"Actor: Peter Rnic"

• M - A Film by Fritz Lang | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Fritz Lang's first sound movie, the serial-killer film M, has often been voted the best German film of all time, but, until now, most of us have never seen it properly. What we have seen is a heavily cut 1950s re-edit with extra sound and music patched in, where Lang was deliberately economical with the new technology. This new "Ultimate Edition" is dominated by a marvellous restoration which is true to his intentions and oft-voiced complaints about what had been done to his best film. The young Peter Lorre is terrifyingly ordinary as the child-murderer whom police and criminals hunt down in what is still one of the best forensic police procedurals ever made, while Gustaf Grundgens has effortless charisma as the chief gangster. Lorre's Hollywood exile and decay, and Grundgens' betrayal of old friends and principles under the Nazis, merely add a layer of irony to all this. Lang's ironic cuts--a gangster's gesture is completed by his police equivalent--and dark, studio-bound cinematography make this one of the great precursors of American film noir. Simply, seen without cracks and pops and lines running down the screen, M is revealed as a true classic--a film that shames everything made in its genre since. On the DVD: M on disc has a great deal of documentary material featuring scholars and technicians telling us just how clever they have been in preparing this splendid restoration. The film also comes with a detailed commentary into which has been spliced interview material with Lang talking in English about specific sequences. There is a German-language film interview with Lang in which he talks through his career and re-enacts the interview with Goebbels that led to his exile; an audio interview with Peter Bogdanovich; and an intelligent video critical essay by film historian R Dixon Smith. The restored film is shown in its correct, unusual visual aspect ratio of 1.90:1 and has vivid cleaned-up digital mono sound: the murderer's whistling of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" has never sounded so chilling. --Roz Kaveney

• M | DVD | (13/09/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Peter Lorre made film history with his startling performance as a psychotic murderer of children. Too elusive for the Berlin police, the killer is sought and marked by underworld criminals who are feeling the official fallout for his crimes. This riveting, 1931 German drama by Fritz Lang--an early talkie--unfolds against a breathtakingly expressionistic backdrop of shadows and clutter, an atmosphere of predestination that seems to be closing in on Lorre's terrified villain. M is an important piece of cinema's past along with a number of Lang's early German works, including Metropolis and Spies. (Lang eventually brought his influence directly to the American cinema in such films as Fury, They Clash by Night and The Big Heat.) M shouldn't be missed. This original 111-minute version is a little different from what most people have seen in the cinema. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Number One Girl | DVD | (14/01/2008) from £2.97   |  Saving you £17.02 (573.06%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Number One Girl stars Vinnie Jones and Tony Schiena in this martial arts action movie! Joey Scalini a full contact martial arts champion is persuaded by his life-long friend London mob thug Dragos Molnar (Vinne Jones) to perform as a guest judge on a televised beauty pageant. In spite of Dragos' warnings to stay away from the top four contestant Joey just can't help himself when it comes down to Tatiana (Lisa McAllister). When Dragos descovers that Joey has broken the rules he is determined to teach his old friend a lesson!

• Closer | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £9.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Are humans meant to mate for life - What drives someone in a perfectly good relationship to cheat and risk losing the one that they love and that loves them - Is it possible to love more than one person at the same time - How well does anyone really know the one that they love. Directed by Mike Nichols (THE GRADUATE, BIRDCAGE, WORKING GIRL), CLOSER questions the nature of relationships and fidelity as it follows the tangled web created by Dan (Jude Law), Alice (Natalie Portman), Anna (Julia Roberts), and Larry (Clive Owen). Dan, a British writer of obituaries, and Alice, a young American stripper, meet in the film's opening scene when a London cab runs her down. Cut to a year later: Dan and Alice are now a couple, but he is suddenly smitten with Anna, a beautiful American photographer. In an ironic twist of fate, Anna meets Larry, a British doctor, and they are soon a couple, despite Dan's continuing obsession. But the entanglements don't end there, and ultimately, someone is sure to get hurt. The four players do justice to a script that is humorous, raw and disarmingly honest about adult relationships.

• Rulers And Dealers | DVD | (05/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The five leading Rulers of London's gangster syndicates gather for a summit to establish a cease-fire after two years of bloody territorial feuding. A proposal from a Swiss banking conglomerate is put forward-all five Rulers will receive a huge pay off if they surrender their patches and relocate outside London. They all agree except Sosofra enforcer for the South London territories. Without all five signatures the deal will be called off so the other four Rulers conspire to have Sosofra assassinated. A poetically brutal film set in the present day against a backdrop of gangsterism and political corruption in London.

• Metropolis/M - Ultimate Box | DVD | (22/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Metropolis: Set around the year 2000 a mammoth city is ruled by the super-efficient industrialist Jon Fredersen (Alfred Abel) and on the surface appears to be a utopian dream with wealthy inhabitants living in palatial apartments set in colossal glass and concrete spires. But underground it's a different story - armies of slaves work gruelling shifts to maintain the luxurious lifestyles of their masters. The workers a subhuman species of sluggish creatures are led by the saintly Maria (Brigitte Helm) who urges them not to rebel but to wait patiently for the arrival of the mediator. Fredersen kidnaps Maria and orders mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klien-Rogge) to create a robot replica to take her place. His plan is doomed when the evil mechanical Maria incites the massed workers to revolt and destroy everything in sight... Taking 16 months to film with a cast of 37 383 and costing over million at 1920s prices everything about this epic German science-fiction film which was inspired by the towering Manhattan skyline is gigantic. Although director Fritz Lang hated the ending of his film it was an instant hit with Adolf Hitler and Goebbels who first saw it in a small German town. When they came to power in 1933 they asked Lang to make prestige pictures for the Nazi party. He packed his bags and left for Hollywood the same day. On its first release it was a box-office flop and nearly bankrupted its financiers UFA Germany's largest film production company. Metropolis is now a monument to Fritz Lang's artistic vision and film craftsmanship. M: Like a brand the letter M has made its mark on film history with its disturbing theme having lost none of its impact or relevance. Sinister dark and foreboding M tells the story of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) - child molester and murderer. Tension builds - a child late home another child missing. Posters reveal the fate of earlier victims and the police seem to have few clues as to the perpetrator of the crimes. Gangsters beggars and petty criminals incensed by both the crimes and the police crackdown track the killer themselves. Cornered caught and dragged off to face an equally barbaric form of justice Beckert endures his own personal torment. As with his earlier classics Die Nibelungen and Metropolis Lang collaborated on the script with his wife Thea von Harbou in what was to become his most stark and uncompromising film. Allegedly based on the story of Peter K''rten the Monster of Dusseldorf M remains one of the most chilling serial-killer films ever produced.