"Actor: Oliver MacGreevy"

• The Ipcress File | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £17.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In the spy-crazed film world of the 1960s, Len Deighton's antihero Harry Palmer burst onto the scene as an antidote to the James Bond films. Here was a British spy who had a working-class accent and horn-rimmed glasses and above all really didn't want to be a spy in the first place. As portrayed by Michael Caine, Palmer was the perfect antithesis to Sean Connery's 007. Unlike that of his globetrotting spy cousin, Palmer's beat is cold, rainy, dreary London, where he spends his days and nights in unheated flats spying on subversives. He does charm one lady, but she's no Pussy Galore, just a civil servant he works with, sent to keep an eye on him. Eventually he's assigned to get to the bottom of the kidnapping and subsequent "brain draining" of a nuclear physicist, all the while being reminded by his superiors that it's this or prison. Things begin to get pretty hairy for Harry. Produced by Harry Saltzman in his spare time between Bond movies, the film also features a haunting score by another Bond veteran, composer John Barry. --Kristian St. Clair, Amazon.com

• When Eight Bells Toll | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.59   |  Saving you £2.40 (31.62%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A Naval Secret Service agent's tough assignment is to stop the ruthless pirating of gold bullion in the Irish Sea. The trail takes him to a tiny port in the Hebrides where mysterious disappearances of boats yachts and people are commonplace...

• The Prisoner - 35th Anniversary Companion | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Primarily aimed at fanatic completists, The Prisoner 35th Anniversary Companion gives us an alternative version of the opening episode "Arrival" recently rediscovered from Canadian archival material, along with the broadcast version for comparison. The collection also has text files on associative material like the score for the music, the novelisations and the Dinky model of the mini-moke, clips of the interval bumpers, alternative clips of the opening credits and a sequence in which the opening credits shot of a filing cabinet labelled "Resignations" is reshot in a variety of languages for foreign markets. The episode included reminds us, in both its versions, what an innovative and sinister show The Prisoner was--George Baker in particular is an impressive foil to Patrick McGoohan. There are also text files on the careers of McGoohan and his collaborator George Markstein, as well as an extended interview with Bernard Williams in which he talks frankly about the difficulties of producing a show whose scripts were being written by the star as it was being shot, and tells us of the last-minute improvisation of the sinister balloon, Rover. There is also a short documentary about the show, its fans and the memorabilia shop at Portmeirion, plus a Prisoner parody Renault ad. On the DVD: The Prisoner 35th Anniversary Companion is presented in standard 4:3 television visual ratio; the mono sound has not worn well, especially in the alternative version of "Arrival" where it is at times painfully scratchy. The interface is user-confusing; if you don't already know the shape of The Village it is not immediately obvious that the menu continues on two screens. The packaging includes a lavish booklet that includes a facsimile of the production notes for the show. --Roz Kaveney

• Christmas Tree | DVD | (06/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A