"Actor: Liz Fraser"

• Carry On Cruising | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £10.42   |  Saving you £3.57 (34.26%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Well, the gang's all here, but Carry On Cruising isn't one of the classics of the series. This may be partly due to the film's well-intentioned stab at some sort of authenticity, being set as it is on a genuine cruise liner rather than in a studio full of cheap sets. It swiftly becomes apparent that the cramped environment isn't well suited to the kind of slapstick which is usually a key ingredient in any Carry On film. Veteran couch spuds will recall that the TV series Triangle was similarly disadvantaged, except that it wasn't supposed to be funny. As ever, though, the brilliant cast-in-residence manage to make the most of the situation. The plot, such as it is, deals with the tribulations which beset a world-weary captain (James) when he realises he's been saddled with a crew of misfits and incompetents (practically everybody else) on a cruise which is of course supposed to offer its passengers every comfort and convenience. If there's a single outstanding performance it has to be that of Lance Percival's chef, whose cheeriness as he presides over his various culinary experiments is extremely funny in a menacing sort of way. On the DVD: The DVD issue has no additional features. --Roger Thomas

• Melissa | DVD | (06/08/2007) from £10.78   |  Saving you £6.21 (57.61%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Adapted from the best-selling novel My Wife Melissa by Francis Durbridge this classic serial thriller features journalist Guy Foster who returns home to find that his wife Melissa has been murdered. Foster retraces her steps and discovers that she has been leading a double life.

• Confessions From A Holiday Camp | DVD | (20/12/2004) from £24.00   |  Saving you £-18.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Available for the first time on DVD! Timmy and Sid are entertainment officers at a holiday camp. They must organise a beauty contest successfully or find themselves out of work!

• I'm All Right Jack | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £14.21   |  Saving you £2.78 (16.40%)   |  RRP £16.99

  After a decade on radio in The Goons, 1959's I'm All Right Jack set Peter Sellers on the road to international stardom. Sellers played both Sir John Kennaway, and unforgettably, the Bolshy trade union leader Fred Kite (he would go on to take three roles in Dr Strangelove and featured endless disguises in The Pink Panther in 1963) series. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge, lampooning the then burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel's (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract, a scheme which involves manipulating his innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) into acting as the catalyst in an escalating labour dispute, from which the socialist Mr Kite is only too keen to make capital. Management and labour both have their self-serving hypocrisy dissected in this ingenious comedy, actually a sequel to the military comedy Private's Progress (1956), but which stands independent of the earlier film. Both films were made by the brothers John and Roy Boulting, director and producer of such British classics as Brighton Rock (1947), Seven Days to Noon (1950), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959) and Heaven's Above (1963). The superb cast of I'm All Right Jack also features Richard Attenborough, John Le Mesurier, Margaret Rutherford and Terry Thomas. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Carry On Behind | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £7.66   |  Saving you £2.33 (30.42%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The discovery of valuable archaeological remains beneath a holiday caravan site is the cause of the mayhem in Carry On Behind. That said, the sub-"plots", which involve Windsor Davies and Jack Douglas as a pair of randy fishermen, a couple sharing their caravan with an outsize dog (no, it's not like that...), the obligatory giggling dolly birds and so on are all typical grist to the Carry On mill. The location is of course as bleakly miserable as such a place could ever be and will bring a frisson of familiarity to many Brits. Widely held to be one of the best in the series, the film would in fact have been a rather lacklustre effort were it not for the superbly over-the-top presence of Elke Sommer, whose performance as the strapping assistant to archaeologist Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams) seems like a wonderful hybrid of Ute Lemper and Charlie Dimmock. --Roger Thomas

• Desert Mice | DVD | (22/03/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A fantastic cast star in this World War II comedy farce featuring the antics of an eclectic mix of entertainers of an organisation that called itself Entertainment National Service Association. Known as ENSA for short or rather cruelly Every Night Something Awful! Fresh from the music halls they certainly give the camp the run around in more ways than one and bumble their way to triumph!

• The Doris Day Collection - Pillow Talk/Young At Heart/The Thrill Of It All/That Touch Of Mink/Send Me No Flowers/Lover Come Back | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £49.95   |  Saving you £0.04 (0.10%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A collection of six classic Doris Day movies in one bumper value box set!; ; Young At Heart (1955) Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra) is a cynical, down-on-his-luck musician, who reluctantly agrees to help his composer friend Alex Burke (Gig Young) with a new comedy he is working on. However, Barney gains a new perspective on life and love when he meets Alex's irrepressibly perky fiancee, Laurie (Doris Day) - and promptly falls in love with her! ; ; Lover Come Back (1961) Account exec...

• Two For The Seesaw | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jerry Ryan an unhappily married laywer is going through a messy divorce from his wife in Omaha and moves to New York for a fresh start. Lonely during his first month's stay he then meets a liberal young woman named Gittel an impoverished dancer from Greenwich village. Nature takes its course as the unlikely relationship develops between the conservative lawyer and the liberal free-spirited dancer. Based on the two character play by William Gibson and with wonderful black and white

• Night We Dropped A Clanger | DVD | (28/11/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Brian Rix stars in this 1961 Sydney Box British comedy farce. Wing Commander Blenkinsop (Rix) is sent on a secret mission to find out about the flying bomb, Blenkinsops double - a toilet janitor is also sent to confuse the enemy but plans go array and everyone ends up confused!

• Fury At Smuggler's Bay | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A small coastal village is the setting for smuggling and ship wrecking. Only the Squire's son is prepared to speak out against the man responsible...

• The Avengers: The Definitive Dossier 1966 Vol. 1 | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Swingingly stylish adventures with super spies John Steed and Mrs Peel! Flashback to the Sixties with the coolest duo in crimefighting! Episodes: Too Many Christmas Trees: Steed hangs up his stocking and Emma asks for more... Silent Dust: Steed watches birds and Emma goes hunting. The Girl From Auntie: Steed almost outbids himself and Emma is a bird in a gilded cage. The Thirteenth Hole: Steed finds a bogey and Emma gets a birdy. The Quick-Quick Slow Death: Steed has two left feet and Emma dances with danger. The Danger Makers: Steed joins a secret society and Emma walks the plank. The House That Jack Built: Steed takes a wrong turning and Emma holds the key to it all.

• The Sorcerers | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The Sorcerers, the second film directed by the lost "wunderkind" of British cinema Michael Reeves, may not have the scope and visceral impact of his masterpiece, Witchfinder General (1968), but there's enough fierce originality here to show what a tragic loss it was when he died from a drugs overdose aged only 24. The film also shows the effective use he made of minimal resources, working here on a derisory budget of less than £50,000--of which £11,000 went to the film's sole "named" star, Boris Karloff. Karloff plays an elderly scientist living with his devoted wife in shabby poverty in London, dreaming of the brilliant breakthrough in hypnotic technique that will restore him to fame and fortune. Seeking a guinea-pig, he hits on Mike, a disaffected young man-about-town (Ian Ogilvy, who starred in all three of Reeves' films). But the technique has an unlooked-for side effect--not only can he and his wife make Mike do their bidding, they can vicariously experience everything that he feels. At which point, it turns out that the wife has urges and desires that her husband never suspected. Karloff, then almost at the end of his long career, brings a melancholy dignity to his role; but the revelation is the veteran actress Catherine Lacey as the seemingly sweet old lady, turning terrifyingly avid and venomous as she realises her power. The portrayal of Swinging London, with its mini-skirted dollybirds thronging nightclubs where the strongest stimulant seems to be Coke rather than coke, has an almost touching innocence, but Reeves invests it with a dream-like quality, extending it into scenes of violent death in labyrinthine dark alleys. By this stage, some ten years after it started, the British horror cycle was winding down in lazy self-parody. Reeves had the exceptional talent and vision to revive it, had he only lived. On the DVD: The Sorcerers DVD has original trailers for both this film and Witchfinder General (both woefully clumsy); filmographies for Reeves, Karloff and Ogilvy; an "image gallery" (a grab-bag of posters, stills and lobby cards); detailed written production notes by horror-movie expert Kim Newman; and an excellent 25-minute documentary on Reeves, "Blood Beast", dating from 1999. The transfer is letterboxed full-width, with acceptable sound. --Philip Kemp

• Ballad Of Josie | DVD | (31/07/2006) from £14.56   |  Saving you £-4.57 (-45.70%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Josie Minick is acquitted for accidentally killing her drunken husband; nevertheless her 8-year-old son Luther is taken to Cheyenne to be cared for by her wealthy father-in-law Alpheus Minick. Despite the offer of her rancher neighbour Arch Ogden to buy her rundown ranch Josie decides to renovate the place with her husband's insurance money but she soon becomes discouraged by her failure to resurrect the place. She tries a job as a waitress but is equally unhappy. Finally she

• Saturday Morning Pictures - The Best Of The Children's Film Foundation - Vol. 2 | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Cup Fever Barton United's hopes of winning the Manchester junior football league receive a setback when their ground is taken over and used as a car park forcing the boys into action... Hide & Seek Keith absconds from school in the hope that his father will take him to Canada yet Keith's father seems more interested in robbing a bank...

• The Sorcerers | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Sorcerers, the second film directed by the lost "wunderkind" of British cinema Michael Reeves, may not have the scope and visceral impact of his masterpiece, Witchfinder General (1968), but there's enough fierce originality here to show what a tragic loss it was when he died from a drugs overdose aged only 24. The film also shows the effective use he made of minimal resources, working here on a derisory budget of less than £50,000--of which £11,000 went to the film's sole "named" star, Boris Karloff. Karloff plays an elderly scientist living with his devoted wife in shabby poverty in London, dreaming of the brilliant breakthrough in hypnotic technique that will restore him to fame and fortune. Seeking a guinea-pig, he hits on Mike, a disaffected young man-about-town (Ian Ogilvy, who starred in all three of Reeves' films). But the technique has an unlooked-for side effect--not only can he and his wife make Mike do their bidding, they can vicariously experience everything that he feels. At which point, it turns out that the wife has urges and desires that her husband never suspected. Karloff, then almost at the end of his long career, brings a melancholy dignity to his role; but the revelation is the veteran actress Catherine Lacey as the seemingly sweet old lady, turning terrifyingly avid and venomous as she realises her power. The portrayal of Swinging London, with its mini-skirted dollybirds thronging nightclubs where the strongest stimulant seems to be Coke rather than coke, has an almost touching innocence, but Reeves invests it with a dream-like quality, extending it into scenes of violent death in labyrinthine dark alleys. By this stage, some ten years after it started, the British horror cycle was winding down in lazy self-parody. Reeves had the exceptional talent and vision to revive it, had he only lived. On the DVD: The Sorcerers DVD has original trailers for both this film and Witchfinder General (both woefully clumsy); filmographies for Reeves, Karloff and Ogilvy; an "image gallery" (a grab-bag of posters, stills and lobby cards); detailed written production notes by horror-movie expert Kim Newman; and an excellent 25-minute documentary on Reeves, "Blood Beast", dating from 1999. The transfer is letterboxed full-width, with acceptable sound. --Philip Kemp

• Confessions Of A Driving Instructor | DVD | (17/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99