"Actor: Shirley To"

• Personal Services | DVD | (11/06/2007) from £6.05   |  Saving you £9.94 (164.30%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A BAFTA-nominated Julie Walters (Billy Elliot Educating Rita Calendar Girls) stars as suburban brothel Madame Christine Painter with some highly unusual clients. Inspired by the real experiences of the legendary Cynthia Payne Personal Services directed by terry Jones (Monty Python) is a revealing hilarious and uproarious account of Christine's adventures as she climbs the ladder to fame and notoriety. British law sets out to ruin the discreet fun and games.

• Happy Valley - Series 1 & 2 | DVD | (28/03/2016) from £16.64   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 12 episodes from the first two series of the BBC drama starring Sarah Lancashire as a police sergeant in a rural West Yorkshire valley. In series 1, Catherine Cawood (Lancashire) receives a visit from Kevin Weatherill (Steve Pemberton), a distressed member of the Yorkshire community she oversees, and is drawn into a ransom case in which the life of Ann Gallagher (Charlie Murphy) is at stake. Kevin employed local thug Ashley Cowgill (Joe Armstrong) to kidnap Ann in the hope of extracting a ransom from his boss, and his remorse has come too late to prevent the crime. Can Catherine get to the girl in time? In series 2, while investigating a case of sheep-stealing, Sgt Cawood discovers the decomposed body of a murdered prostitute who she later discovers is the mother of Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton). This revelation places Catherine at the centre of the investigation as a possible suspect while Royce continues to torment her from inside his cell with the help of his new accomplice Frances (Shirley Henderson). While she takes on a new case of human trafficking, Catherine deals with more complications in her personal relationships and is recommended by her bosses to undertake a course of counselling therapy.

• Around The World In Eighty Days | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £6.49   |  Saving you £7.50 (115.56%)   |  RRP £13.99

  An imperturbable English gentleman played by the unflappably urbane David Niven attempts to completely circumnavigate the world in eighty days in order to win a large wager. But is he also conveniently missing from London as an investigation into a robbery at the Bank Of England begins? Winner of 5 Oscars at the 1957 Academy Awards!

• The Gruffalo's Child | DVD | (13/02/2012) from £5.17   |  Saving you £-0.18 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Gruffalo's Child, another magical tale from best selling author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler, will premier on BBC One as a highlight of their Christmas schedule this year.It's some years later and The Gruffalo now has a daughter. Curious about her father's fantastic stories of a Big Bad Mouse in the deep, dark woods, she sets out one snowy night on a thrilling journey of discovery.Produced by Magic Light Pictures, a half hour animated film from the same team behind the hugely successful The Gruffalo.

• Steel Magnolias | DVD | (29/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on Robert Harling's play and directed by Herbert Ross, Steel Magnolias is a comedy-drama that follows several years in the lives of women who regularly see one another at a beauty shop in their small Louisiana hometown. The story deepens as Julia Roberts, playing a serious diabetic and the daughter of Sally Field, goes downhill healthwise. But as an ensemble piece, this is one of those enjoyably lumpy tearjerkers with many years' worth of stored truths suddenly being shared between the characters, lots of grievances aired, that sort of thing. Daryl Hannah and Shirley MacLaine assume the most eccentric roles, Dolly Parton the most fun and Olympia Dukakis the most dignified, while Sally Field essentially provides the moral and emotional centre of the movie. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Way We Live Now | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £7.33   |  Saving you £17.66 (240.93%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Set in the railway boom of the 1870s Anthony Trollope's epic tale of Victorian power and corruption captures the turmoil as the old order is swept aside by the brash new forces of business and finance. It is packed with the trials and tribulations of young love the enduring values of honourable men the raw energy of one of the most powerful cities in the world and the greed and corruption that lay below its glittering surface.

• The Terry Thomas Movie Collection | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.89

  The three films in this Terry Thomas Collection--The Naked Truth, Too Many Crooks and Make Mine Mink--are each an unalloyed delight from beginning to end. Though produced on slim budgets they possess witty scripts by Michael Pertwee, deft direction in two instances by Mario Zampi, inventive music scores and marvellous casts featuring two generations of British actors, from Athene Seyler to a young Kenneth Williams. Individually and as an ensemble these players are a pleasure to watch. But of course Terry Thomas, the catalyst of the collection, runs the gamut with a plethora of facial expressions, body language and verbal repartee that contribute so much to the unbuttoned joy of each film. In the earliest of them, The Naked Truth (1957), TT 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"). 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. Too Many Crooks (1959) has TT being blackmailed once again, this time for the hoards he's stashed away as a renowned tax dodger. Look out for the very funny court scene, where TT makes three appearances on separate charges, before a bemused magistrate, John Le Mesurier. Make Mine Mink (1960), the odd one out in this collection, was adapted from a West End stage farce, Breath of Spring. TT leads a gang of middle-aged biddies who decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life", by staging a series of robberies on furriers, then donating the proceeds to charitable concerns. The splendid cast includes Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams. On the DVD: The Terry Thomas Collection comes in an attractive box containing the three discs. All are 4:3 ratio and with mono sound. The only extras are a trailer for each film which, in the instance of Make Mine Mink, is introduced by Terry Thomas himself, who presents us to his gang of fur thieves as the voice on the soundtrack announces him as "fur, fur funnier than you've seen him before". --Adrian Edwards

• The Apartment | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £5.94   |  Saving you £10.05 (169.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele

• What A Carve Up | DVD | (11/08/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Ernie's Uncle Gabriel has just died but to claim his inheritance he must spend the night in the ancestral family home with the rest of his rather eccentric relatives. Ernie's imagination has been affected by his constant immersion in cheap horror novels but his wildest fears turn out to be justified when the guests begin to drop dead.

• Goldfinger | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £8.88   |  Saving you £11.11 (125.11%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dry as ice, dripping with deadpan witticisms, only Sean Connery's Bond would dare to disparage the Beatles, that other 1964 phenomenon. No one but Connery can believably seduce women so effortlessly, kill with almost as much ease, and then pull another bottle of Dom Perignon 53 out of the fridge. Goldfinger contains many of the most memorable scenes in the Bond series: gorgeous Shirley Eaton (as Jill Masterson) coated in gold paint by evil Auric Goldfinger and deposited in Bond's bed; silent Oddjob, flipping a razor-sharp bowler like a Frisbee to sever heads; our hero spread-eagled on a table while a laser beam moves threateningly toward his crotch. Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore is the prototype for the series' rash of man-hating supermodels. And Desmond Llewelyn reprises his role as Q, giving Bond what is still his most impressive car, a snazzy little number that fires off smoke screens, punctures the tyres of vehicles on the chase, and boasts a handy ejector seat. Goldfinger's two climaxes, inside Fort Knox and aboard a private plane, have to be seen to be believed.--Raphael Shargel, Amazon.com-- On the DVD: Featuring interviews with Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, the late Desmond Llewelyn and most of the surviving core cast and crew members, great on-set footage (Blackman and Connery look like they clearly had the hots for each other even when the camera weren't rolling) and a strong argument about how this firmed up the gadget-orientated, thrills-and-spills formula for the franchise, John Cork's "making of" featurette for this DVD is one of the most rewarding in this series. The two commentary tracks have moderately interesting observations by director Guy Hamilton, the cast and crew (many of their comments recycled from the documentary), and on both Bond superfan-and-author Lee Pfeiffer filling in blanks and explaining in exhaustive detail the history of the Aston Martin DB5 that first appeared in this film. Also included is an open-ended 1964 interview with Sean Connery, designed so that American radio disc jockeys could pretend they had an exclusive interview with the star, in which he extols the series' "sadism for the family" among other things. --Leslie Felperin

• Hamish MacBeth - Complete Box Set | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £21.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Lochdubh: a frontier town in the wild west of Scotland. One hotel one general store one doctor and one lawman - PC Hamish Macbeth (Robert Carlyle). He's the sherrif along with canine sidekick Wee Jock with his own singular methods of dealing with crime and misdemeanours. If only his love life were so easily solved. But then that's another story... The complete collection of the popular BBC1 series Hamish MacBeth. Episode Listing - Series 1: 1. The Great Lochdubh Salt Robbery 2. A Pillar Of The Community 3. The Big Freeze 4. Wee Jock's Lament 5. A Bit Of An Epic Series 2: 1. A Perfectly Simple Explanation 2. In Search of a Rose 3. Isobel Pulls It Off 4. Radio Lochdubh 5. No Man Is an Island 6. The Lochdubh Deluxe Series 3:

• Stan and Ollie | Blu Ray | (03/06/2019) from £6.30   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly star as Laurel & Hardy in the untold story of the world's greatest comedy act. Stan & Ollie wonderfully portrays the unique and precious partnership of the legendary duo as they set out on a tour of Britain in the twilight of their career. Whilst they face an uncertain future the charm and beauty of their performances shine through, making each other and their audiences laugh, re-connecting them with legions of adoring fans, old and new. With stunning performances from Coogan and Reilly, critics are calling Stan & Ollie ˜absolute perfection' (IGN), ˜incredibly funny' (The Telegraph), ˜an absolute delight' (Radio Times) and a film which ˜reaches genuinely sublime heights' (The Times).

• The Fighting Temptations | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £7.19   |  Saving you £8.80 (122.39%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A New York advertising exec travels to a small Southern town to collect an inheritance but finds he must create a succcesful gospel choir before he can collect. Cuba Gooding Jr and Beyonce Knowles team up for a belting musical comedy.

• Endless Love | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £12.20   |  Saving you £-2.21 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The love every parent fears. A modern variation on the Romeo and Juliet theme Endless Love features that Oscar-nominated song performed by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli this timeless romance stars Brooke Shields as Jade who becomes the true love and obsession of the boy next door David. However their young love is so overwhelming that they loose touch with everything else forcing the parents of these star-crossed lovers to tr

• Strictly Come Dancing: The Most Glorious Collection | DVD | (28/11/2022) from £18.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Lolita | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £6.19   |  Saving you £7.80 (126.01%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Stanley Kubrick's 1961 version of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's notorious 1953 novel, prompted a scandal in its day: even to address the issue of paedophilia on screen was deemed to be as perverted as the hapless protagonist Humbert Humbert. James Mason plays Humbert, the suave English Professor whose gentlemanly exterior peels away as quickly as his scruples once exposed to Sue Lyons' well-developed teenage beauty. In order to be close to her, he marries her mother, the lonely and pathetically pretentious Charlotte (Shelley Winters) only for her to expire conveniently, leaving Humbert free to embark on a motel-to-motel trek across America with Lolita in tow, evading suspicions that theirs is more than a father-daughter relationship. Peter Sellers, meanwhile, gives a Dr Strangelove-type tour de force performance as Clare Quilty, a TV writer also in pursuit of Lolita, who harasses Humbert under several guises, including a psychiatrist. As a movie, Lolita is flawed, albeit interestingly so. The sexual innuendo (a summer camp called Camp Climax, for example) seems jarring and pointless, while Sellers' comic turn detracts from any sense of guilt, tension or tragedy. It's as if the real purpose of the film is to offer a sort of silent, mocking laughter at the wretched Humbert and systematically divest him of his dignity. By the end, he is a babbling wretch while Sue Lyons' Lolita is pragmatic and self-possessed. It's Mason and Lyons' performances, which lift the film from its mess of structural difficulties. Decades on, their central relationship still makes for pitifully compulsive viewing. On the DVD: Few extras, sadly, though the brief original trailer is excellent, built around the question, "How could they make a film out of Lolita?". The original black and white picture and mono sound are excellent. --David Stubbs

• Once Upon a Time in the Midlands | DVD | (12/05/2008) from £5.20   |  Saving you £12.05 (305.84%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When Jimmy sees Dek's failed marriage proposal on national TV he rides into town with only one thing on his mind: to win back the woman and child he left behind...

• The Gruffalo's Child - Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Collection | DVD | (11/02/2019) from £10.73   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This collection brings together the much-loved family films based on the wonderful books written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The Gruffalo's Child is the tale of the brave little Gruffalo who ignores her father's warnings and tiptoes out into the snow in search of the Big Bad Mouse. She meets Snake, Owl and Fox but no sign of the fabled Mouse. He doesn't really exist... or does he? Featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Robbie Coltrane, James Corden, Shirley Henderson, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson. Also available in the collection: The Gruffalo, Room On The Broom, Stick Man, The Highway Rat and Zog.

• Raven - The Complete Series | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Raven, a 15-year-old Borstal boy, is released on probation to live with Professor Young, an archaeologist immersed in research into Arthurian legend, and his wife, an amateur ornithologist. The professor is working in deep underground caves whose carved symbols suggest that King Arthur may have used them as a hiding place, and Raven is intrigued by his belief that Arthur was not one man, but a succession of chiefs.

• The Deer Hunter: Special Edition (2 discs) | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £5.79   |  Saving you £11.20 (193.44%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The Deer Hunter is an expansive portrait of friendship in a Pennsylvania steel town, and of the effects of the Vietnam War. Led by the trio of Robert De Niro, John Savage and Christopher Walken (who won a supporting actor Oscar), the first hour is dominated by an engrossing Russian Orthodox wedding and reception. When the drama moves overseas it switches from anthropologically realistic documentation of a community's rituals to highly controversial and still shocking Russian Roulette scenes, symbolising the random horror of war. Unforgettable as they are, the Vietnam sequences occupy less than a third of the three-hour running time; defying movie convention The Deer Hunter is fundamentally a before-and-after ensemble character study anchored by De Niro's great performance. Although it was the first serious Hollywood feature to address the Vietnam War, the plausibility of some of the later plot developments raises awkward questions. But the film remains powerfully effective, its deliberate pace, naturalistic overlapping dialogue and unflinching seriousness marking it very much a product of the 1970s. With nine Oscar nominations and five wins, including Best Picture and Director, it's a cinematic landmark that stands the test time, almost incidentally setting Meryl Streep on the road to superstardom in her first leading role. On the DVD: The Deer Hunter: Special Edition has the film on the first disc with a serious yet amiable Region 2 exclusive discussion track between director Michael Cimino and critic SX Finnie. The picture is anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1, and perfectly reproduces Vilmos Zsigmond's deliberately desaturated, necessarily grainy cinematography. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack clearly reveals the mono original, being largely focused on the centre speaker and while it does a good job, some of the choral music does sound harsh. Dialogue is sometimes indecipherable, but that's due to the naturalistic nature of the original sound recording and mixing. Disc 2 offers excellent new interviews with Jon Savage (15 mins), Vilmos Zsigmond (15 mins) and Michael Cimino (23 mins). Also included is the original trailer (anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1), a routine photo gallery and a DVD version of the original press brochure. There's no trace of the 40 minutes of deleted material referred to by Cimino, but this presentation is still an object lesson in how quality of extras triumphs over quantity. --Gary S Dalkin