"Actor: Peter Wall"

• How To Steal a Million | DVD | (09/04/2012) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  William Wyler, one of Hollywood's greatest directors, deftly blends comedy, visual shenanigans, suspense and romance in this captivating tongue-in-cheek crime caper starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole.The daughter (Hepburn) of a wealthy Frenchman (Hugh Griffith) who creates counterfeit art learns her father is in danger of being exposed as a crook. She decides to steal the family's forged Cellini sculpture from a museum before experts can examine it and enlists a society burglar (O'Toole) to help her. Eli Wallach and Charles Boyer co-star in this classic Hepburn comedy shot in authentic Paris locations.

• Sons & Daughters - Collection Two (Complete Season 2) | DVD | (12/03/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Princess Bride | DVD | (17/09/2007) from £6.79   |  Saving you £9.20 (135.49%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A young boy confined to bed with the flu is less than thrilled when his grandfather (Peter Falk) arrives to read him the story of The Princess Bride. It tells the adventures of Buttercup the most beautiful woman in the world and Westley the man she loves in the fairy-tale kingdom of Florin. When Buttercup is kidnapped Westley has to overcome some pretty tough obstacles if he is to rescue her from the clutches of three kidnappers - scaling the cliffs of insanity battling rodents of unusual size facing tortue in the Pit of Despair... True love has never been a snap.

• Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun | DVD | (07/01/2008) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate a case for an insurance company regarding firstly a dead woman's body found on a moor and then a important diamond sent to the company to be insured turns out to be a fake. Poirot discovers that the diamond was bought for Arlena Marshall by Sir Horace Blatt and Arlena is on her honeymoon with her husband and step-daughter on a tropical island hotel. He joins them on the island and finds that everybody else starts to hate Arlena for different reasons - refusing to do a stage show stopping a book and for having an open affair with Patrick Redfern another guest in full view of his shy wife. So it's only a matter of time before Arlena turns up dead strangled and Poirot must find out who it is....

• The Raven | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  One of the most sublimely silly products to emanate from Roger Corman's studio, The Raven has the very loosest of connections with the Edgar Allen Poe poem that gives it its title and which Vincent Price intones sepulchrally at the beginning. A retiring magician, Craven (Price) has opted out of the power struggles of peers such as Dr Scarabus (Boris Karloff) to brood on his dead wife and bring up his daughter. The arrival of Bledlo (Peter Lorre), an incompetent drunk whom Scarabus has turned into the raven of the title, involves him in everything he had renounced--life is complicated further by the arrival of Bledlo's son Rexford, played by a staggeringly young Jack Nicholson. The special effects are almost perfunctory, yet the culminating magical duel between Price and Karloff is inventive and charming; this is one of those films that looks as if the actors enjoyed making it; while the script by Richard Matheson has a blithe awareness of its own shortcomings that makes it hard to dislike. On the DVD: The Raven comes to DVD with very boxy remastered mono sound, but is presented in its original widescreen 2.35:1 ratio, formatted for 16:9 TVs. The only extra is the original theatrical trailer. --Roz Kaveney

• Lord Jim | DVD | (27/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Three years after Lawrence of Arabia, the largely impressive Lord Jim (1965) finds Peter O'Toole again essaying a self-doubting but remarkable, white Englishman who leads a foreign people against their oppressor. Based on the Joseph Conrad novel, Lord Jim is the story of a British maritime officer, Jim (O'Toole), who takes a brief post on a tramp steamer and flees in terror during a storm at sea. Dogged by a reputation for cowardice, Jim attempts to reinvent himself in his own eyes, commanding an attack against a feudal warlord (Eli Wallach) in a distant, Southeast Asian village and basking in god-like glory afterward. A sinister plot by a gentleman pirate (James Mason) sets the stage for Jim's confrontation with his true destiny. Simplified and adapted by writer-director Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood), Lord Jim sometimes feels rushed and obvious, but O'Toole's golden performance and legendary cinematographer Freddie Young's 70mm footage are outstanding. --Tom Keogh

• The Naked Truth | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £6.73   |  Saving you £3.26 (48.44%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In 1957's The Naked Truth Terry Thomas plays a dodgy peer of the realm being blackmailed in the company of Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton by a gutter press journalist, Dennis Price ("Don't try to appeal to my better nature, because I haven't one"). One fascinating element in this picture is the portrayal of those relationships that could be only suggested in a period of tighter censorship, such as Peter Sellers' TV personality and Kenneth Griffith as his dresser, whose gay relationship is only faintly etched in here. More overt is the characterisation of a masculine looking authoress, known only by her initials, but sporting Agatha Christie's hairdo. The moments of slapstick are brought off to a tee, as when the larger-than-life Peggy Mount attempts a suicide drop from her window to be saved by an awning on a shop front. On the DVD: The Naked Truth comes to DVD in 4:3 ratio and with a mono soundtrack. The only extra feature is a trailer. More TT tomfoolery can be found in the three-disc Terry Thomas Collection. --Adrian Edwards

• The Bourne Identity | DVD | (02/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Not to be confused with the 2002 Matt Damon big-screen version, this adaptation of The Bourne Identity is a 1988 two-part TV miniseries based on the Robert Ludlum paperback bestseller. "How can I find out who I am if I've been turned into another person?", cries amnesiac Richard Chamberlain, fished out of the sea by drunken doc Denholm Elliott, who patches him up and discovers a Swiss bank account number sewn into his thigh. Coming to believe that he is Jason Bourne, international assassin, our hero is sought after by the CIA, several European police forces and the gang of an evil terrorist. He hooks up with unlikely economist Jaclyn Smith to get to the bottom of the mystery, stay alive and face the big baddie. Stretched over three hours, this has room for a lot of the complex plot dropped from the big-screen movie, but it also means that the thrills are often interrupted by soap opera scenes. Chamberlain is perhaps too aptly cast as a man without an identity, but Smith matches him for lack of expression without any excuse given in the script. Aside from Donald Moffatt and Shane Rimmer in the CIA, the supporting cast mostly consists of distinguished Brits delivering value-for-money ham, mostly with cod-French accents, especially Anthony Quayle as a DeGaulle-style General, Jacqueline Pearce as a dress-designing spy and Peter Vaughan as a heavy Swiss banker. On the DVD: The Bourne Identity, though made for TV, is presented in widescreen, which sometimes chops off the tops of actors' heads like breakfast eggs but mostly looks fine. There are optional English subtitles. --Kim Newman

• Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A star-studded cast heads this Agatha Christie story about the efforts of Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to fathom the mysterious death of a capricious star in a Mediterranean resort hotel...

• The Hound Of The Baskervilles | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  It could have been a stroke of genius reuniting Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore in a send-up of The Hound of the Baskervilles. In the event, director Paul Morrissey goes for Carry On-style humour: plenty of coarse word-play and camp innuendo, but little wit or subtlety. Cooke is a rather androgynous Sherlock Holmes, while Moore inexplicably attempts a Welsh accent to portray Dr Watson (his cameo as Holmes' mother is far less contrived). The support cast is a compendium of British comedy acting of the period--all now departed, and clearly relishing the one-liners and musical-hall farce. There are excellent contributions from Max Wall, Joan Greenwood (priceless in the seduction scene), and--in one of his last major screen appearances--Terry Thomas, as well as a winning "madame" from Penelope Keith. Don't expect even a free adaptation of Conan Doyle's novel, just let the humour take its enjoyably silly course. On the DVD: The Hound of the Baskervilles film reproduces very decently in the 4:3 aspect ratio, with stereo sound that's not too artificial in effect. Special features consist of nine biographical overviews, the re-release trailer, and a six-minute interview with director Morrissey. Die-hard fans of "Pete and Dud" will most welcome the inclusion of the original theatrical feature, playing for almost 80 minutes and featuring extra footage of Moore's wonderfully inept piano playing. --Richard Whitehouse

• Agatha Christie DVD Collection | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £24.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (60.02%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The four films in this Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Collection demonstrate exactly why Christie's reassuringly formulaic whodunits have been extraordinarily resilient source material. In each we find a corpse (or several), an assorted group of suspects gathered in a self-contained location, all with a motive to commit murder, and the coincidental presence of the totem detective (Poirot or Miss Marple). Between 1974 and 1981, producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin mined the Christie seam for some of its ripest riches. Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lumet, features a cavalcade of stars including Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud and Sean Connery; while Christie herself gave Albert Finney's Poirot her blessing. The Art Deco setting exudes glamour; the plot is preposterously diverting; the lighting, silvery and washed-out, giving the suspects an appropriately grim and ghoulish air. With a superior Anthony Shaffer screenplay Death on the Nile (1978) saw Peter Ustinov taking over as Poirot. The backdrop of ancient Egyptian monuments helps bring this adaptation a touch of class, complemented by composer Nino Rota's epic theme tune. The Mirror Crack'd (1980) features Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak as rival Hollywood legends descending on a quaint English village to make a film, with Rock Hudson as Taylor's husband and Angela Lansbury as a rather unconvincingly robust Miss Marple. Shaffer returned to the fray, adapting Evil Under the Sun (1981) and moving Poirot from the Cornish Riviera to an island off the coast of Albania. Ustinov reprises his role and Maggie Smith returns, camper than ever, as the hotel owner inconvenienced by murder. On the DVD: It's a pity that the sound quality hasn't been sharpened up, though: Murder on the Orient Express sometimes evokes memories of the muffled incoherence of an old fleapit. Apart from trailers, extras are few and far between. There are no cast lists or filmographies. But Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun both feature interesting short promotional "'making of"' documentaries in 4:3 format. --Piers Ford

• Silent Light | DVD | (14/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Silent Light is the latest breathtaking work from Carlos Reygadas the controversial and prestigious director of the award-winning Battle in Heaven and Japn. Johan is the head of a family in a Mennonite community in northern Mexico. However he goes against the law of both God and men by falling in love with another woman and although he is honest with his wife about the affair his actions create conflict in their otherwise serine and tranquil existence. An enlightening and engaging exploration of moral and spiritual crises Silent Light's poetic tone at times invokes Dreyer Bergman and even Kubrick as it weaves its intricate and brilliant way to one of cinema's most exquisite finales. A modern classic from one of the greatest film-makers of our time.

• Tales Of Terror | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £11.26   |  Saving you £1.73 (15.36%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Tales of Terror is a trio of Edgar Allen Poe stories, starring three of horror's greats--Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre--and produced and directed by the immortal Roger Corman. The first story, "Morella", involves a girl (Debra Paget) who returns to her isolated, spooky family home to see her estranged father (Price) for the first time in 26 years. He's let the housekeeping slide a bit--cobwebs abound and, oh, yes, his dead wife is still upstairs. Peter Lorre joins the fun for "The Black Cat", a piece with comic flavour that allows Price to show his rarely seen silly side, and then it's Basil Rathbone's turn to be creepy in "The Case of M Valdemar", the tale of a mesmerist who decides to experiment with the unknown (bad idea). The movie is well paced, and makes good use of comedy without undercutting its chills. It's a rare treat to see this many masters of the genre working together and so clearly enjoying themselves. --Ali Davis

• E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial -- 3-Disc Collector's Edition (1982 & 2002 Versions) | DVD | (09/12/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  Winner of four Academy Awards'' including Best Visual Effects Best Sound Effects Best Music and Best Sound E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is the heart-warming family classic from director Steven Spielberg. When an alien (E.T.) is inadvertently left behind on earth he finds refuge with youngster Elliot (Henry Thomas). As Elliot and E.T. bond as friends it soon becomes clear that E.T. must find his way home before government officials capture him for study. Together E.T. Elliot and Elliot's family and friends help reunite E.T. with his spaceship.

• On A Clear Day | DVD | (19/11/2007) from £4.11   |  Saving you £1.88 (45.74%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A depressed man decides to swim the channel in this movie from director Gaby Dellal.

• Greek Pete | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Greek Pete

• Will Hay - Convict 99 | DVD | (30/09/2010) from £6.21   |  Saving you £-1.22 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Will Hay - Convict 99

• The Frighteners | DVD | (26/12/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the sleepy little town of Fairwater, a monstrous evil has awakened - an evil so powerful, its reach extends beyond the grave.

• Classic Cuts Collection - Modern Epics | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Guns Of Navarone (Dir. J. Lee Thompson): One of the most exciting action films ever made! It's W.W. II and concealed deep within the solid rock of a cliff impregnable to assault by sea or air are the German Army's mighty guns of Navarone. Because they control a strategic channel in the Aegean Sea it's imperative that the guns are destroyed. A specialised commando team is assembled. Included are mountaineer Keith Mallory explosive expert Corporal Miller Greek resistance fighter Andrea Stravos and British Major Franklin. Led by Mallory the team's goal is to reach Navarone and sabotage the colossal guns. The tense down-to-the-wire ending is spellbinding. The Man Who Would Be King (Dir. John Huston): Two soldiers of fortune in 19th Century India carry out a plan to become rulers in the small isolated land of Kafiristan. The Bridge On The River Kwai (Dir. David Lean): Set in Burma during World War II the story tells of British P.O.Ws who are forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese while a British Commando team is sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards. Lord Jim (Dir. Richard Brooks): Peter O'Toole stars in Joseph Conrad's compelling tale of an idealistic Marine officer betrayed by his own overactive imagination. Based on Joseph Conrad's classic novel Jim serves an apprenticeship on a tramp liner and graduates to first officer on a ship which is mercilessly lashed by a hurricane. In a moment of desperation the idealistic Jim abandons the ship and leaves its passengers to their fate. To redeem himself he agrees to take a shipment of dynamite and deliver it to a tribe who are located in uncharted territory.

• Thomas And The Magic Railroad | DVD | (13/11/2000) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Thomas, as anyone familiar with the eponymous, wildly popular TV series knows, is a very useful engine, and never more so than in his first theatrical release, which was a modest box-office success. On a tank filled with little more than pluck, determination and goodwill, Thomas sets out full-steam ahead on a danger-fraught mission to help his friend Mr Conductor. The conductor's stash of magic gold dust has run out, leaving him stranded on the Island of Sodor with Junior, his flaky cousin, and Lily, a little girl enlisted to lift her grandfather out of a funk on nearby Muffle Mountain. When Thomas bravely chugs beyond his hometown tracks' buffers with Lily aboard, he's transported to Muffle Mountain's secret railway and to Lady, a long-lost steamer whose legendary engine makes her more powerful than Diesel, the train-yard bully. Together, Thomas and Lady lead Diesel on a chase that causes a bridge to collapse, taking the dastardly Diesel down with it. Most impressive about the movie is its marquee names: Alec Baldwin works magic as the dutiful worrywart Mr Conductor, Mara Wilson is Lily and Peter Fonda plays the cool-looking but lugubrious Grandpa. It's a cast that will keep put-upon parents watching, if half-heartedly. Thomas fans of five years and under, meanwhile, will wish the actors wouldn't blow so much hot air; they will want to see their hero a bigger part in steaming up the storyline. --Tammy La Gorce