"Actor: Sue Lyon"

• 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

• The Astral Factor | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

• Stanley Kubrick | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £99.99

  This superb nine-disc Stanley Kubrick Box Set contains all the late director's work from 1962's Lolita to Kubrick's final film, the highly controversial Eyes Wide Shut (1999). There's also the excellent and highly informative two-hour documentary: Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, narrated (a little drably) by Tom Cruise. It isn't exactly a warts-and-all portrait of Stan the Man, which is not surprising, really, given that it's directed and produced by Kubrick's brother-in-law Jan Harlan, and that Kubrick's widow Christine was closely involved in the making of it. But it does give a detailed and revealing portrait of a brilliant, demanding and often infuriating man, airing rare footage that goes right back to his earliest years as a brash youngster in the Bronx, already playing to camera with a frightening degree of self-awareness. Six of the eight movies (all but Dr Strangelove and Eyes Wide Shut) have been digitally restored and remastered, and almost all (barring Strangelove again and Lolita) now boast Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo sound remixes. For some bizarre reason, Kubrick insisted on mono sound for the 1999 set, which he approved shortly before his death. Visually the improvement over the often grainy, scratchy prints previously on offer--The Shining (1980) was notoriously messy--is immense. All the features are presented in their original ratios, which in the case of Strangelove means the changing ratios in which it was originally shot, and for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) the full glorious 2.21:1 expanse of the Cinerama screen.So what don't you get? Essentially, the early Kubrick--the work of the young, hungry director before he moved to England and started to gather all the controlling strings into his own hand: most notably the tough, taut thriller The Killing (1956) and the icily furious war film Paths of Glory (1957). Too bad Warners couldn't have negotiated the rights for those too. But what we have here is the culminating phase of Kubrick's filmmaking career--the final 27 years of one of the great masters of cinema. On the DVDs: Besides the visual and sonic improvements mentioned above, each of the eight features includes the original theatrical trailer and multiple-language subtitles. The DVD of Dr Strangelove also gives us filmographies of the principal players, plus theatrical posters and a photo gallery, while Eyes Wide Shut includes interviews (taped after Kubrick's death) with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Steven Spielberg, plus a couple of 30-second TV spots. And with The Shining we get a fascinating 34-minute documentary made by Kubrick's then 17-year-old daughter Vivian, plus--just to add a further layer--Vivian's present-day voice-over commentary on her film. --Philip Kemp

• Murder In A Blue World | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Often described as 'the Spanish Clockwork Orange' this controversial shocker is set in a violent near future world. Honset citizens live in terror as gangs of leather clad whip wielding sadists roam the night time streets. Meanwhile in a top secret laboratory strange mind control experiments are being conducted. Against this background a beautiful nurse tries to ease the pain of those condemed to die. But who really is this angel of mercy and what is the purpose of her mission?

• Murder In A Blue World | DVD | (07/12/2009) from £12.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (23.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Murder In A Blue World

• Four Rode Out | DVD | (19/05/2007) from £7.09   |  Saving you £-1.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Fernando Nunez is a man on the run from the law accused of robbery and the murder of a bank clerk. His pursuers are US Marshall Ross and Pinkerton man Mr Brown a hired detective of dubious character determined to return the stolen money and see that Nunez pays for his crime. Theyre joined by Myra Polsen Nunezs lover who is intent on ensuring he is captured alive. As the unlikely trio being their quest across the wild desert their true motives being to show and when Nunez is captured and beings to tell his side of the story it becomes clear not everyone is who they say they are.

• Evel Knievel | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-1.74 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £4.99

  A biography of the famed motorcycle daredevil Evel Kneivel much of which was filmed in his hometown of Butte in Montana. The film focuses on major events in his life particularly his relationship with his girlfriend/wife Linda.

• Crash! | Blu Ray | (17/12/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A