Jimmy Bancroft (Niall MacGinnis) is a fighter pilot convalescing in the country from injuries sustained during the Battle of Britain. Along with his nurse Hazel (Rosamund John) they spend their summer days lazing in the Cotswold meadows until they discover a pair of nesting Tawny Pipits known to have bred only once before in England. Helen's ornithologist uncle arrives to confirm that the birds are actually Tawny Pipits but the word soon spreads around the egg-collecting community that there is a rare and lucrative nest in an English backwater village. Afraid of having the birds' eggs stolen or destroyed the villagers band together under the leadership of the barmy Colonel Barton-Barrington and vow to defend the nest against egg thieves the army and the Ministry of Agriculture!
Featuring the films: 'Hoffman' 'The Smallest Show On Earth' 'Carlton-Browne Of The F.O.' and 'Two Way Stretch'. Hoffman *(WS 1.85:1 Anamorphic 1970 1 hour and 47 Minutes Colour): Peter Sellers is Hoffman a middle aged misfit who blackmails his young attractive secretary into spending a week with him. Although he behaves like a creep throughout the weekend he actually emerges as a sympathetic character in the end. Two Way Stretch *(FS 1960 1 hour and 23 minutes B&W):
Faced with the terrifying prospect of their SAT tests, a group of high-school kids set out to steal the answers and attain the perfect score.
Meet Mary Fisher (Streep). She's got it all:a cliff-side villa overlooking the ocean a wholly satisfying career asia romance novelist and Ruth Patchett's husband. And when Ruth (Barr) discovers that her social-climbing spouse (Ed Begley Jr.) has been spending his time at Mary's pink-and-white-monstrosity-by-the-sea she doesn't just vow to get him back she vows to get even! Setting out to destroy his business accounts -as well as Mary's precious reputation and career - Ruth proves
A perennial afternoon telly treat, Carlton-Browne of the F.O. is a little less tart and smart in its assault on British diplomacy than the earlier John and Roy Boulting satires. The much-loved Terry Thomas, is the idiot son of a great ambassador, given a sinecure in the Foreign Office that becomes a hot seat when crises rock the almost-forgotten former colony of Gaillardia. Clod-hopping "dance troupes" of every world power dig for cobalt, a line of partition is painted across the entire island, and the young King (Ian Bannen) is undermined by his wicked uncle (John le Mesurier) and unscrupulous Prime Minister Amphibulos (Peter Sellers). There's a touch of Royal romance as the King gets together with a rival princess (the winning Luciana Paoluzzi), but it's mostly mild laughs at the expense of British ineptitude, with Thorley Walters as the dim army officer who sends his men to put down a rebellion with orders that lead them to turn in a circle and capture his own command post, Miles Malleson as the gouty consul who should have come home in 1916, and a snarling Raymond Huntley as the minister appalled that the new monarch of a British ally was a member of the Labour Party at Oxford. The film finds Sellers' non-specific foreign accent unusually upstaged, with Terry Thomas walking off with most of the comedy scenes, blithely inspecting a line of shabby crack troops who keep passing out at his feet. It fumbles a bit with obvious targets, especially in comparison with similar films like Passport to Pimlico and The Mouse That Roared, but you can't argue with a cast like this. Down in the ranks are: John Van Eyssen, Irene Handl, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Griffith, Sam Kydd and Kynaston Reeves. On the DVD: Carlton-Browne of the F.O. comes to disc in fullscreen, with a decent-ish quality print. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection.--Kim Newman
On a beautiful stretch of California coastline a suicidal mother parks her car on a railroad crossing and awaits the arrival of a speeding train the sleek and unstoppable Coastal Starlight. Thus begins the story of two families in physical emotional and psychological collision - of the victim''s relatives and of the train engineer who couldn''t possibly have stopped the train in time.
The Lady and the Highwayman, produced by Lew Grade as part of a series of Barbara Cartland dramatisations in 1987, contains all the ingredients that made Cartland's unique style of romantic fiction so successful. The highwayman in question, known as Silver Blade, is actually an aristocratic outlaw played by a youthful Hugh Grant in a bouffant mullet wig. The lady is Panthea (Lysette Anthony), delicate but firm of purpose, who knows her man when she sees him. It's Restoration England, so the frocks are fabulous. But Cartland's pretensions to historical accuracy evaporate when she makes Charles II's mistress, Barbara Castlemaine (Dynasty's Emma Samms), the villainess of the piece. From there, it's a freewheeling ride of Robin Hood-inspired philanthropy, duplicitous cousins and some uncomfortably fetishistic shots of the rituals and instruments of execution, although everybody is rescued in time for the romantic soft-focus finale. Full of splendidly self-indulgent performances from the likes of Claire Bloom, John Mills and Michael York, The Lady and the Highwayman is a feast of thespian ham. Somehow, the cast triumph over the banality of the basic material. On the DVD: The Lady and the Highwayman is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio with a standard Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack. With an eye on the international market, it looks and feels like any lush mini-series of the 1980s. There are no extras. --Piers Ford
The most popular and well-loved of all Handel's great oratorios, The Messiah here receives warm if not exactly passionate treatment under the direction of Stephen Cleobury. This is a period-instrument performance featuring Roy Goodman and his Brandenburg Consort, although not one that aims at any inflexible authenticism. The four soloists are all of the first rank, as are, of course, the choristers of King's College, Cambridge. So, musically the concert's credentials are impeccable. The setting is the Pieterskerk, Leiden, which at least boasts a sympathetic acoustic even though its visual beauties are hidden in candlelit gloom. It must have been a charming evening for the audience, but the film version doesn't really have anything more to offer the home viewer than a few close-ups of the soloists and the occasional cutaway shot of an appropriate painting. Hence, this disc will be of interest if you want to see musicians giving a delightful performance instead of just listening to them; but it's no substitute for a good audio recording. On the DVD: This is a non-anamorphic widescreen picture, not the 4:3 ratio claimed on the back cover. The sound is only PCM stereo, there are no extra features, and the disc only has the most basic of menus. Chapter access is restricted to just three points. If you wish to select a specific aria or chorus you have to refer to the inside of the booklet and work out which track you need to jump to. And would it be asking too much for the libretto, either on screen or in the booklet? Overall, a very disappointing DVD presentation of an otherwise enjoyable concert performance. --Mark Walker
Miles Davis - The Miles Davis Story
For anyone interested in voyeurism, role playing, class envy and sexual humiliation, The Servant is an essential buy. Directed by Joseph Losey, scripted by Harold Pinter, it probes away remorselessly at areas other British film-makers would not go near. Dirk Bogarde, the golden boy of 50s British cinema, is transformed into a scheming, unctuous butler, Barrett. Hired by dapper young toff Tony (James Fox), he proceeds gradually to take over his master's life. In one scene, he seduces Tony's fiancée (Wendy Craig). Tony is soon slavering over the voluptuous but vaguely sinister Vera (Sarah Miles), whom he has been told is his butler's sister (in fact, she's Barrett's mistress). Gradually, the lines between master and servant are blurred. Tony becomes beholden to his butler's every whim.Nobody does queasy quite as well as Losey. The American-born director relishes the chance to disrupt the smooth workings of what seems a typical upper-class household. Compared to the bland comedies made at Pinewood in the late 50s, The Servant couldn't help but seem groundbreaking. Thanks to his performance, Bogarde, who'd starred in so many of those comedies, was at last taken seriously as more than a matinee idol. The critics adored the film, which was first released at around the time of the Profumo crisis. "Even if I make 10 better pictures in my lifetime", Losey observed, "I don't suppose one could expect to have such unanimous appreciation and approval again". --Geoffrey Macnab
Peter Weir's first film is a surreal and fantastic horror. An outstanding hit at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and a landmark in Australian film-making it remains a cult classic. On the outskirts of the small town of Paris cars crash with alarming regularity. Arthur (Terry Camilleri) survives one such accident and becomes a prisoner of Paris although he's unaware of his predicament as the town has provided him with something he's never had - a family. But these crashes are far fro
With a medical school interview taking place the next day, Jeff's friends arrive to celebrate his 21st birthday. What was supposed to be one beer soon turns into a night of chaos, over indulgence and utter debauchery.
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A boxing promoter who shares a church hall with a prudish reverend is the knockout formula for this sparkling Brian Rix farce.
James Stewart and Doris Day in a rare dramatic role are superb in this brilliant suspense thriller from the undisputed master. Stewart and Day play Ben and Jo MacKenna innocent Americans vacationing in Morocco with their son Hank. After a French spy dies in Ben's arms in the Marrakech market the couple discovers their son has been kidnapped and taken to England. Not knowing who they can trust the McKennas are caught up in a nightmare of international espionage assassinations and terror. Soon all of their lives hang in the balance as they draw closer to the truth and a chilling climatic moment in London's famous Royal Albert Hall. Special Features: The Making of the Man Who Knew Too Much Production Photographs Trailers
The most beautiful woman of our time in the most erotic adventure of all time... Leaving behind the England that she loves in 1910 Jane (Bo Derek) heads to Africa on a mission to find her father (Richard Harris). Travelling by steamboat and finally by foot she voyages deep into the heartland of the African contintent. But it's only when her search for her missing father ends that Jane's real adventure begins...
It's 1951 in Korea, a time that the United States Army doesn't like to remember. The Communists, led by Chinese forces, are tearing up the battlefield and overrunning American and South Korean positions, and in the midst of it Sgt. Paul William Ryker (Lee Marvin), decorated World War II hero with medals that would be the envy of any man in uniform, has been convicted of treason for allegedly deserting, going over to the enemy and spending weeks behind enemy lines. He's scheduled to be executed, but Capt. David Young (Bradford Dillman), the prosecutor in the case, begins to worry that Ryker wasn't properly represented at trial. He believes Ryker was guilty but wants him to be convicted fairly...
When ten-year-old Jess's very best friend Bobby moves away she is inconsolable in her grief. Her eccentric Aunt Millie decides the best medicine is to tell her a story about another ten year-old girl Katie from another time and place who wanted only one thing... to ice-skate. While practicing on an outdoor rink near her home Katie is befriended by Otto Brewer a former Olympic skating champion who offers to teach her proper skating and under Otto's tutelage Katie blossoms into a magnificent skater. However Katie's father loses his job and the family is forced to move to the big city Katie is devastated. Meanwhile in the North Pole Santa and his elves are celebrating the birth of Blizzard a baby reindeer born to Blitzen and Delphi. It quickly becomes apparent that Blizzard possesses all three magical reindeer gifts: the ability to fly the power to make herself invisible and the gift of empathic navigation - being able to see with her heart. Using her empathic ability Blizzard feels Katie's sadness and flies to Katie's home to investigate. Despite the rigid rules of the North Pole Blizzard helps Katie learn that the value of true friendships is that they never truly go away. However by breaking these rules Blizzard must face the possibility of banishment at the hands of Archimedes Santa's strict head elf. Only true friendship can save her now...
In this landmark drama of class struggle and moral decay a pampered playboy (James Fox) acquires an elegant townhouse complete with a dedicated man servant (Dirk Bogarde). But when the young man's fiance (Wendy Craig) becomes suspicious of the servant's intentions he and his 'sister' (Sarah Miles) thrust the household into a sinister game where seduction is corruption and power becomes the most shocking desire of all. 'The Servant' marked the first of three brilliant film collaborations between director Joseph Losey and playwright Harold Pinter and was nominated for 8 British Academy Awards including Best Actor Best Actress Best Film Best Cinematography and Best Screenplay.
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