Touch of Evil begins with one of the most brilliant sequences in the history of cinema; and ends with one of the most brilliant final scenes ever committed to celluloid. In between unfurls a picture whose moral, sexual, racial, and aesthetic attitudes remain so radical as to cross borders established not only in 1958, but in the present age also. Charlton Heston portrays Mike Vargas, the Mexican chief of narcotics who sets out to uncover the facts surrounding a car bomb that has killed a wealthy American businessman on the US side of the border. As Vargas investigates, his newly-wed wife Susie (Janet Leigh, two years before Hitchcock's Psycho) is kidnapped by a gang out to exact vengeance for the prosecution of the brother of their leader (Akim Tamiroff). Meanwhile, Vargas' enquiries become progressively more obfuscated by the American cop Hank Quinlan (played by Welles himself, in one of the most imposing and unforgettable screen performances of his career), a besotted incarnation of corruption who alternately conspires with Susie's captors and seeks solace in the brothel of the Gypsy madame (Marlene Dietrich) who comforted him in bygone times. Welles' final studio-system picture has at last become secure in its status as one of the greatest films ever made. It remains a testament to the genius of Welles -- a film of Shakespearean richness, inexhaustible. The Masters of Cinema Series is extremely proud to present Touch of Evil in on Ultra HD Blu-ray. 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentations of all three versions, presented in Dolby Vision HDR: the Theatrical version (95 mins), the Preview version (109 mins), and the 1998 Reconstruction (110 mins) | Four audio commentaries, featuring: restoration producer Rick Schmidlin (reconstructed version); actors Charlton Heston & Janet Leigh, with Schmidlin (reconstructed version); critic F. X. Feeney (theatrical version); and Welles scholars James Naremore & Jonathan Rosenbaum (preview version) | Video interview with critic, broadcaster and cultural historian Matthew Sweet | Video interview with critic Tim Robey | Video interview with author and critic Kim Newman | Bringing Evil to Life + Evil Lost and Found - two video pieces, featuring interviews with cast and crew, as well as critics and admirers | Original theatrical trailer | PLUS: A collector's booklet featuring writings by Orson Welles, François Truffaut, André Bazin, and Terry Comito
Peter Kosminsky's 1992 adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights goes to the extreme of casting Sinead O'Connor in a brief bit as Bronte herself, but the film still doesn't approach the accomplishment of William Wyler's classic 1939 production (with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon) or subsequent versions by Luis Bunuel and Robert Fuest. That doesn't make it unwatchable, however: it still offers The English Patient costars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche as doomed lovers Heathcliff and Cathy. Binoche is a bit washed-out, but Fiennes makes a strong impression as the rejected labourer who makes his fortune and exacts a vengeance. Unlike Wyler's film, this one covers all the chapters of Bronte's book, but it is sodden with misery and lacks all grace. --Tom Keogh
Hitchcock's most notorious work remains terrifying after all these years, digitally presented, this reissue marks this milestone work's 50th Anniversary.
Newly remastered by the BFI National Archive and available in high definition for the very first time this is the definitive version of the classic British science fiction thriller. When the USA and Russia simultaneously test atomic bombs the earth is knocked off its axis and set on a collision course with the sun. As the planet inexorably heats up and society slowly breaks down Peter Stenning (Edward Judd) a washed-up Daily Express reporter breaks the story and sets about investigating the government cover-up. Made at a time when the nuclear threat of the Cold War loomed large The Day the Earth Caught Fire is an expertly crafted British science fiction film that boasts a BAFTA winning screenplay gritty characters and a vision of end-of-days London that really burns. Also Starring Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey) and Janet Munro and directed by veteran Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment). Bonus Features: Brand new 4 K High Definition digital restoration by the BFI national archive. The H-bomb (David Villiers 1956 21 mins): Civil defence film showing by diagrams and demonstrations the damage that might be expected from a ten megaton bomb. Operation Hurricane (Ronald Stark 1952 33 mins): The work involved in and the research behind Britain’s first atomic bomb tests. The Hole in the Ground (David Cobham 1962 30 mins): A dramatisation of nuclear attack demonstrating of the operation of Britain's warning system for atomic war. The Day the Earth Caught Fire: An Audio Appreciation by Graeme Hobbs (9 mins) Original trailer Stills gallery
Plain arithmetic. Money splits better two ways instead of three , smooth-talking outlaw Ben Vandergroat reason to his captors, three bounty hunters thrown together by chance. They're taking him to justice in Abilene, but Ben has other ideas. If he can set the men against each other - play on their greed, their fears, their vanities - he may be able to make his break for freedom. In the third of his five landmark Anthony Mann-directed Westerns, James Stewart stars as the relentless leader of bounty hunters caught in the snare of the hunted (Robert Ryan). Tough, sweating with tension and towering as tall as its breathtaking Colorado Rockies setting, The Naked Spur is simply one of the best Westerns ever made (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide). Product Features Vintage Pete Smith Speciality Short Things We Can Do Without Classic Cartoon Little Johnny Jet Theatrical Trailer
She was a gifted artist he was an eminent writer and together they created a controversy that sent shock waves through polite society. This is the true story of Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey - their lives their loves and the desires they unleashed in a relationship that dared to challenge the taboos of England between the wars.
The late Dennis Potter was a master at mining the popular songs of the 1930s and '40s for dramatic effect, but he never did it better than in The Singing Detective. The inestimable Michael Gambon plays a mystery writer named Philip E Marlow, who is suffering a torturous bout of psoriatic arthritis in hospital, where he is a victim of both his disease and the National Health Service. Unable to move without pain, he escapes into his imagination, plotting out a murder tale in which he is both a big-band singer and a private eye. But Potter and director Jon Amiel also mix in flashbacks of Marlow's youth and his unhappy marriage to explain how the real Marlow reached this sorry pass. Flawlessly, intricately, kaleidoscopically assembled, the six one-hour episodes fly by like some fantastic fever dream. Marshall Fine
Annie Hall is one of the truest, most bittersweet romances on film. In it, Allen plays a thinly disguised version of himself: Alvy Singer, a successful--if neurotic--television comedian living in Manhattan. Annie (the wholesomely luminous Dianne Keaton) is a Midwestern transplant who dabbles in photography and sings in small clubs. When the two meet, the sparks are immediate--if repressed. Alone in her apartment for the first time, Alvy and Annie navigate a minefield of self-conscious "is-this-person-someone-I'd-want-to-get-involved-with?" conversation. As they speak, subtitles flash their unspoken thoughts: the likes of "I'm not smart enough for him" and "I sound like a jerk". Despite all their caution, they connect, and we're swept up in the flush of their new romance. Allen's antic sensibility shines here in a series of flashbacks to Alvy's childhood, growing up, quite literally, under a rumbling roller coaster. His boisterous Jewish family's dinner table shares a split screen with the WASP-y Hall's tight-lipped holiday table, one Alvy has joined for the first time. His position as outsider is incontestable when he looks down the table and sizes up Annie's "Grammy Hall" as "a classic Jew-hater".The relationship arcs, as does Annie's growing desire for independence. It quickly becomes clear that the two are on separate tracks, as what was once endearing becomes annoying. Annie Hall embraces Allen's central themes--his love affair with New York (and hatred of Los Angeles), how impossible relationships are, and his fear of death. But their balance is just right, the chemistry between Allen's worry-wart Alvy and Keaton's gangly, loopy Annie is one of the screen's best pairings. It couldn't be more engaging. --Susan Benson
NOTICE: Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk DOES NOT have English audio and subtitles.
Lots of laughs and great songs have made this alltime favourite based on the hit Broadway show one of the most memorable musicals of all time. When rock star and teenage heartthrob Conrad Birdie gets drafted, the nation's teenagers go haywire and Conrad's songwriter, Albert (Dick Van Dyke), faces unemployment. So Albert and his girlfriend (Janet Leigh) organize a nationwide contest in which one lucky girl wins a farewell kiss from Conrad on the Ed Sullivan Show. Kim McAfee (AnnMargret) turns out to be the lucky teenager and Conrad's whole entourage moves into her quiet, Midwestern home much to the chagrin of her everirritable father (Paul Lynde) and her jealous boyfriend (Bobby Rydell). The result is chaos and a series of hilarious romantic complications.
Halloween is one of the great modern horror films, but as a franchise its track record has been spotty at best, painfully bad at worst. Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later, directed by horror vet Steve Miner (Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3, House), won't displace John Carpenter's original but it might help you forget the films in between. Miner certainly has: the film begins as if sequels 3 through 6 never happened. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her role for the first time in almost two decades) faked her death and is now a single mom and headmistress of an exclusive California private school. She's also a secret alcoholic who lives in fear of her homicidal brother-bogeyman Michael Myers. Guess who decides to show up for a family reunion? The film begins with classic horror-movie exposition (the deserted college campus, Michael's escape, Laurie's waking nightmares) accomplished with some humour and style, but it's all set up for the second half, a driving roller coaster of stalk-and-slash thrills. There's little of the self-conscious genre referencing of Scream and at times the film is a little far-fetched--it is a slasher movie about a knife-wielding homicidal maniac who won't stay dead, after all--but Curtis transforms Laurie from a shrieking victim into an empowered, determined horror-movie heroine who's learned a thing or two from the previous films. Adam Arkin, Josh Hartnett, and TV cutie Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) co-star, and the script received uncredited polish from Scream writer Kevin Williamson; Curtis's mom, Janet Leigh, pops up in a cameo. --Sean Axmaker
Dr. Who (Doctor Who): Black Guardian Trilogy (3 Disc)
Antonio Bay, California has turned a hundred years old. As the residents of this small, quaint harbour town begin to celebrate, an eerie fog envelops the shore and from its midst emerge dripping, demonic spectres, victims of a century old shipwreck...seeking revenge. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, the FOG is a tense and ghoulish tale that confirms John Carpenter as a master of terror. Extras: Audio Commentary with writer/director John Carpenter and writer/director Debra Hill
Tom Berenger plays an ex-boxer who quits the ring after killing an opponent and along with his partner (Jack Scalia) runs a talent agency for strippers among them his bi-sexual ex-girlfriend and star attraction (Melanie Griffith). When two of their dancers are brutally mutilated and murdered against a backdrop of mob-controlled violence and NYPD gritty police work it is left to Berenger to return to his murderous fighting skills and find the psycho killer...
One of the most shocking films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho changed the thriller genre forever. After its original release in 1960, the film was censored for decades until now. Join the Master of Suspense on a chilling journey as an unsuspecting victim (Janet Leigh) visits the Bates Motel and falls prey to one of cinema's most notorious psychopaths - Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Featuring one of the most iconic scenes in film history - the famous shower scene, Psycho is still terrifying after all these years (Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide). INCLUDES 2 VERSIONS OF PSYCHO PSYCHO UNCUT: The extended version of the movie as seen in theaters in 1960 is exactly as intended by Alfred Hitchcock and now available with additional footage for the first time ever PSYCHO: The most widely seen version of the movie was edited for content and subsequently used for TV broadcasts, theatrical re-releases and home entertainment over the last 60 years BONUS FEATURES The Making of Psycho In the Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy Hitchcock / Truffaut Interview Excerpts Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho The Shower Scene: With and Without Music The Shower Sequence: Storyboards by Saul Bass Feature Commentary with Stephen Rebello (author of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho) And More
Kay Mellor's comedy drama series following a collection of characters whose personal life struggles are relayed to each other during their weekly slimming class... Series 1 episodes comprise: 1. Love Me Slender 2. Fat Chance 3. Fat Free 4. Growing Pains 5. Face The Fat 6. When The Fat Lady Sings
!Peter Greenaway became a director of international status with this witty, stylised, erotic country house murder mystery. In an apparently idyllic 17th century Wiltshire, an ambitious draughtsman is commissioned by the wife of an aristocrat to produce twelve drawings of her husband's estate and negotiates terms to include sexual favours from his employer. But when a corpse is dragged from the moat, the draughtsman's drawings may reveal more than he realised. Extravagant costumes, a twisting plot, elegantly barbed dialogue and a mesmerising score by Michael Nyman make the film a treat for ear, eye and mind. Now newly remastered in 4K (from the original Super 16mm Eastmancolor negative and magnetic track master) by the BFI National Archive, experience Greenaway's intoxicating vision like never before. Extras Newly remastered by the BFI National Archive Limited edition 2-disc set The Greenaway Alphabet (2017, 68 mins): an intimate portrait of painter and filmmaker Peter Greenaway, directed by his wife Saskia Boddeke. Together with his daughter Pip, Greenaway formulates an alphabet that represents his personality and thoughts about art and life H Is for House (1973, 10 mins): experimental short film by Peter Greenaway Audio commentary by Peter Greenaway Introduction by Peter Greenaway Interview with Michael Nyman Behind-the-scenes footage Deleted scenes Trailers Stills gallery Newly created audio description track Other extras TBC
Doctor Who: Earthshock finds Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor nicely settling into the role, initially displaying some crotchety short temper that harks back to William Hartnell's incarnation of the Doctor, effectively setting up the most emotionally powerful finale in the show's 26-year run. In this, the penultimate adventure of Doctor Who's 19th season, a scientific expedition in a cave system on 25th-century Earth is wiped out. An army rescue unit led by Lieutenant Scott (James Warwick) and including the one woman, Professor Kyle (Claire Clifford) who survived the original massacre, goes in to recover the bodies. The scenario deliberately evokes Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), and uncannily foreshadows James Cameron's Aliens (1986), developing into a tense actioner on a space freighter bound for Earth carrying a very deadly cargo of Cybermen. Tightly paced, refreshingly free of the camp humour that sometimes blighted the show in the 1980s, and with a notable guest turn from Beryl Reid as the ship's captain, Earthshock is one of the Doctor's finest adventures. Overlook a few gaping plot holes and by the end they simply won't matter; when the final credits roll in silence the effect is as powerful now as it was shocking to audiences back in 1981. If only Star Trek: The Next Generation had done the same to Wesley Crusher! On the DVD: Doctor Who: Earthshock is presented in the original broadcast 4:3 with a near flawless picture, though the source videotape does show just the occasional sign of damage. The mono sound is excellent. The extras begin with a strong 32-minute documentary, more retrospective than making-of. Then comes the commentary, with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding (Tegan), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), which like so many Who commentaries is both informative and wonderful fun. Both commentary and the episodes have optional subtitles. Other options include detailed on-screen information titles, an isolated musical score, and the ability to watch with selected effects shots replaced with new computer graphics. There's a scored, five-minute photo gallery that even includes a shot from the recording of the commentary, a pointless assemblage of the seven minutes of footage shot on film, and a three-minute clip montage set to a dreadful techno reworking of the title theme to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary. Much more interesting is a 10-minute section from arts review Did You See? looking back on the show's aliens, and including clips from Earthshock, while the very brief Episode 5 is a hilarious new animation. --Gary S Dalkin
Following in the great Carry On... tradition with a bit of Monty Python thrown in for good measure Nuns On The Run is a classic slice of slapstick comedy starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to ""leave"" he sets them up to be killed after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decide to steal the money for themselves but when their escape doesn't go to plan they have t
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy