"Actor: Robert Francis"

• A Bronx Tale | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £24.95   |  Saving you £-11.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In his directorial debut two-time Academy Award-Winner Robert De Niro stars as Lorenzo Anello a hard-working bus driver who must stand up to the local mob boss if he is to keep his son from falling into a life of crime. The streets of the Bronx are a tough place for a kid to grow up you learn fast or lose everything. Lorenzo's son Calogero learns about the virtues of hard honest work from his father who owns nothing but his integrity; but he learns about easy money and life on the streets from the man who owns them a mobster called Sonny (Chazz Palminteri). Now Calogero must choose between earning respect like his father or commanding it like Sonny. Always one step away from a broken bottle a pistol whipping or a shotgun blast one young man torn between two worlds just a city block apart is about to learn that the streets run two ways. For every cent of easy money there's a tough and sometimes deadly lesson to be learned.

• From Russia with Love | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £5.28   |  Saving you £14.71 (278.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, From Russia With Love, the second James Bond spy thriller, is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by an assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. --Jeff ShannonOn the DVD: The "making of" documentary details the many problems that beset this production: actor Pedro Armendariz (Kerim Bey) was diagnosed with terminal cancer halfway through shooting so all his scenes had to be done before he became too ill to work (he died shortly afterwards); a helicopter carrying the director and designer crashed into a lake, but despite being narrowly rescued from drowning Young was shooting half an hour later; and Italian actress-model Daniela Bianchi's car crashed en route to location. Key scenes had to be reshot after the production had wrapped, and because of script problems and rewrites, much of the film's structure was assembled in the editing room. The audio commentary is another montage of interviews from cast and crew that is alternately absorbing and irritating (exhaustive biogs of every player too often run over key scenes that would have benefited from analysis). An appreciation of flamboyant co-producer Harry Saltzman, trailers and stills complete the package. --Mark Walker

• Treasure Island | DVD | (12/02/2001) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Strap on your pantaloons and prepare to travel with Jim Hawkins and Blind Pew to one of the most famous fictional islands in history, Treasure Island. Walt Disney's 1950 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's swashbuckling masterpiece has held up extremely well, with action and characterisations that feel freshly minted (although it's unlikely that the Mouse of today would sanction the high level of booze flowing throughout the picture). Great fun, with nary a wasted frame and, in the character of Robert Newton's much-imitated Long John, one of cinema's most boisterously crowd-pleasing villains ever. (Proving that you can't keep a good--er, bad man down, Newton would return with director Byron Haskins for the enjoyable sequel, Long John Silver.) Watching this classic is like having a flashback to some perfect Technicolor childhood. --Andrew Wright

• The Caine Mutiny | Blu Ray | (04/06/2012) from £16.25   |  Saving you £3.74 (23.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Humphrey Bogart is heartbreaking as the tragic Captain Queeg in this 1954 film, based on a novel by Herman Wouk, about a mutiny aboard a navy ship during World War II. Stripped of his authority by two officers under his command (played by Van Johnson and Robert Francis) during a devastating storm, Queeg becomes a crucial witness at a court martial that reveals as much about the invisible injuries of war as anything. Edward Dmytryk (Murder My Sweet, Raintree County) directs the action scenes with a sure hand and nudges his all-male cast toward some of the most well-defined characters of 1950s cinema. The courtroom scenes alone have become the basis for a stage play (and a television movie in 1988), but it is a more satisfying experience to see the entire story in context. --Tom Keogh

• The Debt Collector | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £6.57   |  Saving you £-0.58 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Billy Connolly has made the transition from comedy to straight dramatic roles with a great deal more success than most. In The Debt Collector he plays Nicky Dryden, a violent debt collector who has served 18 grim years in prison, only to have found rehabilitation on the outside as a successful sculptor and respectability in marriage to Francesca Annis. However, Keltie (Ken Stott) the policeman who originally arrested him is disgusted at this ex-con's social elevation and undertakes an obsessive campaign of stalking and harassment, refusing to allow him to bury his past. It is Keltie, in a sense, who is the true debt collector of the title--he doesn't believe Dryden either has or ever can repay society. Furthermore, Dryden is idolised by a young thug (Iain Robertson) who bases his psychotic lifestyle on Dryden's past exploits. Stott and Connolly make excellent, craggy adversaries, with the frustrated, embittered ex-cop cutting a menacing, though at times pathetic character, while Connolly's Dryden knows that his past, violent side is capable of erupting at any time. This gloomily compelling drama has moments of sickeningly concussive impact as it winds its way down to its tragic conclusion. Annette Crosbie as Keltie's vulnerable yet curiously strong Mother, turns in a fine supporting performance. --David Stubbs

• PANDORA'S BOX | Blu Ray | (16/09/2024) from £16.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Eureka Entertainment to re-issue G. W. Pabst's sordid melodrama PANDORA'S BOX, one of silent cinema's great masterworks, starring Louise Brooks. Presented on Blu-ray from a new restoration as part of The Masters of Cinema Series. Available from 16 September 2024.In a role intended at one point for Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel), 22 year-old Louise Brooks (Diary of a Lost Girl), with her fragile beauty and iconic dark bob hairstyle, gives a performance decades ahead of its time that immortalised her as an icon. Largely condemned and censored upon its initial release for its daring treatment of sexuality and female desire, Brooks' understated yet erotically charged performance endures as among the most modern of the silent era.Adapted from a pair of plays by Frank Wedekind, Pandora's Box tells the story of sex worker Lulu, a free spirit whose open sexuality breeds chaos in its wake. When Lulu's latest lover, the newspaper editor Dr Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner, The Hands of Orlac), announces plans to leave her to marry a more respectable woman, Lulu is devastated. Cast in a musical revue written by Schon's son, Alwa (Francis Lederer, The Return of Dracula), Lulu seduces Schon once more - only to have their tryst exposed, and Schon's plans for a more socially acceptable marriage shattered. Left with no choice but to marry Lulu, Schon meets with tragedy on their wedding night. Lulu stands trial for the incident, facing years of imprisonment. With the aid of her former pimp (Carl Goetz, Tom Sawyer), an infatuated lesbian countess (Alice Roberts, The Merry Widower) and Alwa, she flees toward a fate of increasing squalor and peril, finally crossing paths one Christmas Eve with Jack the Ripper.Reviled and bowdlerised at its debut, Pandora's Box has since been recognised as one of the masterpieces of early German cinema. A sordid melodrama made with great style, it affirms G. W. Pabst as a daring and important director and Louise Brooks as one of cinema's most exquisite and distinctive performers. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present Pabst's masterpiece in a new restoration on Blu-ray.1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a definitive 2K digital restoration | Optional English subtitles | Orchestral Score by Peer Raben | Audio commentary by critic Pamela Hutchinson | The New Woman & The Jazz Age: The Dangerous Feminine in Pandora's Box - Visual appreciation by author and critic Kat Ellinger | Godless Beasts - Video essay by David Cairns | Lulu in Wonderland - Video essay by Fiona Watson | Restoring Pandora's Box - Interview with Martin Koerber | PLUS: A 28-page collector's booklet featuring an essay by film critic and historian Imogen Sara Smith, author of Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City

• Oliver Twist -- Special Edition | DVD | (26/09/2008) from £12.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (23.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  There have been many film and TV adaptations of Oliver Twist but this 1948 production from director David Lean remains the definitive screen interpretation of the Charles Dickens classic. From the ominous symbolism of its opening storm sequence (in which Oliver's pregnant, ill-fated mother struggles to reach shelter before childbirth) to the mob-scene climax that provokes Bill Sikes's dreadful comeuppance, this breathtaking black-and-white film remains loyal to Dickens while distilling the story into its purest cinematic essence.Every detail is perfect--Lean even includes a coffin-shaped snuffbox for the cruel Mr. Sowerberry--and as young Oliver, eight-year-old John Howard Davies (who would later produce Monty Python's Flying Circus for the BBC) perfectly expresses the orphan's boyish wonderment, stern determination and waifish vulnerability. Best of all is Alec Guinness as Fagin, so devious and yet so delightfully appealing under his beak-nosed (and, at the time, highly controversial) make-up. (Many complained that Fagin's huge nose and greedy demeanour presented an anti-Semitic stereotype, even though Lean never identifies Fagin as Jewish; for this reason, the film wasn't shown in the US until three years after its British release.) Likewise, young Anthony Newley is artfully dodgy as Fagin's loyal accomplice, the Artful Dodger. Guinness's performance would later provide strong inspiration for Ron Moody's equally splendid portrayal of Fagin in the Oscar-winning Oliver! and while that 1968 musical remains wonderfully entertaining, it is Lean's film that hews closest to Dickens' vision. The authentic recreation of 19th-century London is marvellous to behold; Guy Green's cinematography is so shadowy and stylised that it almost qualifies as Dickensian film noir. Lean is surprisingly blunt in conveying Dickens's theme of cruelty but his film never loses sight of the warmth and humanity that Oliver embodies. --Jeff Shannon

• The Caine Mutiny | DVD | (27/09/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Humphrey Bogart is heartbreaking as the tragic Captain Queeg in this 1954 film, based on a novel by Herman Wouk, about a mutiny aboard a navy ship during World War II. Stripped of his authority by two officers under his command (played by Van Johnson and Robert Francis) during a devastating storm, Queeg becomes a crucial witness at a court martial that reveals as much about the invisible injuries of war as anything. Edward Dmytryk (Murder My Sweet, Raintree County) directs the action scenes with a sure hand and nudges his all-male cast toward some of the most well-defined characters of 1950s cinema. The courtroom scenes alone have become the basis for a stage play (and a television movie in 1988), but it is a more satisfying experience to see the entire story in context. --Tom Keogh

• PANDORA'S BOX | Blu Ray | (30/10/2023) from £34.29   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• War Hunt | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  No one is a better soldier than Pvt. Raymond Endore (John Saxon) at least in his own mind. Stationed in Korea as the conflict between the United States and the divided peninsula is coming to an end Endore sleeps while his platoon works to gear up for his nightly patrols of the area. These patrols used to bring vital information but now they have become a nightly ritual for Endore to slash the throats of suspected enemies tolerated by a Captain (Charles Aidman) who fears Endore's unstable nature. A Korean war orphan (Tommy Matsuda) befriends Endore as well as an idealistic soldier (Robert Redford) and these two soldiers must decide the fate of the child as the ceasefire is announced.... Madness in men during their tour of duty a subject also at the heart of Hell Is For Heroes and Attack! is the focus of this brutal 1961 war drama. Redford in his film debut offers a strong counterpart to the criminally underrated John Saxon (who would go on to a career of character work) who gives a stunning performance as a killer who only seems at peace after taking the life of another victim.

• A Simple Wish | DVD | (02/05/2005) from £3.85   |  Saving you £6.14 (159.48%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Your wish is his command... sort of. 'A Simple Wish' tells the sweet-natured story of Murray a bumbling fairy godfather who has good intentions but not much else. Technically Murray is a fairy godmother--the only male member of the North American Fairy Godmother Association. After barely passing his godmother's exam he is sent to New York City to watch after Anabel a young girl who wishes that her father Oliver will land a part in a Broadway musical so that the family w

• The Relic | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £10.33   |  Saving you £2.65 (36.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Relic is the story of a monster that runs amok in a Chicago museum on the very day the institution is holding a glitzy reception. Naturally, the museum bosses want to go ahead with their public relations even as the creature is decapitating victims. Penelope Ann Miller plays a scientist on the run from the critter (which is at times computer generated and reminiscent of the raptors in Jurassic Park), and Tom Sizemore is a cop looking for his cold-blooded (in every sense) killer. Peter Hyams (Timecop) directs, and as always he excels at managing the plastic action at the cost of real feeling and logic. (Much of the story is pretty laughable.) --Tom Keogh

• The Detectives - Series 3 | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £5.62   |  Saving you £10.37 (184.52%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In the neverending high-tech war against crime Detective Constables Bob Louis and David Briggs are the Scud missiles of the police arsenal: inefficient unreliable and utterly aimless! Episodes Comprise: 1. D.C. Of Love 2. Flash 3. Art Attack 4. On Thin Ice 5. Between A Rock And A Hard Place 6. Twitchers

• The Long Gray Line | DVD | (07/10/2013) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An inspiring drama directed by the great John Ford (Stagecoach, The Searchers) starring Tyrone Power (The Mark Of Zorro, The Razor's Edge) as Marty Maher, a humble Irish man from a poor background who joins the US Army to make a career for himself. after a difficult beginning he attains the rank of cadet instructor at famed West Point Military Academy. Co-starring Maureen O'Hara (The Quiet Man, Only The Lonely), this is superb, and little known or seen, military drama.

• A Bronx Tale | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £17.87   |  Saving you £-10.88 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

• Moby Dick | DVD | (10/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Consumed by an unquenchable rage Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck) has but one purpose; revenge on Moby Dick the great white whale who maimed and disfigured him. The obsessed skipper of a whaling boat Ahab uses his command as an excuse to sail the seven seas in an unrelenting search of his prey. Battling a mutinous crew tropical heat and violent storms Ahab finally catches up to his quarry and begins a confrontation that culminates in an epic struggle of non-stop fury...and inevitable

• The Kid Stays In The Picture | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Adapted from his own tell-all autobiography, this acclaimed documentary traces the meteoric rise, fall, and rise again of legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans, and takes the audience on an intimate journey into the mind of this Hollywood legend.

• A Bronx Tale | Blu Ray | (18/06/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When his son is befriended by a dangerous local gangster, a father will stop at nothing to ensure his son isn't dragged into the cruel and dangerous underworld of New York.

• Oliver Twist / Great Expectations | DVD | (17/03/2008) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An astonishingly good David Lean double-bill featuring his two Dickensian adaptations, Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), this is a reminder that cinema does not necessarily have to debase its literary sources, sometimes it can enhance them. Lean's painterly eye for evocative locations--be they windswept marshes or bustling London streets--provides the backdrop, but his focus on smaller details--the ominous tree in the graveyard with its almost human face, the reaction of Bill Sikes' dog to Nancy's murder--adds the vital ingredient that brings both place and character to life. Starring a youthful John Mills as Pip, Lean's Great Expectations is an unadulterated delight, a serendipitous gelling of screenplay, direction, cinematography and acting that produces an almost perfect film. The cast is exemplary, with Alec Guinness in his first (official) role as Pip's loyal pal Herbert Pocket; Martita Hunt is a cadaverous Miss Havisham; Finlay Currie transforms himself from truly threatening to entirely sympathetic as Magwitch; while the young Jean Simmons makes more of an impact as the girl Estella than Valerie Hobson does as the older incarnation. Perhaps best of all, though, is Francis Sullivan as the pragmatic but kindly attorney Jaggers. The cinematography alone (courtesy of Guy Green) would qualify Oliver Twist as a classic: the opening sequence of a lone woman struggling through the storm is an indelible cinematic image. Fortunately, Lean's film has many more aces up its sleeve thereafter, notably Alec Guinness' grotesque Fagin--a caricature certainly, but a three-dimensional one--and Robert Newton's utterly pitiless Bill Sikes. The skewed angles and unsettling chiaroscuro lighting transform London itself into another threatening character. --Mark Walker

• Madeline / Matilda / A Simple Wish | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Madeline (Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer 1998): Madeline and her eleven friends live at school run by Miss Clavel (Frances McDormand) in an old house in Paris. The smallest of the girls Madeline is also the most adventurous! She loses her appendix but gains an awesome scare falls into the River Seine only to be rescued by a dog called Genevieve and matches wits with Pepito the devilish son of a Spanish Ambassador who moves in next door. However when stuffy Lord Covington puts the future of the school in jeopardy it's up to Madeline and her friends to save the day! Matilda (Dir. Danny DeVito 1996) Unfortunately for Matilda her father Harry (Danny DeVito) is a used car salesman who bamboozles innocent customers and her mother Zinnia (Rhea Perlman) lives for bingo and soap operas. Far from noticing what a special child Matilda is they barely notice her at all! They bundle Matilda off to Cruncham Hall a bleak school where students cower before the whip hand and fist of a hulking monster headmistress Miss Trunchball (Pam Ferris). But amid Crunchem's darkness Matilda discovers remarkable skills - including a very special talent that allows her to turn the table on the wicked grown ups in her world! A Simple Wish (Dir. Michael Ritchie 1997): Tells the sweet-natured story of Murray a bumbling fairy godfather who has good intentions but not much else. Technically Murray is a fairy godmother--the only male member of the North American Fairy Godmother Association. After barely passing his godmother's exam he is sent to New York City to watch after Anabel a young girl who wishes that her father Oliver will land a part in a Broadway musical so that the family won't have to move to Nebraska. But when the district's previous godmother a nefarious spellcaster named Claudia arrives with her wacky sidekick Boots her plans to cripple Murray and Anabel's magical association and monopolize the wish market wreak havoc on the already unstable Murray. It's up to Murray and Anabel to pool their resources and get rid of Claudia and Boots once and for all. Director Michael Ritchie turns the fairytale knob up a notch with 'A Simple Wish' also taking the time to poke fun at Broadway musicals. Featuring spectacular special effects and an extremely engaging performance by Wilson this is a children's fable with a fresh twist.