"Actor: Jean"

• Mouchette | Blu Ray | (10/03/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Perhaps the most accessible of Robert Bresson's films, this story of a 14-year-old schoolgirl at the mercy of the world around her is like a melodrama stripped of flourish. Mouchette is an angry adolescent in the French provinces, the daughter of a drunken bootlegger and a dying, bedridden mother, a pariah in school and a figure of village gossip. She rebels in typically adolescent ways, lobbing mud at teasing classmates and defying wagging tongues with a wilful stare, but her deep pain and loneliness pour from her hollow, sad eyes. There's no sentimentality in Bresson's portrait of village life but for a few brief moments the film explodes with energy and emotion. Mouchette rides the bumper cars at a local fair, flirting with a young boy in loving bumps and deliberate rams, and her dour expression flowers in a smile as the fairground speakers blare a rock & roll tune... until her father's heavy hand slaps her back to reality. It's a moment unlike any other in a Bresson film, a joyous reprieve from the monotony of her life, but if the rest of her existence is glum and hopeless, the film is unexpectedly beautiful. The style is often fragmented--the film opens on a stunning play of hands, feet and spying eyes as poacher and police both wait for their prey--but the beauty of the forests and meadows creates an idyllic naturalism that leavens Bresson's harsh portrait of the human condition. --Sean Axmaker

• LES COUSINS | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Made barely a year after Claude Chabrol's debut Le Beau Serge, Les Cousins featured the earlier film's same starring pair of Jean-Claude Brialy and Grard Blain, here reversing the good-guy/bad-guy roles of the previous picture. The result is a simmering, venomous study in human temperament that not only won the Golden Bear at the 1959 Berlin Film Festival, but also drew audiences in droves, and effectively launched Chabrol's incredible fifty-year-long career. A gripping and urbane examination of city and country, ambition and ease, Les Cousins continues to captivate and shock audiences with its brilliant scenario, the performances of Brialy and Blain, and the assuredness of Chabrol's precocious directorial hand. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Claude Chabrol's breakthrough film in a beautiful new Gaumont restoration on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time in the UK. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 47-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Homme qui vendit la Tour Eiffel [The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower], Chabrol's 1964 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; a new and exclusive translation of a rare text about actress Franoise Vatel provided for this release by its author, the filmmaker and critic Luc Moullet; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• Eagle Has Landed, The / The Ipcress File | DVD | (17/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In the spy-crazed film world of the 1960s, Len Deighton's antihero Harry Palmer burst onto the scene as an antidote to the James Bond films. Here was a British spy who had a working-class accent and horn-rimmed glasses and above all really didn't want to be a spy in the first place. As portrayed by Michael Caine, Palmer was the perfect antithesis to Sean Connery's 007. Unlike that of his globetrotting spy cousin, Palmer's beat is cold, rainy, dreary London, where he spends his days and nights in unheated flats spying on subversives. He does charm one lady, but she's no Pussy Galore, just a civil servant he works with, sent to keep an eye on him. Eventually he's assigned to get to the bottom of the kidnapping and subsequent "brain draining" of a nuclear physicist, all the while being reminded by his superiors that it's this or prison. Things begin to get pretty hairy for Harry. Produced by Harry Saltzman in his spare time between Bond movies, the film also features a haunting score by another Bond veteran, composer John Barry. --Kristian St. Clair, Amazon.com

• Extreme Ops | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £6.54   |  Saving you £9.45 (59.10%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A group of extreme snow boarders hit the Alps for a commercial shoot, but when one of the cameramen stumbles upon a group of terrorists hiding in the mountains, their script goes out the window.

• The Claude Chabrol Collection - Vol. 2 | DVD | (27/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  This DVD box set features: Innocence With Dirty Hands (1975): Beautiful Julie Wormser (Schneider) is unhappily married to rich drunk slob Louis (Steiger) so plans to kill him with the help of her panicky young lover Jeff Marle (Giusti). However when the deed appears to be done Jeff scarpers leaving Julie to face the fallout. Who's Got The Black Box (1967): When US radar installations in Greece are jammed and an undercover NATO security man is killed suspicion falls on his widow who sets out to find the real culprits and prove herself innocent. The Flower Of Evil (2003): Francois (Benoit Magimel) the handsome young son returns home from a 3-year stay in Chicago and quickly rekindles a fiery romance with his cousin Michele (Melanie Doutey). Meanwhile his mother Anne (Natalie Baye) is running for public office and has stirred up more than a bit of controversy. When a slanderous letter appears in the newspaper revealing family indiscretions - incest adultery murder and even war crimes - the entire family remains firmly in denial of any wrongdoing. The dead giveaway is sweet elderly Aunt Line (Suzanne Flon) whose mischievous smile pegs her as the omniscient keeper of family secrets. Pleasure Party (1975): Phillipe and Esther live an apparently idyllic life with their daughter Elise. In an attempt to preserve this bliss Phillipe decides that he and Esther should each have affairs being sure to tell each other openly about them. The plan backfires with tragic results as Phillipe becomes engulfed in jealously. The Break Up (1970): Helene Regnier's husband Charles who is mentally ill injures their son Michel in a rage. Charles moves back in with his wealthy and manipulative parents who blame Helene for their son's condition and vow to win custody of Michel. While the boy is in hospital Helene rents a room in a boarding house nearby. The Regniers hire Paul Thomas a family acquaintance who needs money to find dirt on Helene before the court hearing on custody. Paul moves into the boarding house and with the help of his girlfriend Sonia who rarely wears clothes plots to ruin Helene's reputation and then her very life. Cop Au Vin (1985): Based on a novel by Dominique Roulet introduces the character of Inspecteur Lavardin a loner detective whose affable exterior hides a man willing to go to any lengths to find the truth though his tactics are sometimes questionable. A small French town experiences a spate of murders and Lavardin is called in to investigate. He meets withdrawn teenager Louis Cuno a postman who uses his position to gather information to stop a plot to take over his family's property. Louis lives with his overbearing crippled mother whose cruelty spurs Louis to take his amateur sleuth work a bit too far.

• Catherine Deneuve Collection | DVD | (12/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The icily beautiful French goddess Catherine Denueve is celebrated here in Optimum's Screen Icons series with a box-set of films that span the full range of her illustrious 45-year career so far. Umbrellas Of Cherbourg was the film that made Deneuve a star and introduced her to the world. A conventional love story made completely original by all the dialogue being sung and a rainbow of colours reflecting the radiance of the story and characters alike. Umbrellas won the Palme D'Or in Cannes in 1964. Belle du Jour Undoubtedly Luis Buuel's most accessible film Belle de Jour is an elegant and erotic masterpiece that maintains as hypnotic a grip on modern audiences as it did on its debut 30 years ago. Denueve plays a bored and sexually frustrated housewife who becomes a part-time prostitute and begins a dangerous relationship with a young gangster. Donkey Skin is a wonderfully bizarre film from Jacques Demy a unique synthesis of Jean Cocteau and Walt Disney. Ahead of its time and strikingly modern in its production design it's also a warts and all fairytale ripe with incorrect royalism and medieval misogyny. Deneuve plays the dual role of the King's wife and daughter. Manon 70 a 1960's version of an 18th century French novel and a 19th century Italian opera Denueve plays the confused Manon torn between a young but penniless lover and an older richer suitor whose generosity she finds very tempting... Ma Saisson Preferee An Andre Techine family drama starring Daniel Auteuil.

• Three Coins In The Fountain | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £8.71   |  Saving you £4.28 (49.14%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This charming romantic comedy tells the story of three American secretaries and their search for love in Rome. After throwing a coin in the Trevi Fountain and making a wish each of them eventually finds what they are looking for. For Frances (Dorothy McGuire) it is waspish author Clifton Webb. For Anita (Jean Peters) there's office romeo Rossano Brazzi. And for Maria (Maggie McNamara) a real-life handsome prince Louis Jourdan. Exquisitely photographed amidst the splendours of the

• Paris Vu Par | DVD | (07/12/2009) from £8.95   |  Saving you £7.04 (78.66%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Paris Vu Par

• The Brylcreem Boys | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £8.99   |  Saving you £1.00 (11.12%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When two enemy pilots shoot each other down over Ireland they are both captured as prisoners of war. During World War II Neutral Ireland interned all soldiers sailors and airmen regardless of their nationality captured on Irish soil. What they failed to mention was that they would put them all in the same camp... Our pilots (Bill Campbell) and Rudi (Angus MacFayden) are astonished to come face to face with each other at the entrance of the interment camp. Further surprises are in

• The Ghost Goes West | DVD | (28/01/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An American businessman's family convinces him to buy a Scottish castle and disassemble it to ship it to America brick by brick where it will be put it back together. The castle though is not the only part of the deal with it goes the several-hundred year old ghost who haunts it.

• Black Jack | DVD | (21/06/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the novel by celebrated children's author Leon Garfield this children's adventure film set in 1750s York was Ken Loach's fourth feature. Shot on location by cinematographer Chris Menges - who had collaborated with Loach on developing the gentle observational style also seen in his earlier feature Kes (1969) - the film's witty dialogue and enchanting performances from its charismatic young cast led to the film being presented with the Critics Award at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.

• Pierrot Le Fou | Blu Ray | (15/03/2010) from £15.98   |  Saving you £12.00 (92.38%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Based on Lionel White's novel 'Obsession' Pierrot Le Fou /i> is the story of a bored husband who runs away from Paris to the South of France with an unpredictable but beguiling young babysitter (Anna Karina) after a corpse is found in her flat. After an idyllic time at the seaside they hit the road once more and get by from stealing soon becoming embroiled in the machinations of two rival gun running gangs and a man who may or may not be the girl's brother. Belmondo was nominated for a BAFTA for his perfomance in this tragic tale of a romantic couple who cannot escape fate no matter how far they flee.

• Breathless | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £29.68   |  Saving you £-4.69 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Stylish and sexy Breathless [A Bout De Souffle] is the epitome of cinematic cool. A fast tale of a young man on the run in Paris at the end of the 50's Breathless shook up the film world upon its release and has made a lasting impression on cinema history. Starring Jean Paul Belmondo the film was produced by Godard from an original treatment by Fran''ois Truffaut in a production that united the four initiators of the 'nouvelle Vague' - Claude Chabrol acted as artistic director while acclaimed director Jean Pierre Melville appeared in front of camera.

• It's All Happening | DVD | (19/07/2010) from £15.84   |  Saving you £3.14 (24.44%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's All Happening

• LE BEAU SERGE | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• Claire's Knee | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Eric Rohmer's Claire's Knee is one of his series of "Moral Tales", though it deals delicately with areas of intense moral ambiguity rather than in any obvious certainty. Jerome, a man holidaying at the very end of his youth, allows his old friend Aurora to co-opt him in her experiments with the hearts of two teenage girls. Sensitive gawky Laura fixates on him, but knows enough to realise he is dangerous to her, whereas Claire, for whom he develops a vague obsession, largely ignores him as a sexual being. He develops elaborate theories in justification of what he does and says, and the film does not dismiss these theories, while allowing for the possibility that Jerome is nothing but a manipulative self-deceived letch. This is a movie with a delicate visual palette; Nestor Almendros' elegiac camera work constantly makes clear that for all the characters this is a summer vacation with consequences. It is also a conversation piece in which almost nothing happens--the most Jerome ever allows himself is to stroke Claire's knee--and the interesting thing is how all the intense talk and extended scenes of one-to-one dialogue make that quite enough to sustain our fascinated interest. --Roz Kaveney

• Two In The Wave | DVD | (11/04/2011) from £9.05   |  Saving you £6.94 (76.69%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Two in the Wave is the story of a friendship and estrangement. Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930; Franois Truffaut two years later. Love of movies brings them together. They write in the same magazines Cahiers du Cinema and Arts. When the younger of the two becomes a filmmaker with The 400 Blows which triumphs in Cannes in 1959 he helps his older friend shift to directing offering him a screenplay which already has a title A bout de souffle or Breathless. Through the 1960s the two loyally support each other. History and politics separate them in 1968 and afterwards - when Godard plunges into radical politics but Truffaut continues his career as before. Between the two of them the actor Jean-Pierre Laud is torn like a child caught between two separated and warring parents. Their friendship and their break-up embody the story of French cinema. Exploring the letters personal archives and films of the two New Wave directors Two in the Wave takes us back to a prodigious decade that transformed the world of cinema.

• Le Parfum D'Yvonne | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Available for the first time on DVD!!! A man remembers an idyllic summer in 1958 spent on the shores of Lake Geneva in avoiding participation in the Algerian conflict during which he encountered the beguiling Yvonne and her friend Dr. Meinthe. On their first encounter he was drawn to her and they seemed destined to be together however the sun filled days of social gatherings and passionate assignations would be all too fleeting. Patrice Leconte's erotic masterpiece is available f

• A Town Like Alice | DVD | (11/10/1999) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One of the all-time great wartime love stories shot on location in Malaya.

• LE BEAU SERGE | Blu Ray | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more