"Actor: Peter Arne"

• Network | DVD | (17/03/2003) from £17.11   |  Saving you £-1.12 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's scathing satire about the uses and abuses of network television. But while Chayefsky's and director Sidney Lumet's take on television may seem quaint in the age of "reality TV" and Jerry Springer's talk-show fisticuffs, Network is every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976. And because Chayefsky was one of the greatest of all dramatists, his Oscar-winning script about the ratings frenzy at the cost of cultural integrity is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (who each won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles. Finch plays a veteran network anchorman who's been fired because of low ratings. His character's response is to announce he'll kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Dunaway plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Holden is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Through it all, Chayefsky (via Finch) urges the viewer to repeat the now-famous mantra "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" to reclaim our humanity from the medium that threatens to steal it away. --Jeff Shannon

• Private's Progress | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  With a remarkable cast headlined by Ian Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price and Terry Thomas, WWII army comedy Private's Progress was one of the major British hits of 1956. Carmichael is Stanley Windrush, a naïve young soldier who during training falls in with the streetwise Private Cox (Attenborough). Windrush's uncle is the even more ambitiously corrupt Colonel Tracepurcel (Price), who plans to divert the war effort to liberate art treasures already looted by the Germans. The first half of the film is quite pedestrian, though the pace picks up considerably once the heist gets underway, and the cheery tone masks a really rather dark and cynical heart. Carmichael's innocent abroad quickly wears thin, but Attenborough and Price steal the film, as well as the paintings, with typically excellent turns. With a nod in the direction of Ealing's The Ladykillers (1955) the film also anticipates the attitudes of both The League of Gentlemen (1959) and Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22 (1961), though lacks the latter's greater sophistication. The cast also contains such British stalwarts as William Hartnell, Peter Jones, Ian Bannen, John Le Mesurier, Christopher Lee and David Lodge, and was sufficiently popular to reunite all the major players for the superior sequel, I'm Alright Jack (1959). On the DVD: Private's Progress is presented in black and white at 4:3 Academy ratio, though the film appears to have been shot full frame and then unmasked for home viewing so there is more top and bottom to the images than at the cinema. The print used shows constant minor damage and is quite grainy, though no more than expected for a low-budget film of the time. The mono sound is average and unremarkable, and there are no special features. --Gary S Dalkin

• Sands of the Desert | DVD | (08/06/2015) from £5.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Charlie Drake plays a misunderstood larger-than-life travel agency clerk Charles Sands who is sent to the desert to supervise the opening of one of his firm's new investments: Bossom's Bedouin Holiday Camp. What Charlie doesn't know is that a ruthless Arab sheikh wants the land on which the camp is being built because he believes there's oil in the dunes! The irrepressible star of The Worker heads an impressive cast – including superior screen villain Peter Arne and Upstairs Downstairs regular Raymond Huntley – in this hilarious early '60s comedy feature presented here in a brand new transfer from original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Special Features: Original Theatrical Trailer Image Gallery Original Pressbook PDF

• Unnamable, The / The Unnamable Returns | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A double bill of horror inspired by H.P. Lovecraft: 'The Unnamable' (1988) and 'The Unnamable Returns' (1993). The Unnamable: It is rumoured that Joshua Winthrop was horribly murdered and mutilated by the creature born of his wife. Meanwhile college students at nearby Miskatonic University decide to disprove the rumours by spending the night in the house. They are later joined by Carter who now takes the legends more seriously when he learns that his buddy has disappeared the

• Fire In The Sky | DVD | (08/11/2004) from £5.38   |  Saving you £10.61 (197.21%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the chilling events surrounding the disappearance of a government forester in 1975 Fire In The Sky is a gripping tale of alien abduction and the fight to uncover the truth about an incident no-one could explain. Starring Henry Thomas and Robert Patrick as members of a gang of loggers working in the woodlands of North East Arizona the story focuses on the disappearance of one of the group and the claims by his friends that he was abducted by a UFO. When the friends are accu

• Kursk: The Last Mission | Blu Ray | (16/09/2019) from £8.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the gripping true story of the Kursk submarine tragedy of 2000 in which 188 men lost their lives, Kursk: The Last Mission is a tense submarine thriller from critically- acclaimed director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, Far From the Madding Crowd). When a Russian naval exercise goes horribly wrong, the Kursk submarine erupts in flames killing most of the men onboard and sending the trapped survivors to the bottom of sea. Time is running out for Russian Captain Mikhail Averin (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his crew, as fire engulfs the vessel starving them of oxygen. Ignoring the advice of their own people, the Russian government refuses the help of the UK Navy operation headed by Captain David Russell (Colin Firth). When they finally give way to mounting domestic pressure, it's too little too late...

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang / Oliver / Annie | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Dir. Ken Hughes 1968): Everything Caractacus Potts invents goes wrong - even his sweets are full of holes. So how can he have created a car that not only drives but floats and flies as well? Find out as the fantasmagorical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes your family on a magical musical adventure you won't forget. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has never looked or sounded better. With its catchy tunes including the Oscar nominated theme tune (Best Song 1968) marvelous cast and enchanting storyline this delightful film is first-class family entertainment and definitely far toot sweet to miss! Annie (Dir. John Huston 1982): A plucky red-haired girl dreams of a life away outside her orphanage and its gin-soaked tyrant Miss Hannigan (played to perfection by Carol Burnett). One day Annie meets the famous billionaire Daddy Warbucks and the pair share spectacular times in 1930's New York City. But Miss Hannigan and her zany villainous colleagues are determined to spoil the fun for America's favourite orphan... Oliver! (Dir. Carol Reed 1968): Young Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) is an orphan who escapes the cheerless life of the workhouse and takes to the streets of 19th-Century London. He''s immediately taken in by a band of street urchins headed by the lovable villain Fagin (Ron Moody) his fiendish henchman Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and his loyal apprentice The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). Through his education in the fine points of pick-pocketing Oliver makes away with an unexpected treasure... a home and a family of his own.

• Time Bandits | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £9.07   |  Saving you £13.91 (228.78%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With Time Bandits, only his second movie as director, Terry Gilliam's barbed humour and hyperactive visual imagination got themselves gloriously into full gear. Sketched out in a matter of weeks over Michael Palin's kitchen table while Gilliam struggled to get his dream project Brazil off the ground, this is a children's film made by a director who "hates kid films" and all the "mawkish sentimental crap" that goes with them. The 11-year-old hero, Kevin, finds himself lugged out of his suburban bedroom and off through a series of wormholes in time and space by a gang of rapacious, bickering midgets in search of loot, en route encountering (and casually despoiling) a gallery of eminent historical figures that include Agamemnon, Napoleon and Robin Hood, along with assorted ogres, giants and monsters. As co-screenwriters, Gilliam and Palin cheerfully filch ideas from everyone from Homer and Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll and Walt Disney, while the sets--as always with Gilliam--ingeniously work towering miracles on puny budgets. "The whole point of fairy tales", according to Gilliam, "is to frighten the kids" and Time Bandits taps into some archetypal nightmare imagery. But the whole farrago is much too good-humoured to be seriously scary. Not least of the movie's pleasures are a series of ripe cameos from the likes of Ian Holm as an irascible Bonaparte, Sean Connery good-humouredly spoofing his own image as Agamemnon, John Cleese's version of Robin Hood as inanely condescending minor royalty ("So you're a robber too! Jolly good!"), David Warner hamming it up gleefully as the Evil Genius, and the great Ralph Richardson playing the Supreme Being as a tetchy public-school headmaster. On the DVD: Time Bandits on disc comes with a generous wealth of extras. Along with the expected trailer--sent up Python-style by a disaffected voice-over--we get excerpts from Gilliam's storyboard and notated script, filmographies for Gilliam, Palin, Connery and David Rappaport (the leader of the vertically challenged gang), stills, production shots, a scrapbook with cast photos and drawings, notes on the film and plenty more background data, plus a cheerfully relaxed 27-minute interview with Gilliam and Palin. There's also an informative and appealingly unpretentious full-length commentary shared between Gilliam, Palin, Cleese, Warner and Craig Warnock, who played Kevin. The transfer, clean and crisp, is in the original full-width ratio, and there's a choice of Dolby Stereo or Dolby 5.1 sound. --Philip Kemp

• Babylon 5: The Gathering | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £12.93   |  Saving you £7.06 (54.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Gathering", the feature-length pilot episode for Babylon 5, still ranks amongst the best of introductions to any TV science fiction show. In 1993 there was just nothing else to compare with its wall-to-wall CGI effects backed up by eye-popping architectural and interior production design, costumes, alien make-up and hairstyles. A couple of flat performances let down an otherwise intriguingly cast ensemble, but these problems would vanish in the series. Here, character introduction and development was refreshingly left to fend for itself within an elaborate narrative structure that kicked-off several plot threads at once. Creator Michael Straczynski ambitiously starts proceedings with a multi-layered mystery concerned with the nature and destiny of the soul. Political shenanigans, trigger-happy action stereotypes and wavering physics linger in the viewer's memory, but the tantalising tale told by smooth Commander Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) about the "hole in his mind" makes the strongest impression. Considering how convoluted the show's mysteries would become, "The Gathering" remains an essential starting point. On the DVD: Babylon 5: The Gathering is presented here in its 1998 Special Edition version. However, nowhere on the packaging is this stated. In fact, the back-cover credits are incorrect: apart from anything else, this version features a new score by Christopher Franke and not Stewart Copeland's original. Special effects and sound quality are also superior to the original version, even if still only presented in 1.33:1 ratio and two-channel Dolby.--Paul Tonks

• The African Queen | DVD | (16/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The African Queen, John Huston's 1951 classic set in Africa during World War I, garnered Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to fall finally into one another's arms. Based on CS Forester's novel, this is classic Huston material--part adventure, part quest--but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a long-time collaborator with Huston on such classics as The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo) and Hepburn have never been better, and support from frequent Huston crony Robert Morley adds some extra dimension and colour. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com On the DVD: A trailer, a gallery of contemporary posters and stills, plus some text biographies of the principals, simply whet the appetite for the main extra feature here: an audio commentary by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. The man responsible for the lush, albeit studio-bound jungle textures of Black Narcissus faced innumerable challenges lighting real Borneo jungle in the heart of the Congo for Huston's ambitious project, and here he relates all the behind-the-scenes anecdotes of disease, infestation and disaster that plagued the production. It's a real treat to hear one of the last survivors of the Golden Age filmmaking happily reminiscing about one of cinema's classic pictures, talking companionably of Huston, Bogie and Katie Hepburn and what everyone--cast and crew alike--endured to finish the picture, from lepers carrying their gear to the location, Huston fishing while directing, hornets stinging the crew, to terrible sickness brought on by drinking unfiltered lake water (except Bogie and Huston, who stuck religiously to the whisky!). The movie itself, in its original 1.33:1 ratio, looks just fine, and the sound is an unfussy digitally remastered mono. --Mark Walker

• Straw Dogs | Blu Ray | (24/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Based on Gordon M. Williams's novel The Siege Of Trencher's Farm and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George Straw Dogs is an unflinching and uncompromising study of primal barbaric brutality that is generally regarded as one of the strongest statements about violence ever put on screen. Quiet American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) and his British-born wife Amy (Susan George) relocate to Amy's rural English hometown in an attempt to flee the violent social unrest brewing in the US. When David hires some locals including a former boyfriend of Amy's to repair his barn the couple find themselves being subtly harassed and bullied by the workmen. The more the pacifist David ignores the problem the more the harassment intensifies leading to terrifying consequences as he ultimately finds himself forced to defend his home and his life discovering a frighteningly vicious side to himself as events escalate towards a bloody climax. Boasting outstanding performances from the two leads a brilliant support cast and Jerry Fielding's superb Oscar-nominated score Straw Dogs in the thirty-one years since its original release has lost none of its intense visceral power to thrill and shock in equal measure.

• Ice Cold In Alex (Digitally Restored) | DVD | (12/09/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A tense, engrossing adventure set in the 1942 Libyan war zone in the hot Western Desert. A British ambulance officer (John Mills) escapes the siege in Tobruk and tries desperately to get his passengers to safety in Alexandria, where he dreams he will have the luxury of an 'ice cold' glass of beer. His passengers include a stranded hospital nurse, a Sergeant-Major and a stray South African Officer, trying to return to his unit. Despite saving the group from the Germans, something is not quite right about the last passenger. As he begins to undermine the group's stamina using psychological tactics, the British officer begins to suspect he might be a German spy...

• The Moonraker | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £9.64   |  Saving you £6.35 (65.87%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Moonraker of the title is the intrepid Earl of Dawlish (George Baker) who helps royalists escape from the clutches of the Roundheads during the English Civil War. Featuring John Le Mesurier (Dad's Army The Italian Job Jabberwocky) as Oliver Cromwell.

• The Pink Panther Film Collection | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection stars everyones favourite cool cat in 124 original theatrical Pink Panther cartoons from the 1960s and 1970s. 1964-1969 MIRISCH GEOFFREY O.F. THE PINK PANTHER and the Pink Panther Figure are trademarks of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Department S - Vol. 1 - Episodes 1 And 2 - Six Days / The Trojan Tanker | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The hit of the 1969-1970 season, Department S was an attempt on the part of television company ITC to create a "with-it" follow-up to the The Saint and Man in a Suitcase series which were starting to look staid by then. The department of the title is notionally part of Interpol, a group managed by the first of many black TV top cops (here Denis Albana Peters), and assigned all the bizarre cases The Avengers hadn't handled. Often they would come up against modern variations on the classic "locked-room" or "paradox" mysteries so favoured in crime fiction, mysteries which verge on the sort of phenomena The X Files would later specialise in (except no aliens appear in Department S). The supposed leads are Action-Man-type Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) and English-rose computer whiz Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nichols), but the break-out character is the flamboyant Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), a mystery writer and puzzle-solver notable for his Fu Manchu facial hair and an enormous wardrobe of safari suits, ruffled shirts, flared trousers and velvet jackets. King was the only male character on TV to be as fashion-conscious as the Avengers girls, and his preening peacock attitudes--along with the scripts' above-average mysteries--made this essential viewing for the Age of Aquarius. Volume One includes the following episodes: "Six Days", in which a missing airliner turns up but the passengers have no idea that they've lost six days, with Peter Bowles; and "The Trojan Tanker", in which a mystery woman is found in a luxury suite concealed inside an oil tanker, with Simon (Doomwatch) Oates. --Kim Newman

• Victor Victoria | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Like a good claret laid down for a couple of decades, Victor Victoria (1982) just improves with age. Based on a 1930s German screenplay, Blake Edwards' cross-dressing musical tackles sexuality and gender with a sweet generosity of spirit and endearing warmth. To Edwards' credit and that of his wife Julie Andrews in the title role it is far more than a star vehicle, with James Garner, Lesley Ann Warren and, particularly, Robert Preston (as worldly gay Toddy) contributing quick-fire performances that brim with brilliant timing. Andrews, too, is wonderful in a deceptively complex part. It shouldn't have worked at all. Victor Victoria was made at a time when the Hollywood musical's currency was at its lowest and Andrews might have been deemed a rather old-fashioned sort of star. But by keeping Henry Mancini's songs in context as stage numbers, the traditional values of the musical are subverted. And the whole thing is bathed in a soft, intimate light; this is a film of considerable artistry on every level. On the DVD: Victor Victoriais presented in widescreen with a sharp Dolby Digital soundtrack; the picture quality is splendid. Extras include lists of cast, crew and awards as well as the original theatrical trailer. Best of all is a touching--if occasionally repetitive--commentary from Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews, who clearly remember the project with great pride and affection. Somewhat belatedly they resurrected it as a Broadway show in the 1990s, in which Andrews again scored a considerable personal triumph. --Piers Ford

• Spartacus | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £6.24   |  Saving you £13.75 (220.35%)   |  RRP £19.99

  For a limited time only, Universal Pictures are re-releasing five of their most beloved Cinema Classics in cinemas around the UK. The following films will be released: Spartacus, Blues Brothers, Scar Face, The Thing and Animal House.

• They Live | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  John Nada (Piper) is a struggling labourer who drifts into town and luckily scores a job at a construction site. Discovering a box of sunglasses Nada swipes a pair and is shocked to find what he can see through them; billboards demand citizens 'Eat' or 'Sleep' TV shows spout orders at him and some people look rather less than human...

• The Oblong Box | DVD | (23/02/2015) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Gordon Hessler directs this 1960s horror starring Vincent Price. Lord of the manor Julian Markham (Price) is ashamed of his mutilated brother Edward (Alistair Williamson) and keeps him hidden away from public view in the tower of his vast house. However, when Edward escapes he attempts to get his revenge on his overbearing brother. The cast also includes Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies and Sally Geeson.

• 3 Classics Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 10 - Road To Bali / Basin Street Revue / Forbidden Music | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Road To Bali: Bob Hope Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour team up in their sixth ""Road"" picture Road To Bali which was the only film in the series to be shot in color. Hope and Crosby star as two out-of-work vaudeville performers who are on the lam. The two are hired by a South Seas prince as deep-sea divers in order to recover a buried treasure. They meet beautiful Princess Lala (Lamour) and vie for her affections. Of course the boys run into the usual perils such as cannibals