"Actor: James Bacon"

• The Glenn Miller Story | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (43.12%)   |  RRP £9.99

  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.

• 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £5.85   |  Saving you £9.14 (156.24%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The swashbuckler genre bumped into science fiction in 1954 for one of Hollywood's great entertainments, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Jules Verne story of adventure under the sea was Walt Disney's magnificent debut into live-action films. A professor (Paul Lukas) seeks the truth about a legendary sea monster in the years just after the Civil War. When his ship is sunk, he, his aide (Peter Lorre), and a harpoon master (Kirk Douglas) survive to discover that the monster is actually a metal submarine run by Captain Nemo (James Mason). Along with the rollicking adventure, it's fun to see the future technology that Verne dreamed up in his novel, including diving equipment and sea farming. The film's physical prowess is anchored by the Nautilus, an impressive full-scale gothic submarine complete with red carpet and pipe organ. In the era of big sets, 20,000 Leagues set a precedent for films shot on the water and deservedly won Oscars for art direction and special effects. Lost in the inventiveness of the film and great set pieces including a giant squid attack are two great performances. Mason is the perfect Nemo, taut and private, clothed in dark fabric that counters the Technicolor dreamboat that is the beaming red-and-white-stripe-shirted Kirk Douglas as the heroic Ned Land. The film works as peerless family adventure nearly half a century later. --Doug Thomas

• A Star Is Born - 2 Disc Special Edition | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.87   |  Saving you £9.12 (187.27%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A musical remake of the classic 1937 film of the same name, A Star is Born was designed as Judy Garland's comeback vehicle after she had been cruelly axed by MGM studios for professional unreliability. Her erratic moods caused serious production delays this time around, too, but the behind-the-scenes turmoil was certainly worth it--Garland gives just about the greatest one-woman show in movie history. The story is the stuff of pure Hollywood legend. Aspiring actress-singer Esther Blodgett meets fading matinee idol Norman Maine (James Mason), who navigates her to stardom under the more melodious handle of Vickie Lester. As she rises meteorically, he declines into alcoholic self-pity--and the result, if you haven't guessed, is plenty of heartbreak. Mason lends subtle support in a role Cary Grant refused as too downbeat for his image, but Garland grabs centre stage with an all-out emotional performance that rivets the attention. Director George Cukor was famous for coaxing the very best out of screen divas, and A Star is Born must be counted as his crowning achievement. The lush visual style that he contributes provides a suitable setting for Garland's deep, rich voice--throbbing with melancholy in the Harold Arlen-Ira Gershwin ballad "The Man That Got Away", then capering joyfully in the gargantuan musical number "Born in a Trunk". Moss Hart's script takes many cynical swipes at the pretensions of Tinsel Town--perhaps too many for the taste of studio boss Jack Warner, who ordered drastic cuts in the film after its premiere. --Peter Matthews

• National Lampoon's Animal House | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £4.94   |  Saving you £11.05 (223.68%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A groundbreaking screwball caper, 1978's National Lampoon's Animal House was in its own way a rite of passage for Hollywood. Set in 1962 at Faber College, it follows the riotous carryings-on of the Delta Fraternity, into which are initiated freshmen Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst. Among the established house members are Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert and the late John Belushi as Bluto, a belching, lecherous, Jack Daniels guzzling maniac. A debauched house of pranksters (culminating in the famous Deathmobile sequence), Delta stands as a fun alternative to the more strait-laced, crew-cut, unpleasantly repressive norm personified by Omega House. As cowriter the late Doug Kenney puts it, "better to be an animal than a vegetable". Animal House is deliberately set in the pre-JFK assassination, pre-Vietnam era, something not made much of here, but which would have been implicitly understood by its American audience. The film was an enormous success, a rude, liberating catharsis for the latter-day frathousers who watched it. However, decades on, a lot of the humour seems broad, predictable, boorish, oafishly sexist and less witty than Airplane!, made two years later in the same anarchic spirit. Indeed, although it launched the Hollywood careers of several of its players and makers, including Kevin Bacon, director John Landis, Harold Ramis and Tom Hulce, who went on to do fine things, it might well have been inadvertently responsible for the infantilisation of much subsequent Hollywood comedy. Still, there's an undeniable energy that gusts throughout the film and Belushi, whether eating garbage or trying to reinvoke the spirit of America "After the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour" is a joy. On the DVD: Animal House comes to disc in a good transfer, presented in 1.85:1. The main extra is a featurette in which director John Landis, writer Chris Miller and some of the actors talk about the making of the movie. Interestingly, 23 years on, most of those interviewed look better than they did back in 1978, especially Stephen "Flounder" Furst. --David Stubbs

• X-Men: Beginnings Trilogy | Blu Ray | (10/07/2017) from £5.98   |  Saving you £7.36 (184.46%)   |  RRP £11.35

  Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero X-Men universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. X-Men drops us into a world that is closer to our own than Batman's Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --Kim Newman

• John Hughes 5 Movie Collection | Blu Ray | (08/03/2021) from £23.60   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  PRETTY IN PINK - Andie is a high school girl from the other side of town. Blane's the wealthy heartthrob who asks her to the prom. As fast as their romance builds, it's threatened by the painful reality of peer pressure. Written and produced by John Hughes, this essential ˜80s movie comes newly remastered for Blu-ray by director Howard Deutch. FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF - High-schooler Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara), and his best bud Cameron (Alan Ruck) are skipping school by taking a wild romp through Chicago, in one of the greatest comedy films of all time. So, barf up a lung, forge a sick note from the parents, and tag along on the infinitely quotable, always entertaining classic written and directed by John Hughes. PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES - Turning from coming-of-age teens to the adult peril of making it home for the holidays, filmmaker John Hughes creates one of his most outrageous, and heartfelt, comedies in this tale of an uptight advertising executive (Steve Martin) reluctantly partnered with an obnoxious yet lovable salesman (John Candy). Their adventure, which includes various modes of transportation, is a non-stop series of hilarious mishaps and mistakes. SHE'S HAVING A BABY - FIRST TIME ON BLU-RAY! It seems only yesterday that Jake and Kristi were two crazy single kids in love. Now they're two crazy married adults in transition, balancing work, parental expectations, and tuna casserole. But Kristi just got some news that really ought to make things interesting she's having a baby. It's an irresistible John Hughes comedy about the labor of life. SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL - FIRST TIME ON BLU-RAY! Before they could stand together, they had to stand alone. Writer/Producer John Hughes and director Howard Deutch (PRETTY IN PINK) reteam for another unforgettable romantic comedy of unconditional, but sometimes unclaimed, love in the time of teen angst.

• Animal House (Includes Blu-Ray) | Blu Ray | (17/05/2021) from £16.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Starring comedy legend John Belushi, National Lampoon's ® Animal House is the ultimate college movie filled with food fights, fraternities and toga parties! Follow the uproarious escapades of the Delta House fraternity as they take on Dean Wormer (John Vernon), the sanctimonious Omegas, and the entire female student body. Directed by John Landis (The Blues Brothers), the most popular college comedy of all-time also stars Tim Matheson, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst along with Otis Day and the Knights performing their show-stopping rendition of ˜Shout.' Special Features THE YEARBOOK: AN ANIMAL HOUSE REUNION WHERE ARE THEY NOW? A DELTA ALUMNI UPDATE SCENE IT? ANIMAL HOUSE GAMES and more!

• National Lampoon's Animal House (1979) | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £9.93   |  Saving you £6.06 (37.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A groundbreaking screwball caper, 1978's National Lampoon's Animal House was in its own way a rite of passage for Hollywood. Set in 1962 at Faber College, it follows the riotous carryings-on of the Delta Fraternity, into which are initiated freshmen Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst. Among the established house members are Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert and the late John Belushi as Bluto, a belching, lecherous, Jack Daniels guzzling maniac. A debauched house of pranksters (culminating in the famous Deathmobile sequence), Delta stands as a fun alternative to the more strait-laced, crew-cut, unpleasantly repressive norm personified by Omega House. As cowriter the late Doug Kenney puts it, "better to be an animal than a vegetable". Animal House is deliberately set in the pre-JFK assassination, pre-Vietnam era, something not made much of here, but which would have been implicitly understood by its American audience. The film was an enormous success, a rude, liberating catharsis for the latter-day frathousers who watched it. However, decades on, a lot of the humour seems broad, predictable, boorish, oafishly sexist and less witty than Airplane!, made two years later in the same anarchic spirit. Indeed, although it launched the Hollywood careers of several of its players and makers, including Kevin Bacon, director John Landis, Harold Ramis and Tom Hulce, who went on to do fine things, it might well have been inadvertently responsible for the infantilisation of much subsequent Hollywood comedy. Still, there's an undeniable energy that gusts throughout the film and Belushi, whether eating garbage or trying to reinvoke the spirit of America "After the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour" is a joy. On the DVD: Animal House comes to disc in a good transfer, presented in 1.85:1. The main extra is a featurette in which director John Landis, writer Chris Miller and some of the actors talk about the making of the movie. Interestingly, 23 years on, most of those interviewed look better than they did back in 1978, especially Stephen "Flounder" Furst. --David Stubbs

• Christmas Classics Collection | DVD | (23/10/2017) from £13.78   |  Saving you £7.20 (66.73%)   |  RRP £17.99

  It's a Wonderful LifeVoted the # 1 Most Inspiring Film Of All Time by AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers, It's A Wonderful Life has had just that. With the endearing message that no one is a failure who has friends, Frank Capra's heartwarming masterpiece continues to endure, and after 70 years this beloved classic still remains as powerful and moving as the day it was made. White ChristmasTwo talented song-and-dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up after the war to become one of the hottest acts in show business. One winter, they join forces with a sister act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) and trek to Vermont for a white Christmas. Of course, there's the requisite fun with the ladies, but the real adventure starts when Crosby & Kaye discover that the inn is run by their old army general who's now in financial trouble. And the result is the stuff dreams are made of. Holiday InnWith music by Irving Berlin, songs by Bing Crosby and dancing by Fred Astaire, Holiday Inn is one of the most delightful and memorable musicals of all time, nominated* for 3 Academy Awards®. Crosby plays Jim Hardy, a song and dance man who leaves showbiz to open a Connecticut Inn. Astaire plays Ted Hanover, Hardy's former partner and rival in love. And, of course there are girls (Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale), an agent (Walter Abel) and plenty of lavish song and dance routines with spectacular production numbers. Scrooge. The spirit of Christmas becomes a musical celebration of life in this rousing adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved family classic, A Christmas Carol. Mean-spirited and stingy, Ebenezer Scrooge (Albert Finney) has a sour face and humbug for anyone who crosses his path. But on this Christmas Eve, he will learn the terrible fate that awaits him if he continues his miserly ways. One by one, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future take the startled Ebenezer on an incredible journey through time - showing him in one magical night what takes most people a lifetime to learn. Filled with joyous songs, this delightful tale is sure to enrich the lives of young and old alike for many more generations.

• Made For Each Other | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £5.79   |  Saving you £-0.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  This highly appealing comedy drama stars James Stewart and Carole Lombard as a young couple battling illness lack of money inept servants and interfering in-laws...

• Holiday Inn | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £5.38   |  Saving you £7.61 (141.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Holiday Inn is the perennial Christmas-season favourite from 1942 that teams Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners, with Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" a movie touchstone. --Tom Keogh

• Danielle Steel's The Ring | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £8.60   |  Saving you £-2.61 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This incredible epic follows the tragic yet inspirational life of Ariana Von Gotthard (Nastassja Kinski) a woman who gains strength and courage as a young girl coming of age in pre-war Germany. As the daughter of an upper-class Berlin family Ariana watches her family and her country torn apart at the hands of impending war. Aware of the dangerous political climate her father helps Ariana's brother to escape to Switzerland. He returns to rescue Ariana but he is killed as a traitor. Unsure of her father and brothers fate Ariana is now truly alone. She seeks comfort in the arms of a German soldier but the harsh war claims him as yet another victim. Pregnant with his child Ariana realizes she has nothing left from her past but her late mother's signet ring. She decides to flee to America to start her life again...

• It Happened One Night | DVD | (26/02/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-8.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) took home every Oscar in the book (well, okay, all the major ones) for this seminal 1934 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten reporter who stays close to a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) so not to lose a good story. Funny and sexy, the film is full of memorable scenes often referred to in other films, such as the "Wall of Jericho" (a mere bedcover hung on a clothesline down the middle of the room), and Colbert's famous flash of thigh to stop a speeding car in its tracks. Capra's brisk, urbane brand of wit was a perfect complement to his populist faith in the common man (in this case, Gable's character), and this inspiration makes this film a spirited entertainment and an uplifting experience. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• 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.

• X-Men: Beginnings Trilogy | DVD | (10/07/2017) from £4.99   |  Saving you £14.92 (299.00%)   |  RRP £19.91

  Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero X-Men universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. X-Men drops us into a world that is closer to our own than Batman's Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --Kim Newman

• X-Men: First Class - Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (25/05/2015) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  See how it all began in this thrilling first chapter in the X-MEN universe. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr became Professor X and Magneto they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were enemies they were the closest of friends and gathered an elite team of mutants to form the X-Men in an attempt to prevent World War III!

• National Lampoon's Animal House 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital - 4K UHD | Blu Ray | (18/05/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• We Remember Marilyn | DVD | (01/05/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A sex symbol becomes a thing", says Marilyn Monroe, her voice being approximated by Trudi Jo Marie Keck, who also doubles as the editor of We Remember Marilyn, an historical appreciation of the life of the much-vaunted sex goddess. "I always thought symbols were things you clashed together", she continues to muse, "but if I'm going to be a symbol of anything, I'd rather it be sex than some other things there are symbols for. I know how they'll remember me: 'Here lies Marilyn Monroe, 34-24-36'. But, anyway, they'll remember me." And remember her they do, in this concoction written and directed by Ted Newsom (Ed Wood--Look Back in Angora). Newsom doesn't bother to cite the source for the above words ascribed to Ms. Monroe so it's hard to say where they came from, but they pointedly set the tone for any discussion of sex-symbol iconography. And how better to sum up a career that moved between celebrity and the highest seats of power on a vehicle of sex, and ended early and abruptly. Film clips, photos (where Marilyn the icon truly shone), and a rich array of stock footage form the backdrop for the proceedings. At one point, the voice of director John Huston enriches the soundtrack. --Jim Gay, Amazon.com

• 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

• She's Having a Baby | Blu Ray | (14/07/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A