and fans talk about the "Save Farscape" campaign. There are a couple of extended versions of scenes from these episodes and an extensive blooper reel, much of it hilarious. Also included is an illustrated glossary of terms from the Uncharted Territories and a collection of interesting facts about these last four episodes. --Roz Kaveney

• The Laurel And Hardy Collection - Utopia | DVD | (27/09/1999) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In this their last film together Stan and Ollie fly to London for the reading of a Stan’s late uncle’s will. After all Stan’s uncle’s cash is used to pay the solicitors death duties and tax the only thing left are a yacht and South Sea Island! At the docks they take receipt if their yacht and also a displaced seaman and a stowaway. Together the four set sail but are shipwrecked on an atoll during a storm. There they meet singer Cherie L’amour who is es

• Laurel And Hardy Collection | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £26.98   |  Saving you £13.01 (32.50%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The Bohemian Girl (Dirs. James W. Horne & Charley Rogers 1936): In this film Laurel & Hardy play a couple of gypsies who spend most of their time playing ""fingers"" and picking pockets. Laurel & Hardy's Laughing 20's (Dir. Robert Youngson 1965): This documentary renewed an interest in Laurel & Hardy and led to a revival in television showings of their classic comedy shorts. The Flying Deuces (Dir. A. Edward Sutherland 1939): Ollie's broken heart lands Laurel &