"Actor: Liam Herbert"

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £4.65   |  Saving you £18.34 (394.41%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Stepmom | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Although Stepmom was dismissed as a contender in the 1998 Oscar race, it's worth giving a second chance to this rather cogent, sharp-tongued look at second chances. Susan Sarandon's performance as a mum about to be replaced by her ex-husband's new girlfriend (played by Julia Roberts) has a lot of bite, and it's a shame the script opted to trivialise her plight in its final reel. Initially, the rancour that passes between divorced mum Jackie (Sarandon) and trendy fashion photographer Isabel (Roberts) rings true, aided by the sincerity of Jackie's ex-husband Luke (Ed Harris) and the emotional plight of their children, who have the most to lose in their parents' divorce. As the drama makes clear, the children are the real victims in the agony that ensues between old and new love. Director Chris Columbus, who is adept at showing familial chaos (he directed Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) with a sanitised minimum of lingering emotional damage, actually manages to dig a trifle deeper than usual in exploring the jealousy and hurt that occur when the baton is passed between a birth mum and the younger wife who steps into her shoes. Stepmom fortunately manages to touch on that chord--showing how an ambitious woman might feel hampered by the responsibility of children just because she's fallen in love with their dad--as well as the haunting grief that it causes their birth mum. It's an issue that haunts millions of second wives everywhere, and while Roberts conveys the confusion of being taken for granted in the melee that follows, it's Sarandon who walks off with the film. She's relentless in her fury, and everyone else in the film--the generally excellent Harris included--is sideswiped. It's just a shame that Hollywood once again wimps out in the end, solving the problem by giving Sarandon a terminal illness. Instead of allowing Jackie and Isabel's relationship to unfold on something less than a high note, the movie has to quell its best thing with a false payoff because it doesn't know what to do with real life. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com

• Jamaica Inn | DVD | (11/06/2007) from £4.49   |  Saving you £5.50 (122.49%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It's generally acknowledged that the Master of Suspense disliked costume dramas and Jamaica Inn--a rip-roaring melodrama drawn from a Daphne du Maurier pot-boiler, set in 1820s Cornwall--is about as costumed as they come. So what was he doing directing it? Killing time, essentially. In 1939 Hitchcock was due to leave Britain for Hollywood, but delays Stateside left him with time on his hands. Never one to sit idle, he agreed to make one picture for Mayflower Productions, a new outfit formed by actor Charles Laughton and émigré German producer Erich Pommer. An innocent young orphan (the 19-year-old Maureen O'Hara in her first starring role) arrives at her uncle's remote Cornish inn to find it a den of reprobates given to smuggling, wrecking and gross overacting. They're all out-hammed, though, by Laughton at his most corseted and outrageously self-indulgent as the local squire to whom Maureen runs for help. Since his star was also the co-producer, Hitch couldn't do much with the temperamental actor. He contented himself with adding a few characteristic touches--including a spot of bondage (always a Hitchcock favourite), and the chief villain's final spectacular plunge from a high place--and slyly sending up the melodramatic absurdities of the plot. Jamaica Inn hardly stands high in the Master's canon, but it trundles along divertingly enough. Hitchcock fanatics will have fun comparing it with his two subsequent--and far more accomplished--Du Maurier adaptations, Rebecca and The Birds. --Philip Kemp

• Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection | Blu Ray | (10/06/2019) from £32.52   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 6 films from the legacy of the original Invisible Man. Includes The Invisible Man - 1933. The invisible Man Returns - 1940. The Invisible Woman - 1940. Invisible Agent - 1942. The Invisible Man's Revenge - 1944. Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man - 1951. The original Invisible Man is one of the silver screen's most unforgettable characters and, along with the other Universal Classic Monsters, defined the Hollywood horror genre. The Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection includes all 6 films from the original legacy including the chilling classic starring Claude Raines and the timeless films that followed. These landmark motion pictures featured groundbreaking special effects and continue to inspire countless remakes and adaptations that strengthen the legend of the Invisible Man to this day. Bonus Features: Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed Feature Commentary with Film Historian Rudy Behlmer Production Photographs Theatrical Trailers

• The Invisible Man | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £6.95   |  Saving you £3.04 (43.74%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Claude Rains delivers a remarkable performance in his screen debut as a mysterious doctor who discovers a serum that makes him invisible. Based on H.G. Wells classic novel it not only fuelled a host of sequels but features some special effects that are still imitated today.

• Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection | DVD | (10/06/2019) from £21.85   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 6 films from the legacy of the original Invisible Man. Includes The Invisible Man - 1933. The invisible Man Returns - 1940. The Invisible Woman - 1940. Invisible Agent - 1942. The Invisible Man's Revenge - 1944. Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man - 1951. The original Invisible Man is one of the silver screen's most unforgettable characters and, along with the other Universal Classic Monsters, defined the Hollywood horror genre. The Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection includes all 6 films from the original legacy including the chilling classic starring Claude Raines and the timeless films that followed. These landmark motion pictures featured groundbreaking special effects and continue to inspire countless remakes and adaptations that strengthen the legend of the Invisible Man to this day. Bonus Features: Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed Feature Commentary with Film Historian Rudy Behlmer Production Photographs Theatrical Trailers

• Carry On Cowboy | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Made in the "classic" period of the series, 1966's Carry On Cowboy is a spoof Western set in Stodge City, about to suffer the arrival of black-hatted outlaw The Rumpo Kid, played by the less-than-youthful Sid James. Kenneth Williams is the aptly named Judge Burke, who appeals to Washington for help to combat this gunslinger and his henchmen. Assistance arrives in the form of Jim Dale's Marshall P Knutt, a drainage, sanitation and garbage expert from England, with a reference from Lady Pushing for doing a "good job on her main sludge channel", whose Christian name provokes a predictable misunderstanding. Fortunately, he's accompanied by Annie Oakley. As ever, much fun is to be had cheering/groaning along to double-entendres about "big ones", but never mind the script, feel the characters. Joan Sims does a good Mae West impression; Syd James "Ha hwa-ha-ha!"s his way through his part with his usual aplomb; the underrated Peter Butterworth is excellent as an inept Doctor; while Bernard Bresslaw adds to his impressively multi-ethnic CV, playing a Native American, with Charles Hawtrey as his incorrigible firewater-loving Chief. On the DVD: No extras, sadly, other than scene selection but Alan Hume's splendidly authentic colour lensing is suitably refurbished here. --David Stubbs

• In My Father's Den | DVD | (02/10/2005) from £9.36   |  Saving you £10.63 (113.57%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A war journalist's return home is blighted when he becomes implicated in the disappearance of a teenage girl.

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £19.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (15.01%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• City Rats | DVD | (27/04/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Welcome to the world of the City Rats where eight lives collide in a Pulp Fiction style blend that reveals London's true dark and twisted underbelly, which stars Danny Dyer (Football Factory) and Tamer Hassan (Cass).

• Quatermass 2 | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Quatermass is intrigued by strange images on his radar. Thinking them to be meteorites he follows them to a village which on his arrival he finds has been completely destroyed...

• Dinner At The Sporting Club | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £4.85   |  Saving you £5.14 (105.98%)   |  RRP £9.99

  BBC drama about young boxers entertaining dressed diners at a club with a bout or two. Thaw plays the manager of one of the boxers. Written by Leon Griffiths (also the writter of 'Minder').

• Carry On Jack | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £4.50   |  Saving you £11.49 (255.33%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Carry On Jack was the 1963 offering from a team which had, by then, become a repertory company with special guests dropping in for a dose of innuendo. "What's all this jigging in the rigging?" demands Kenneth Williams, this time playing a ship's captain, and the scene is set for 90 minutes of ribaldry involving cross-dressing, press-ganging and plank walking. The plot scarcely matters. It's set after the Battle of Trafalgar and the sea is awash with Spanish galleons and pirates as the British navy sets about defending its shores with as much incompetence as possible. Sally, a barmaid at the Dirty Duck (Juliet Mills in feisty principal boy mode), knocks Bernard Cribbins on the head and steals his uniform so that she can go in search of her childhood sweetheart. He is promptly press-ganged and they end up on the same ship. Williams, on the brink of his ascendancy as a star turn, just about keeps the mannerisms under control enough to build the character of the naïve and neurotic captain. Familiar Carry On faces on top form include Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale, while Peter Gilmore--in his pre-Onedin Line days--appears as a pirate. Peter Rodgers' script is not quite vintage Carry On but the jokes keep coming and it's all good, clean fun. On the DVD: This was one of the first Carry On films to be made in colour. The print is in reasonable condition. The picture quality, apart from a couple of scratchy scenes of sailing ships that were probably drafted in from stock footage, is fair, as is the sound. But apart from the scene index there are no extras on the disc. Given the cult status of the Carry On films, and the wealth of documentary material which has been made about them and their stars, you'd think something extra could have been offered with the DVD releases to make them a more worthwhile alternative to the video. --Piers Ford

• The Bridge on the River Kwai/Das Boot/The Guns of Navarone | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Bridge Over The River Kwai: Set in Burma during World War II the story tells of British P.O.Ws who are forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese while a British Commando team is sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards. (Dir. David Lean 1957) Das Boot: Das Boot is a graphic and gripping tale that follows the daring patrol of U-96 one of the famed German U-Boats known as 'The Grey Wolves'. Prowling the North Atlantic they challenged the British Navy at every turn. The crew abroad the U-96 is portrayed in a desperate life-and-death struggle coping with life beneath the waves quickly gives way to terror when confronting the enemy... (Dir. Wolfgang Peterson 1981) The Guns Of Navarone: Exciting war film based on a novel by Alistair Maclean which tells of the attempts of a British raiding team to sabotage two giant German guns on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Carl Foreman brought Allistar MacLean's best-selling novel to the screen winning nominations for seven Academy Awards in 1961. (Dir. J. Lee Thompson 1961)

• Love Letters Of A Portuguese Nun | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £9.43   |  Saving you £7.56 (80.17%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A young girl Maria is caught in flagrante delicto with her lover by Father Vicente who belongs to the nearby Serreda Iris cloister. The fiendish clergyman persuades her parents who are poor and easily intimidated to put Maria under his protection. She is brought to Serreda Iris where the nuns seem to have an unusual interest in her beautiful body. Maria abondoned by everyone loses hope but first she wants to make things clear with the only friend left to her: She writes a let

• Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon / The Many Faces Of Sherlock Holmes | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £7.48   |  Saving you £0.50 (9.11%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The inventor of a secret weapon and its prototype are abducted leaving the wartime Allies in dire need of assistance. Sherlock Holmes is called and begins to do battle with Professor Moriarty who will later become his arch-enemy...

• Night Of The Big Heat | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £47.95   |  Saving you £-31.96 (-199.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A freak heatwave sends the temperature soaring on the remote island of Fara. The locals including Dr Vernon (Peter Cushing) and novelist Jeffrey Callum (Patrick Allen) are left dazed by the rising temperature. When Callum is reunited with his former mistress Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) the atmosphere becomes even more tense. It falls to Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) another visitor to the island to solve the mystery. The unbearable temperature is the result of a heat ray dire

• The Royal Hunt Of The Sun | DVD | (01/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An epic tale of the Spanish conquest of Peru. This film will keep you glued to the screen in anticipation of the fateful ending. The world will remember me ” promises Spanish General Francesco Pizarro to the King of Spain. He tells of a land of endless gold enough to make Spain the most powerful of nations. But Pizarro is a dreamer a man of failures. The King allows him to search but at his own expense. Thus armed with a band of ruthless gold-seeking soldiers of fortune Pizarro journeys over vast mountains and harsh desert to reach Monchepechu. When faced with the life or death of the Inca God-King Atahualpa Pizarro struggles with his duty as a soldier and his loyalties to God his men and himself all of which are called into question by his fascination with the devotion and worship of the mystical man-god. Pizarro must choose between life or death and his god or another. This true epic adventure of undying faith brave yet greedy men loyalty to god king and country and one's own sense of morality hurtles towards an ending that answers humankind's hardest question Whose God is the real God?

• Sherlock Holmes Box Set - Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, The Woman in Green, Terror by Night, Dressed to Kill | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  This box set features 'Woman In Green' 'Secret Weapon' 'Dressed To Kill' and 'Terror By Night'. The Woman In Green: A sequence of strange murders baffles the police. Holmes is called onto the scene and discovers the existence of a blackmail ring that uses a female hypnotist to further their skulduggery. Secret Weapon: The inventor of a secret weapon and its prototype are abducted leaving the wartime Allies in dire need of assistance. Sherlock Holmes is called a

• Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The inventor of a secret weapon and its prototype are abducted leaving the wartime Allies in dire need of assistance. Sherlock Holmes is called and begins to do battle with Professor Moriarty who will later become his arch-enemy...