"Actor: John Alexander"

• The Work And The Glory | DVD | (17/03/2008) from £39.13   |  Saving you £-14.14 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Tiels Comprise: The Work and the Glory (2004): When Benjamin Steed (Sam Hennings The Aviator) and Mary Ann Steed (Brenda Strong Seinfeld) relocate their family to upstate New York in the early 1800's they unwittingly settle in a town divided along religious lines. After their new hired help turns out to be at the center of the uproar each member of the Steed family must come to terms with their own beliefs in the face of heavy persecution. Together they struggle to weather the raging controversy surrounding a young man named Joseph Smith. The Work and the Glory II: American Zion (2005): The Work And The Glory chronicles the hardships that plagued the followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives) Eric Johnson (Legends of the Fall) and Jonathan Scarfe (Into The West) as Joseph Smith star in this historic epic. Family bonds are tested by a new faith as fathers and sons find themselves on opposite sides of a religion openly persecuted in 19th Century America. The Work and the Glory III: A House Divided (2006)

• The Phantom Of The Opera | DVD | (11/11/2002) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From the moment of original release in 1925, The Phantom of the Opera has been considered among the classic movies of all time. The extreme, expressive acting and state of the art character make-up of Lon Chaney, the multitude of cuts, remade endings and restorations, the fantastic sets and filming techniques, all coalesce to create the mysterious aura that will forever fuel this masterpiece. While several versions of Phantom exist, this is perhaps the most unique and relevant to the darkwave...

• Abbott And Costello - Laugh-A-Thon | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Abbott & Costello Classic Comedies three-disc collector's set consists of oddments from the latter days of their career that have fallen into public domain; which means you don't get their best routines or classiest productions, and indeed find the double act doing fairly tired schtick as Costello is chubbily chicken-hearted and Abbott grumpily money-grubbing. Africa Screams is a 1949 safari parody, with Costello running away yelping from sundry alligators, gorillas (including a Kong-sized giant), cannibals ("Chief have sweet tooth for little fat man") and lions amid backlot jungles as Abbott competes with stock villains for a fortune in diamonds. Jack and the Beanstalk, from 1952, finds the duo attempting to sell themselves as children's entertainers in a Wizard of Oz-influenced fairytale book-ended by sepia modern-day segments. The magical story unfolds in wonderfully gruesome cheap colour with some of the worst musical numbers ever committed to film ("he's perpendicular-la-la") as Jack the Clod (Costello) and Mr Dinkelpuss the Butcher (Abbott) climb the beanstalk and plod around the Giant's lair until the story runs out. Possibly the most interesting item is the third disc, which offers an episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour (aka The Abbott and Costello Show) from the 1950s. It shows the pair doing live routines closer to their original vaudeville act than their film roles (including an amazingly cruel bit in which Abbott slaps Costello every time he says the word "tin"). A loose plot about Latin American intrigue, with Lou hired to stand in for an assassination target "El Presidente", makes room for speciality guest stars ranging from child xylophonist Baby Mistin to four starlets (including Jane Russell and Rhonda Fleming) harmonising on a "Happy Easter" medley. Best of all, and now funnier than the comedy, are original hard-sell ads for household products like "Ajax, the foaming action cleanser" and "Halo, the shampoo that glorifies your hair". --Kim Newman

• Race To Witch Mountain (2-Disc DVD + Digital Copy) | DVD | (24/08/2009) from £29.68   |  Saving you £-9.69 (-48.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Enjoy the ultimate Race to Witch Mountain experience anytime, anywhere on Blu-ray and DVD Combi pack. On Blu-ray, Disney's fun family action-adventure is turbocharged with spectacular picture and sound.

• Hellboy II: The Golden Army | Blu Ray | (25/06/2013) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-14.68 (-119.30%)   |  RRP £12.30

  The fate of mankind hangs in the balance when a ruthless prince awakens an unstoppable army of creatures and wages war with the human world. It’s up to Hellboy and his team of paranormal outcasts to face off with the forces of darkness in the ultimate battle of good versus evil!

• And Now For Something Completely Different (Collector's Edition) (DVD) | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python's first feature, is a reworking of their best skits from the first two seasons of the TV series. Originally made for the US market (where the show had yet to be aired), it was shot on film outside the usual studio sets ("Nudge Nudge", for example, is set in a tavern filled with passers-by). The writing and performances are fine and the film is packed with some of their best bits: "How to Avoid Being Seen", " Hell's Grannies", "Blackmail", "The Lumberjack Song" and "The Upper Class Twit of the Year", among others. Many of the sketches have been shortened, however, and the loss of the overly bright video sheen (the film has a muddy, dull look to it) and the invigorating presence of a live audience leaves the film sluggish at times. They're still feeling out the possibilities of the feature length, which they conquered with their next movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974). --Sean Axmaker

• New Orleans | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £16.18   |  Saving you £-3.19 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This little-seen 1947 drama is a treat for jazz fans thanks to an otherwise creaky if nobly intentioned story built around the music's Crescent City genesis that provides an ample excuse to turn the camera on authentic jazz greats. Nick Duquesne (Arturo De Cordova) is a Bourbon Street charmer whose gambling club provides the mythic stomping grounds for none other than Louis Armstrong whose vocalizing sweetheart Endie played by none other than Billie Holiday proves no slouch herself. A newly arrived debutante Miralee (Dorothy Patrick) arrives in New Orleans and falls first for the music and then for the roguish but ultimately gallant Nick. The movie follows knee-jerk plot machinations revolving around her family's efforts to excise Nick from her life her own dream of mingling jazz and classical music and the gambler's transformation into a jazz promoter.

• Nosferatu | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £13.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (42.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in 1922, FW Murnau's Expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu--A Symphony of Horrors is an unofficial but reasonably faithful condensation of parts of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Alongside Metropolis (1926) it is one of the very few European features from the 1920s that is still regularly shown, and apart from being the first great horror film it laid the foundations of the vampire genre to the present day. Wearing astonishing rodent-like make-up Max Schreck cuts such an iconic figure as the undead Count that the 2001 comedy-horror Shadow of the Vampire suggested he wasn't acting at all! Although Murnau's film was revolutionary and technically adventurous for the time, a modern audience will have to make some allowances for the fact the movie now seems both dated and technically primitive: Murnau's stylised lighting and camera effects have been endlessly imitated and improved upon since, and even its greatest defenders generally admit the film barely raises a shudder, let alone a full-blooded scare. Nevertheless, Nosferatu holds a strange dreamlike grip on the imagination and its incalculable influence on fantasy and horror cinema means this is essential viewing for anyone seriously interested in the development of motion picture art. On the DVD: Presented in Academy at 1.37:1 and with James Bernard's new orchestral score in well-recorded stereo Nosferatu looks and sounds as good as it has in decades. Bernard, composer of Hammer's Dracula (1958) among others, has written a superior score that captures the film's subtitle, "A Symphony of Horrors", and truly brings the images alive in a way previous scores have not. This restored version presents for the first time on video or DVD the blue and brown tints of the original cinema prints and replicates the original hand-designed inter-title cards which with their distinctive designs make the film much more of a compete visual experience. More importantly, this DVD offers approximately another quarter of an hour of material over the usually distributed American version. However, the restoration has not extended to repairing the many lines, scratches, variations in brilliance and other evidence of print damage present throughout. The film is perfectly watchable, being very much what one would expect from the early 1920s. There are text biographies and notes on Murnau and James Bernard, DVD-ROM material on the restoration of the print and a perceptive 23-minute discussion by film expert Christopher Frayling on many aspects of the movie. --Gary S Dalkin

• Midway | DVD | (09/03/2020) from £3.08   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Midway is the epic, real-life saga about an undermanned American fleet and the brave Navy leaders and pilots who triumphed, against the odds, over a powerful adversary. With democracy and freedom at stake, these U.S. brothers-in-arms conquered the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway, a most stunning clash by air and sea which marked a heroic feat of naval warfare and pivoted the Allies toward victory in the Pacific Theater during WWII.