"Actor: J Farrell MacDonald"

• Dark Command (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £6.83   |  Saving you £3.16 (46.27%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A Civil War tale based on the exploits of the notorious outlaw Quantrill. The Duke plays a U.S. Marshal out to stop the cutthroat raider and his band. Based on the novel by W.R. Burnett.

• 3 Classic Horrors Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 4 - Carnival Of Souls / The Ape Man / Mesa Of Lost Women | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Carnival Of Souls: Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) apparently survives a serious car accident. Shortly after she heads for Utah and a new job as a church organist but is pursued by a cadaverous phantom figure... The Ape Man: Mad scientist Dr. Brewster long thought dead is working away in his basement laboratory on a serum derived from gorilla spinal fluid. Experimenting on himself Dr. Brewster is dismayed to discover that the injections have given him a bushy beard a

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £7.95   |  Saving you £-2.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In protest at the corruption and hypocrisy he sees all around him an unemployed man calling himself ""John Doe"" has written to the New Bulletin newspaper pledging to throw himself from the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve. Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the bulletin's readers and the wider American public. Its real author Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is rehired and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional ""John Doe""... Meet John Doe is often held to be part of a thematic trilogy that includes Mister Deeds Goes To Town and Mister Smith Goes To Washington. It explores a recurring notion in Capra's work that of the universal everyman exploited by a corrupt and powerful establishment. The film's reflections on corporate control of both the media and of ordinary people's lives is still as resonant as ever.

• 3 Classic Westerns Of The SIlver Screen - Vol. 2 - The Painted Desert / Hell Town / Texas Terror | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £4.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Painted Desert: Filmed at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona The Painted Desert follows the lives of two feuding cowboys J. Farrell MacDonald and William Farnum who clash over who will raise an orphaned boy they find at a deserted waterhole. Farnum takes the boy whom he names Bill but several years later the feud continues this time over water their adjacent ranches share. Tension escalates until the grown Bill played by William Boyd must choose between h

• Our Little Girl | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £12.46   |  Saving you £0.53 (4.25%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A little girl is so badly affected by her parents' divorce she decides to run away from home...

• 3 Classic Westerns Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 5 | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £4.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.20%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Hurricane Express: John Wayne stars as pilot Larry Baker who makes an unscheduled landing in a vain attempt to prevent a railway collision that kills his father and is fired for disobeying orders. Larry must find out the truth behind the wreck of the Hurricane Express! Rage At Dawn: A Special Agent is sent way out west to round up the norotious Reno gang. He stages a fake train robbery in order to attract the evil Reno brothers and their gang in this gritty and force

• F.W. Murnau Horror Classics - Faust / Nosferatu | DVD | (22/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The pleasant and peaceful life of a nave country man (George O'Brien) is turned upside down when he falls for a cold-blooded yet seductive woman from the city (Margaret Livingston) who persuades him to drown his virtuous wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to be with her... F. W. Murnau - invited to America by William Fox the promise of complete artistic freedom and a blank cheque - made Sunrise on the cusp of two eras: it represents the silent film at the peak of its poetic sophistication and the sound film in its infancy. Fox told Murnau to take his time to make any film he wished and 'Sunrise' was completed without any studio interference - as though with a dying flourish in a medium which at that moment had achieved a startling richness of expression. It was the swan song of the era. Conceived by Murnau and written by Carl Mayer while they were both still in Germany Sunrise takes a simple situation - the marriage of a peasant couple (George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor) from a country hamlet invaded by a seductress from the city (Margaret Livingston) - and elevates it to the realm of fable stripped of melodrama yet brimming with poetic impulses. George O'Brien becomes almost gothically depressed by his affair and plots a Dreiser-like boat accident for Gaynor his sweet wife. This doom hovers and flits like moonlight over the rest of the film which lithely tries to dodge it. Murnau captivated the Americans with his legendary ""invisible"" tracking shots and together with double exposures expressive lighting and distorted sets the viewer is immersed in the fate of these simple characters. Sunrise won three Oscars at the very first Academy Awards ceremony honouring the 1927-1928 season. Janet Gaynor won for Best Actress; Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for Best Cinematography; and the film itself won a special Oscar for ""Unique and Artistic Picture"" the only time this award has ever been given. This is a restored edition of what Cahiers du Cinema described as ""the single greatest masterwork in the history of the cinema"".

• The Sweetheart Collection (Shirley Temple) Triple Pack (Susannah Of The Mounties, Just Around The Corner, Captain January) | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Susannah Of The Mounties: Rescued by kindly mounted police officers after barely surviving an Indian attack on the Canadian frontier cute orphan Susannah Sheldon (Shirley Temple) befriends the Mounties especially Inspector ""Monty"" Montague (Randolph Scott). Moreover the adorable Susannah proves a capable negotiator between the tribes and the Mounties. Just Around The Corner: Plucky Penny Hale (Shirley Temple) is excited to return from boarding school to live with her widower dad (Charles Farrell) but when she learns that he's lost his real estate project and they now live in a basement she sets out to win over a crotchety real estate developer - whom she mistakenly believes is ""Uncle Sam"". Captain January: An irrepressible orphan Star (Shirley Temple() loves her somewhat unusual life in the loving care of the wonderful old keeper of a lighthouse (Guy Kibbee) until a mean truant officer (Sara Haden) begins a relentless campaign to have Star sent to a boarding school far away.

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In protest at the corruption and hypocrisy he sees all around him an unemployed man calling himself ""John Doe"" has written to the New Bulletin newspaper pledging to throw himself from the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve. Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the bulletin's readers and the wider American public. Its real author Ann Mitchell (Barbara S

• Painted Desert, The / Clark Gable On Film | DVD | (01/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Painted Desert: Filmed at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona The Painted Desert follows the lives of two feuding cowboys J. Farrell MacDonald and William Farnum who clash over who will raise an orphaned boy they find at a deserted waterhole. Farnum takes the boy whom he names Bill but several years later the feud continues this time over water their adjacent ranches share. Tension escalates until the grown Bill played by William Boyd must choose between h

• The Stan And Ollie Collection - Lucky Dog / The Stolen Jools | DVD | (19/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  Lucky Dog: Stan befriends a stray dog and Oliver Hardy takes a liking to Stan's wallet. After causing so much chaos Stan's only option is to get rid of the dog. Just in time the dog comes up trumps saves the day and teaches the villain Hardy a lesson too. The Stolen Jools: A famous actress has her jewels stolen. Everyone from the police to the mob want to know the identity of the theif and almost everyone is under suspicion. A star studded cast of the most promi

• Sunrise | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1928 Sunrise won Oscars for Janet Gaynor as Best Actress and cinematography as a "Unique and Artistic Picture". In 1967 it was declared "the single greatest masterwork in the history of cinema" by key French new wave magazine Cahiers du Cinema. Released with a synchronised score and effects soundtrack but no dialogue, it is a cinematic landmark from the transition period between silent cinema and the talkies. Beginning as a prototype film noir in which a farmer (George O' Brien) plans the murder of his wife (Gaynor) with his vacationing lover from the city (Margaret Livingstone), the film develops from tense thriller into a story of reawakened love and redemption. Anticipating Orson Welles's artistic freedom on Citizen Kane (1941), German expressionist director FW Murnau was given carte blanche following the huge American success of The Last Laugh (1924). The result was this poetic fable making inventive use of every technical device then available, including in-camera multiple exposures and superimpositions, long elegant tracking shots, forced perspectives, complex miniatures and synchronised sound, as well as the largest single-street-scene set ever built. The result is a film that influenced everything from Hitchcock suspense to Titanic (1997) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Murnau summons powerful performances from his principal players--Gaynor would later headline A Star Is Born (1937) and O'Brien would take important roles in several classic John Ford westerns--while the transcendent finale evokes and reworks the ending of the director's earlier classic, Nosferatu (1922). Though now inevitably dated Sunrise remains essential for anyone seriously interested in the development of cinematic art. On the DVD:Sunrise is presented on an immaculately produced two-disc special edition. Though restored to full length and presented in the original 1.2:1 ratio with the complete music and effects soundtrack, the film has been taken from a print made in 1936, the original camera negative having been destroyed in a fire. As a result this is the best possible modern presentation of Sunrise, though the print, while perfectly acceptable, is very grainy, lined and flickery by contemporary standards. The mono sound has been superbly restored and is remarkably effective for its vintage; an alternative stereo musical track recorded for recent reissue sounds excellent. The film also boasts a commentary by John Bailey: apart from talking a little too much about how beautiful the lighting is, Bailey offers seriously in-depth knowledge about the film and about Murnau that really puts everything into historical context and explains the constant technical ingenuity. The second disc presents the useful A Song of Two Humans, a 12-minute visual essay by film historian R Dixon Smith, and almost 10 minutes of outtakes with optional commentary by John Bailey, as well as a trailer, stills gallery and notes explaining the nature of the restoration. There is also an excellent 40-minute documentary Murnau's 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film, telling the story of the director's lost follow up to Sunrise. Microsoft Word and PDF files available via DVD-ROM present various incarnations of the screenplays for both Sunrise and 4 Devils. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

• The Ape Man | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  One of the areas of human knowledge which has expanded fastest over the last few decades is our awareness of the complexities of human evolution. Ape·Man is a useful summary of the current state of play dealing with such important questions as the divergence of early hominids from the other apes and the final confrontation of modern humans and their Neanderthal cousins. It is a fair-minded handling of some of the crucial debates--at what point, say, is it legitimate to talk of humans and human ancestors starting to decorate their possessions, say, and when did language and the complex innovations in hunting it makes possible start to be a factor? Inventive portrayals of the life of early humans as they wander out of the mists of time alternate with coherent and accessible accounts of fossil evidence, DNA studies and archaeology; this is both an intellectually satisfying series and an emotionally charged one. --Roz Kaveney

• The Iron Horse | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Iron Horse was John Ford's 50th film and remains his most celebrated of the silent era. Its theme of enterprise and achievement its open-air locations and setting in a vigorous and pioneering past proved just the subject to stimulate the young director's talent. The sheer scale of the film surpassed all other Westerns of the silent era and established Ford as one of the leading directors in the industry. The film combines a conventional tale of double-dealing vengeance and romance with a poetic sense of history and an epic theme - uniting a nation by building a transcontinental railroad and a great man's dream realised by the courage skill and labour of ordinary folk. This restored version features a new score composed and conducted by John Lanchbery performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic.

• BEAUTIFUL BLONDE FROM BASHFUL BEND (1949) | Blu Ray | (01/11/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Painted Desert | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £2.49   |  Saving you £2.50 (100.40%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Filmed at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona The Painted Desert follows the lives of two feuding cowboys J. Farrell MacDonald and William Farnum who clash over who will raise an orphaned boy they find at a deserted waterhole. Farnum takes the boy whom he names Bill but several years later the feud continues this time over water their adjacent ranches share. Tension escalates until the grown Bill played by William Boyd must choose between his adoptive father Farnum

• The Thirteenth Guest | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £12.13   |  Saving you £-2.14 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Thirteenth Guest

• Susannah Of The Mounties (Shirley Temple) | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £21.02   |  Saving you £-8.03 (-61.80%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Rescued by kindly mounted police officers after barely surviving an Indian attack on the Canadian frontier cute orphan Susannah Sheldon (Shirley Temple) befriends the Mounties especially Inspector ""Monty"" Montague (Randolph Scott). Moreover the adorable Susannah proves a capable negotiator between the tribes and the Mounties.

• Ginger Rogers Collection | DVD | (14/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Ginger Rogers Collection (3 Discs)