"Actor: John Lupton"

• The Great Locomotive Chase | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  During the American Civil War a Union spy (Fess Parker) is asked to lead a band of Union soldiers into the South so that they could destroy the railway system. However things don't go as planned when the conductor of the train that they stole is on to them and is doing everything he can to stop them. Based on a true story. Available on DVD for the first time!

• Battle Cry | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £15.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The most interesting--and entertaining--aspect of Battle Cry, a long, episodic World War II drama, is that it marked the debut of one Justus E McQueen, who subsequently took the name of the good ol' Arkansas boy he played in the movie: LQ Jones. He's only one of eight or nine marine recruits who divide the screen time with commanding officer Van Heflin and James Whitmore as a lifer sergeant named Mac, "just Mac", who ramrods their squad and also delivers the movie's overbearing narration. Unfortunately, the narration is necessary to maintain continuity as the CinemaScope production galumphs its way from rounding up the melting-pot cast to seeing them through basic training and sundry, mostly amatory misadventures in San Diego, to further training in New Zealand and finally to baptism of fire on Guadalcanal. Trouble is, among the recruits only McQueen/Jones (whose job is mostly comic relief) and Aldo Ray (as a brawling lumberjack who's never known family life) have any charisma or acting chops--and that's not forgetting Tab Hunter, whose matinee-idol status at the time does not speak well for the 50s. Battle Cry is also a cardinal example of Hollywood's penchant for buying big, lusty, profane bestsellers (by Leon Uris, in this case) and then bowdlerising all the lustiness and profanity to appease the censors. Raoul Walsh, the poet laureate of lowdown gusto, does what he can in the circumstances, and as one of the first guys ever to direct a widescreen movie (1930's The Big Trail), he makes the battle scenes roar. --Richard T. Jameson

• Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter | DVD | (05/01/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Residing in an eerie hilltop mansion are Dr. Maria Frankenstein and her brother Rudolph conducting the same bizarre and deadly artificial brain transplant experiments that forced them to flee their European homeland. In a nearby town the legendary Jesse James and his companion Hank Tracy are caught in a gunfight that leaves Hank seriously wounded. Jesse brings back the only nearby doctor...the sinister Maria Frankenstein. Hank will be the perfect subject for her next experiment and Jesse the perfect target of her romantic desires. She successfully transplants an artificial brain into the skull of Hank transforming him into a monstrous creature named Igor.