"Actor: Oskar Homolka"

• Funeral In Berlin | DVD | (05/01/2004) from £5.50   |  Saving you £10.49 (190.73%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Funeral in Berlin (1967) is the sequel to 1965's The Ipcress File, again featuring Michael Caine as reluctant spy Harry Palmer. It was clearly the filmmakers' intention to make Palmer a harder-nosed James Bond, and director Guy Hamilton was brought to this project in between Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever for that purpose. There's espionage intrigue, easy women (Eva Renzi as Samantha Steel), and gunplay. But without the gadgetry, one-liners, or even the John Barry score of the first movie, the Bond comparison runs dry. Against the backdrop of a bombed-out industrial wasteland that was Berlin in the mid-Sixties, Palmer is sent to facilitate the defection of Col. Stock (Oscar Homolka). Numerous sub-plots weave together involving indifferent chief Ross (Guy Doleman from IPCRESS), mission aide Johnnie Volkon (Paul Hubschmid), and the untrustworthy Kreutzman (Günter Meisner, who was more memorable as Slugworth in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory). It all comes down to revealing who's working for whom and who's really defecting in the set-piece funeral of the title. The main reason the series continued (Ken Russell's OTT Billion Dollar Brain came next) was the commanding presence of Caine. It's fun to hear him try German, and he manages a few subtle comic gems, such as when a waiter asks "Bitte mein heir?" and he replies, "No. Lager please", but the best moment of characterisation recalling the womanising Palmer of Len Deighton's novels is the put down guaranteed to win any woman: "You're useless in the kitchen. Why don't you go back to bed?" --Paul Tonks

• Long Ships | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Viking brothers Rolfe (Widmark) and Orm (Russ Tamblyn) steal the Norse king's funeral ship, as well as his beautiful daughter Gerda (Beba Loncar), and head off in search of the fabled 'Mother of Voices,' a huge solid-gold bell and battle a maelstrom, a mutinous crew and vengeful Moorish troops...

• Song Of Norway - The Life And Music Of Edvard Grieg | DVD | (13/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This dramatic story of the life of composer Edward Grieg set in his native Norway includes abridged versions of his best music and highlights of his personal life.

• Billion Dollar Brain | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ken Russell's big budget film is an adaptation of Len Deighton's novel a sequel to 'The Ipcress File' in which Michael Caine reprises his role as bespectacled British Intelligence officer Harry Palmer this time stumbling into a plot to overthrow the Soviet Communist regime using a supercomputer. But who is working for whom and will Harry live long enough to find out?

• Shop At Sly Corner | DVD | (24/03/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Desius Heiss is the French-born owner of an antique Shop On Sly Corner who bears a grudge against society. His imprisonment and torture on Devil's Island has left the scars of repeated whippings down his back. With little care for the authorities Heiss has allowed his shop to become a centre of criminal activity and has a secret career as a receiver of stolen goods. His beloved daughter Margaret knows nothing of her father's criminal activities. But when the antique shop's assistant Archie Fellowes (Kenneth Griffith) discovers the trade in stolen goods he blackmails Heiss. Desperate to keep his criminal activities a secret from his daughter Heiss decides to silence his blackmailer.

• The Tamarind Seed | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £20.98   |  Saving you £-14.99 (-250.30%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Judith (Julie Andrews) an attractive widow is holidaying in Barbados where she meets the charming and handsome Feodor (Omar Sharif) the Russian military attach'' to Paris. A friendship develops but unbeknownst to Judith Feodor uses his position to conceal his role as Second-in-Command of the KGB. In London her Foreign Office employers have heard about their meeting and both Britain and France are alarmed believing this was a pre-arranged rendezvous between two security threats. The couple's fledging romance quickly escalates into international intrigue.

• The Key | DVD | (08/11/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Key