"Actor: Sidney James"

• Quatermass 2 Limited Collector's Edition 4K UHD + Blu-Ray | Unknown | (14/07/2025) from £59.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Brian Donlevy returns as Professor Quatermass in this hit sequel from Hammer Films a film which, if anything, is more eerily prescient and gruesomely shocking than its predecessor. Co-starring John Longdon, Sidney James and a young Bryan Forbes, Quatermass 2 is featured in this brand-new 4K restoration that has been painstakingly restored by Hammer in 4K from the original film materials.Quatermass and his colleague Marsh investigate the remote Winnerden Flats for traces of a swarm of hollow, symmetrical meteorites. But when one explodes and Marsh is injured, Quatermass is beaten and Marsh is forcibly taken into custody by a group of zombified paramilitary thugs.Brand-new 5.1 mix for all three versions alongside the original mono film soundtrack.Additional German and Italian audio for all three versions. English, French, Italian, Spanish and German subtitles on all versions of the film.Packaged in a high-end, leather-feel slipcase with debossed red and silver titling.Rigid inner box featuring new artwork by cult favourite artist Graham Humphreys.Double-sided poster of original one-sheets.Eight art cards featuring facsimiles of the original US cinema lobby cards.176-page booklet featuring new and reprint articles and reproductions of original publicity.60-page comic featuring a reprint of the comic strip from legendary 1970s magazine The House of Hammer.The discs feature:New commentary with actor and comedian Toby Hadoke, Nigel Kneale's biographer Andy Murray and Stephen R. Bissette, artist and film historian.New commentary with writer/academic Brontë Schiltz and author/producer Jon Dear.Archive commentary with director Val Guest, recorded for laserdisc in 1998.Archive commentary with writer Nigel Kneale and Hammer expert Marcus Hearn, recorded for laserdisc in 1998.Archive commentary featuring sections of both laserdisc commentaries, edited for DVD in 2003.Archive commentary featuring documentarian and Hammer expert Ted Newsom, recorded for Blu-ray in 2019.Archive commentary with filmmaker and Hammer expert Constantine Nasr and writer/producer Dr Steve Haberman, recorded for Blu-ray in 2019.The Legend of Nigel Kneale: Enemy from Space. Toby Hadoke continues his investigation into the truth behind the legend, in part two of a brand-new two-part documentary.Doubling Down: Uncovering Quatermass 2. A close look at the making of Quatermass 2, with contributions from Jon Dear, Stephen Gallagher, Toby Hadoke, Wayne Kinsey, Andy Murray and Stephen Volk.Quatermass II: all six episodes of the landmark 1955 BBC serial.Man of Action. Author and Hammer expert Stephen Laws and author/biographer Derek Sculthorpe examine the life and career of Brian Donlevy.Quatermass Crew. Candid reminiscences from the making of Quatermass 2 with 3rd assistant director Hugh Harlow and special effects assistant Brian Johnson.A Question of Character: Nigel Kneale famously hated Brian Donlevy's performance as Quatermass. Jon Dear, Stephen Gallagher, Toby Hadoke, Andy Murray and Stephen Volk offer their own perspectives.Quatermass and the Hammer Experience: Interviewed by Ted Newsom in the early 1990s, Val Guest discusses the films he made for Hammer.Val Guest 2003 interview from original UK DVD release of Quatermass 2.Reviving Quatermass 2. A look behind-the-scenes at how the new 4K restoration of Quatermass 2 was made.Original trailers, foreign titles, Super 8 cut-down version and the original BBFC censor cards for Quatermass 2.Extensive image gallery of stills and publicity material, alongside tracks from James Bernard's score.The booklet features:New article on the making of Quatermass 2 by Bruce Hallenbeck.New article by Andrew Pixley where he takes a look at the production of the second BBC series and its impact on the viewing public.New article by Andy Murray that takes a look at that most complicated of relationships: Nigel Kneale vs 1950s Sci-Fi.Archive article from Picturegoer magazine where Edith Nepean visits the Danziger's Studios during the filming of Quatermass 2.New article from writer Stephen Laws, who takes a personal look at Brian Donlevy and his place in the pantheon of Quatermass actors.New article from Jon Dear, who investigates why New Towns are often portrayed on film and television as sinister monuments to trauma.Archive interview with actor Barry Lowe, who featured in both Quatermass films as well as several other Hammer productionsNew article by Hammer expert Wayne Kinsey, who unpicks the differences between the TV series, the draft scripts and the final film.

• Will Any Gentleman..? | Blu Ray | (16/08/2021) from £19.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Harking back to the phenomenally successful Aldwych Farces of the 1930s, Vernon Sylvaine's hilarious adaptation of his own hit West End play stars George Cole on top form as a bewildered bank clerk caught up in a series of unfortunate events! Directed by Oscar-nominated Michael Anderson and co-starring Veronica Hurst, Jon Pertwee, William Hartnell, Sid James and Joan Sims, Will Any Gentleman...? is featured here as a brand-new High Definition remaster from original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio. Strait-laced Henry Sterling's peaceful life is periodically shattered by his wastrel brother's antics. But when he attends a local theatre to pay his brother's bouncing cheque he stays to watch the show and ends up being hypnotised into thinking he's a devil-may-care philanderer!

• Carry On Up The Khyber | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £7.95   |  Saving you £5.04 (63.40%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Filmed in 1968 and set in British India in 1895, Carry On Up the Khyber is one of the team's most memorable efforts. Sid James plays Sid James as ever, though nominally his role is that of Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond, the unflappable British Governor who must deal with the snakelike, scheming Khasi of Khalabar, played by Kenneth Williams. A crisis occurs when the mystique of the "devils in skirts" of the 3rd Foot and Mouth regiment is exploded when one of their number, the sensitive-to-draughts Charles Hawtrey, is discovered by the natives to be wearing underpants. Revolt is in the offing, with Bernard Bresslaw once again playing a seething native warrior. Roy Castle neatly plays the sort of role normally assigned to Jim Dale, as the ineffectual young officer, Peter Butterworth is a splendid compromised evangelist, while Terry Scott puts his comedic all into the role of the gruff Sergeant. Most enduring, however, is the final dinner party sequence in which the British contingent, with the Burpas at the gates of the compound, and plaster falling all about them, demonstrate typical insouciance in the face of imminent peril. The "I'm Backing Britain" Union Jack hoist at the end, however, over-excitedly reveals the streak of reactionary patriotism that lurked beneath the bumbling double-entendres of most Carry On films. --David Stubbs

• Carry On Camping | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £5.95   |  Saving you £7.04 (118.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Prepare for an onslaught of robust breezy humour when the Carry On team take to the great Outdoors.

• Father Brown | DVD | (02/03/2009) from £18.85   |  Saving you £-8.86 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alec Guinness stars as G.K. Chestertons legendary detective Father Brown in this splendid comedy thriller directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets). When Father Brown hears that Flambeau (Peter Finch), an international art thief, is planning to steal a priceless cross once owned by Saint Augustine during its transportation to Rome, he is delighted at the opportunity to match wits with a criminal of such repute. However, Flabeau outwits Father Brown on their first encounter deep in the catacombs of Paris and vanishes with the relic. Now, the amateur sleuth must somehow lure the master criminal out of hiding, recover the cross and sace Flambeaus immortal soul into the bargain... Based on the first Father Brown story, The Blue Cross, and boasting a superb supporting cast including Joan Greenwood, Bernard Lee and Sidney James, Father Brown is a true British film classic

• The Bedford Incident | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Cold War just got a lot hotter... Nerve-wracking suspense surrounds The Bedford Incident the tale of a U.S. naval vessel on a routine NATO patrol that ends up in a freakish showdown with a Russian submarine. Richard Widmark is Capt. Eric Finlander the maniacal commander who drives his tense crew to the brink of of nervous exhaustion. Sidney Poitier is Ben Munceford photojournalist aboard assigned to record a 'typical' mission. His moral indignation is put to the test by the

• The Lavender Hill Mob Collectors Edition (Vintage Classics) | Blu Ray | (22/04/2024) from £39.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Glimmering new 4K restoration of THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951), the enduring Ealing Studios comedy classic directed by CHARLES CRICHTON with cinematography by the great DOUGLAS SLOCOMBE. Winner of a BAFTA for Best British Film and an Academy Award® for Best Screenplay, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB remains today one of the finest British comedies ever made. Holland (ALEC GUINNESS) is a shy, retiring man who works as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury (STANLEY HOLLOWAY), a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury's smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle them into France. Soon after, they gain the services of professional criminals Lackery (SID JAMES) and Shorty (ALFIE BASS) and the four plot what they believe will be the perfect crime - which turns out to be anything but! Collector's edition includes: UHD and Blu-ray, 64-page booklet x 2 posters x 4 pop-art artcards NEW The Lavender Hill Mob: Analysis by BENEDICT MORRISON NEW London Comedy Film Festival Q&A with PAUL MERTON Introduction by MARTIN SCORSESE F Those British Faces: Stanley Holloway Extract from BEHP Audio interview with CHARLES CRICHTON Good Afternoon: Mavis interviews T.E.B. CLARKE Audio Commentary by film historian JEREMY ARNOLD Original Trailer F Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery

• Carry On Again Doctor | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £8.70   |  Saving you £4.29 (49.31%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The title of 1969's Carry On Again Doctor says it all; almost the same cast playing similar characters to their previous year's outing in Carry On Doctor. This one rejoices in the alternative title "Bowels are Ringing". But the enduring popularity of these films owes almost everything to their basic formula and if it occasionally seems a bit cobbled together, all the old favourites are still here. This time, the setting moves from the National Health Service to the private sector and even stretches as far as the "Beatific Islands" when Jim Dale is exiled to a missionary clinic for his overzealous attention to the female patients--who include Barbara Windsor of course. There, orderly Sid James rules the roost of the clinic with his harem of local women. Trivia addicts can spot Mrs Michael Caine in a brief role as a token dusky maiden. The second half of the Talbot Rothwell script picks up nicely as the characters converge on the private hospital back in England where Dale rakes in the money with a bogus weight loss treatment. Hattie Jacques is in fine form as Matron, Kenneth Williams fascinates with his usual mass of mannerisms and Joan Sims is stately as the Lady Bountiful figure financing most of the shenanigans. It's a tribute to their professionalism that we can still lose ourselves in some of the creakiest old jokes around. --Piers Ford

• The Lavender Hill Mob | DVD | (21/06/2004) from £7.09   |  Saving you £9.90 (139.63%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Directed by Charles Crichton, who would much later direct John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda (1988), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob is the most ruefully thrilling of the Ealing Comedies. Alec Guinness plays a bowler-hatted escort of bullion to the refineries. His seeming timidity, weak 'r's and punctiliousness mask a typically Guinness-like patient cunning. "I was aware I was widiculed but that was pwecisely the effect I was stwiving to achieve". He's actually plotting a heist. With more conventionally cockney villains Sid James and Alfie Bass in tow, as well as the respectable but ruined Stanley Holloway, Guinness' perfect criminal plan works in exquisite detail, then unravels just as exquisitely, culminating in a nail-biting police car chase in which you can't help rooting for the villains. The Lavender Hill Mob depicts a London still up to its knees in rubble from World War II, a world of new hope but continued austerity, a budding new order in which everything seems up for grabs; as such it could be regarded as a lighter hearted cinematic cousin to Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece The Third Man. The Lavender Hill Mob also sees the first, fleeting on-screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn in the opening sequence. --David Stubbs

• Carry On At Your Convenience | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £9.49   |  Saving you £3.50 (36.88%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1971 when Carry On at Your Convenience hit our screens, the series had long since become part of the fabric of British popular entertainment. Never mind the situation, the characters were essentially the same, film after film. The jokes were all as old as the hills, but nobody cared, they were still funny. But it's just too easy to treat them as a job lot of postcard humour and music hall innuendo. This tale of revolt at a sanitary ware factory--Boggs and Son, what else?--certainly chimed in with the state of the nation in the early 1970s when strikes were called at the drop of a hat. Here, tea urns, demarcation and the company's decision to branch out into bidets all wreak havoc. Kenneth Williams as the company's besieged managing director, Sidney James and Joan Sims give their all as usual, but it's the lesser roles that really add some lustre. Hattie Jacques as Sid's budgerigar-obsessed, sluggish put-upon wife and Renee Houston as a superbly domineering battleaxe with a penchant for strip poker remind us that in the hands of fine actors, even the laziest of caricatures become real human beings. --Piers Ford

• Carry On Christmas | DVD | (14/11/2022) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All four made-for-TV Christmas specials from the 'Carry On' crew. 'Carry On Christmas' (1969) is a reworking of Charles Dickens' classic 'A Christmas Carol' while 'Carry On Again Christmas' (1970) is a new take on 'Treasure Island'. In 'Carry On Stuffing' (1972), the cast recreate a bawdy version of the classic panto 'Aladdin', and in 'Carry On Christmas' (1973), a saucy department store Santa wonders how Christmas has been celebrated through the ages. The cast includes Sid James, Barbara Windsor, Frankie Howerd, Terry Scott, Charles Hawtrey, Bernard Bresslaw and Kenneth Connor.

• Carry On Doctor | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Bedpan humour rules in Carry On Doctor, the vintage 1968 offering from gang, assisted by guest star Frankie Howerd as bogus faith healer Francis Bigger. Hospitals, of course, always provided the Carry On producers with plenty of material. Today, these comedies induce a twinge of serious nostalgia for the great days of the National Health Service when Matron (Hattie Jacques, naturally) ran the hospital as if it was a house of correction, medical professionals were idolised as if they were all Doctor Kildare and Accident and Emergency Departments were deserted oases of calm. But even if you aren't interested in a history lesson, Talbot Rothwell's script contains some immortal dialogue, particularly when Matron loosens her stays. "You may not realise it but I was once a weak man", says Kenneth Williams' terrified Doctor Tinkle to Hattie Jacques. "Once a week's enough for any man", she purrs back. Other highlights include Joan Sims, excellent as Frankie Howerd's deaf, bespectacled sidekick, Charles Hawtrey suffering from a phantom pregnancy, 1960s singer Anita Harris in a rare film role, and Barbara Windsor at her most irrepressible as nurse Sandra May. --Piers Ford

• Carry On Matron | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £8.22   |  Saving you £4.77 (58.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Hattie Jacques finally got to the play the title role in 1972 when Carry On Matron immortalised the character she had developed during several previous outings, most notably in Carry On Doctor. And she seized it with gusto. This is no one-dimensional performance, but a very human portrait of a woman doing her best to retain her authority in the face of mounting chaos--a raid planned by Sid James to steal the hospital's supply of contraceptive pills. Certainly, she's obsessed with regular bowel movements--this wouldn't be a Carry On film otherwise--but she remains a majestic figure of dignity with a touch of human warmth. Occasionally, too, a real hint of irony peeks through the slapstick and the innuendo. Surely scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell had his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek when he gave Barbara Windsor--then married to Ronnie Knight--the line, "I don't fancy being a gangster's moll!" Terry Scott makes a guest appearance and Sid James is at his most conniving and lecherous. Theatre impresario Bill Kenwright has a cameo role and there's an early appearance from Wendy Richard as a prototype Pauline Fowler. But it's the female stalwarts who shine. Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques were truly comic actresses of the highest order. --Piers Ford

• Hancock's Half Hour - Vol. 1 | DVD | (13/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Tony Hancock has been voted Britain's best ever comedy performer thirty-five years after his premature death in 1968. This DVD contains the remaining episodes from Series 2 and Series 3 plus a Christmas Special. Episodes from Series 2: 1. The Alpine Holiday Episodes from Series 3: 1. Air Steward Hancock The Last Of The Many 2. The Lawyer: The Crown vs Sidney James 3. Competitions: How To Win Money And Influence People 4. There's An Airfield At The Bottom Of My Garden The Christmas

• Blood On The Sun | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Newspaper editor Nick Condon (James Cagney) is the crusading chief of the Tokyo Chronicle in 1920s Japan. He has his suspicions about Japanese plans for future expansion suspicions that are confirmed when he runs an article accusing Japanese Premier Tanaka (John Emery) and Colonel Tojo (Robert Armstrong) of planning world conquest and gets a visit from the Imperial Police. Then one of his reporters Ollie Miller (Wallace Ford) and his wife Edith (Rosemary DeCamp) are murdered shortly

• The House Across the Lake | DVD | (18/08/2014) from £10.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  American screen siren Hillary Brooke is a consummate femme fatale in this British noir thriller of 1954 – an early feature by Emmy-winning writer-director Ken Hughes (adapting his own novel High Wray) and one of a series of now highly regarded B-movies jointly financed by Hammer Films and American producer Robert L. Lippert. Co-starring Alan Wheatley – soon to feature in an enduring TV role as the Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood – and a pre-Carry On Sid James The House Across the Lake (a.k.a. Heat Wave) is presented in a brand new transfer from original film elements in its original aspect ratio. The bungalow which author Mark Kenrick has rented to toil over his new novel is quiet but for the sounds coming from a lively party across the lake at the exclusive home of Beverley Forrest and his young ex-model wife Carol. When she calls Mark to ask if he would collect some stranded guests he obliges but is shocked to find that Carol is both calculating and manipulative... and he is about to find out just how far she is prepared to go in order to get what she wants! Special Features: Image gallery Original Theatrical trailer

• Carry On Abroad | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits heading for the "paradise island" of Elsbels. Kenneth Williams is the out-of-his-depth tour operator, reverting to the sort of effete types he played in the 1950s, Peter Butterworth a pre-Manuel-style manager of a half-built hotel. A series of disasters ensue, with the entire gang landing up in jail following a fracas in a brothel at one point, but everyone finds romantic and sexual fulfilment in a quaint disco finale. This includes a gay character who is "dissuaded" from his homosexuality in a typical example of the thoroughly reactionary subtext that constitutes the really naughty bit of most Carry On films. Nonetheless, this throwback to an imaginary time when the lewdest innuendo of a dirty old man was greeted by young females with a flirty "Ooh, saucy!" is enjoyable on condition that you enter into its seaside-postcard spirit. June Whitfield is fine as a sexually uptight wife, Kenneth Connor a model of red-faced frustration as her wimpish husband. On the DVD: Sadly, no extra features except scene selection. The picture is a 4:3 ratio full-screen presentation. --David Stubbs

• Carry On Matron | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £11.50   |  Saving you £1.48 (17.39%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Hattie Jacques finally got to the play the title role in 1972 when Carry On Matron immortalised the character she had developed during several previous outings, most notably in Carry On Doctor. And she seized it with gusto. This is no one-dimensional performance, but a very human portrait of a woman doing her best to retain her authority in the face of mounting chaos--a raid planned by Sid James to steal the hospital's supply of contraceptive pills. Certainly, she's obsessed with regular bowel movements--this wouldn't be a Carry On film otherwise--but she remains a majestic figure of dignity with a touch of human warmth. Occasionally, too, a real hint of irony peeks through the slapstick and the innuendo. Surely scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell had his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek when he gave Barbara Windsor--then married to Ronnie Knight--a the line, "I don't fancy being a gangster's moll!" Terry Scott makes a guest appearance and Sid James is at his most conniving and lecherous. Theatre impresario Bill Kenwright has a cameo role and there's an early appearance from Wendy Richard as a prototype Pauline Fowler. But it's the female stalwarts who shine. Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques truly were comic actresses of the highest order. On the DVD: Presented like most of the other Carry On DVD releases in 4:3 picture format and mono soundtrack, this release has all the comfy quality of a lazy Saturday afternoon in front of the television. But where are the extras? It's one thing to launch a highly popular series of films as classic entertainment, but they deserve more than the budget treatment. As always, a cast list, some sort of documentary extra and biographies of at least the key players would really do them justice. --Piers Ford

• Carry On Don't Lose Your Head | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £6.64   |  Saving you £6.35 (95.63%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Carry On Don't Lose Your Head parodies the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with crinkly cackling Sid James as master of disguise the Black Fingernail and Jim Dale as his assistant Lord Darcy. He must rescue preposterously effete aristocrat Charles Hawtrey from the clutches of Kenneth Williams' fiendish Citizen Camembert and his sidekick Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). The Black Fingernail is assisted in his efforts to thwart the birth of the burgeoning republic by the almost supernatural stupidity of his opponents, who fail to recognise the frankly undisguisable Sid James even when dressed as a flirty young woman. What with an executioner who is tricked into beheading himself in order to prove the efficacy of his own guillotine, it's all a little too easy. As usual, no groan-worthy pun is left unturned, or unheralded by the soundtrack strains of a long whistle or wah-wah trumpet. This is pretty silly stuff even by Carry On standards, with most of the cast barely required to come out of first gear and an overlong climactic swordfight sequence hardly raising the dramatic stakes. Most of the humour here resides neither in the script nor the characterisation but in the endlessly watchable Williams' whooping, nasal delivery (occasionally lapsing into broad Cockney) and the jowl movements of the always-underrated Butterworth. --David Stubbs

• Buck and the Preacher (1972) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (26/09/2022) from £21.84   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  !With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, SIDNEY POITIER (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented. Combining boisterous buddy comedy with blistering, Black Powerera political fury, Poitier and a marvellously mischievous HARRY BELAFONTE (Carmen Jones) star as a tough and taciturn wagon master and an unscrupulous, pistol-packing preacher, who join forces in order to take on the white bounty hunters threatening a westward-bound caravan of recently freed enslaved people. A superbly crafted revisionist landmark, Buck and the Preacher subverts Hollywood conventions at every turn and reclaims the western genre in the name of Black liberation. Special Features New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack New interview with Mia Mask, author of Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western Behind-the-scenes footage featuring actor-director Sidney Poitier and actor Harry Belafonte Interviews with Poitier and Belafonte from 1972 episodes of Soul! and The Dick Cavett Show New interview with Gina Belafonte, daughter of Harry Belafonte English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by critic Aisha Harris