"Actor: Thomas Miles"

• 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

• I'm All Right Jack | DVD | (05/02/2007) from £8.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (44.49%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 'I'm Alright Jack' a man becomes the pawn of a corrupt management and a labour union.

• Brothers In Law | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £8.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (62.38%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Newly qualified barrister Roger Thursby joins his flatmate as a trainee at a London law firm. Thrown in at the deep end by the absent-minded senior partner his first few appearances in court border on the disastrous as he encounters a succession of cantankerous judges.

• 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

• I'm Alright Jack *Digitally Restored | DVD | (19/01/2015) from £10.35   |  Saving you £7.64 (73.82%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Winning BAFTAs for Best British Screenplay and Best British Actor (Peter Sellers) I’M ALL RIGHT JACK is popularly considered to be the best of John and Roy Boulting’s social satires.Sellers plays both Sir John Kennaway and the tragic-comic trade union leader Fred Kite. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge lampooning the then-burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract a scheme that involves manipulating his innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) into acting as the catalyst in an escalating labour dispute from which the socialist Mr. Kite is only too keen to make capital. Featuring a superb supporting cast including Terry-Thomas Richard Attenborough John Le Mesurier Irene Handl and Margaret Rutherford this is an ingenious comedy about the British workplace and self-serving hypocrisy. A sequel to 1956’s A Private’s Progress the film is bought roaringly to life by Sellers’ astonishing turn as the Stalinist unionist. Bonus Features: Brand new interview with Liz Fraser The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film Cinefile: Seller’s Best

• I'm Alright Jack *Digitally Restored | Blu Ray | (19/01/2015) from £11.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (91.74%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Winning BAFTAs for Best British Screenplay and Best British Actor (Peter Sellers) I’M ALL RIGHT JACK is popularly considered to be the best of John and Roy Boulting’s social satires.Sellers plays both Sir John Kennaway and the tragic-comic trade union leader Fred Kite. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge lampooning the then-burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract a scheme that involves manipulating his innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) into acting as the catalyst in an escalating labour dispute from which the socialist Mr. Kite is only too keen to make capital. Featuring a superb supporting cast including Terry-Thomas Richard Attenborough John Le Mesurier Irene Handl and Margaret Rutherford this is an ingenious comedy about the British workplace and self-serving hypocrisy. A sequel to 1956’s A Private’s Progress the ?lm is bought roaringly to life by Sellers’ astonishing turn as the Stalinist unionist. Bonus Features: Brand new interview with Liz Fraser The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film Cinefile: Seller’s Best

• I'm All Right Jack | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £14.21   |  Saving you £2.78 (16.40%)   |  RRP £16.99

  After a decade on radio in The Goons, 1959's I'm All Right Jack set Peter Sellers on the road to international stardom. Sellers played both Sir John Kennaway, and unforgettably, the Bolshy trade union leader Fred Kite (he would go on to take three roles in Dr Strangelove and featured endless disguises in The Pink Panther in 1963) series. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge, lampooning the then burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel's (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract, a scheme which involves manipulating his innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) into acting as the catalyst in an escalating labour dispute, from which the socialist Mr Kite is only too keen to make capital. Management and labour both have their self-serving hypocrisy dissected in this ingenious comedy, actually a sequel to the military comedy Private's Progress (1956), but which stands independent of the earlier film. Both films were made by the brothers John and Roy Boulting, director and producer of such British classics as Brighton Rock (1947), Seven Days to Noon (1950), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959) and Heaven's Above (1963). The superb cast of I'm All Right Jack also features Richard Attenborough, John Le Mesurier, Margaret Rutherford and Terry Thomas. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Carlton-Browne Of The F.O. | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A perennial afternoon telly treat, Carlton-Browne of the F.O. is a little less tart and smart in its assault on British diplomacy than the earlier John and Roy Boulting satires. The much-loved Terry Thomas, is the idiot son of a great ambassador, given a sinecure in the Foreign Office that becomes a hot seat when crises rock the almost-forgotten former colony of Gaillardia. Clod-hopping "dance troupes" of every world power dig for cobalt, a line of partition is painted across the entire island, and the young King (Ian Bannen) is undermined by his wicked uncle (John le Mesurier) and unscrupulous Prime Minister Amphibulos (Peter Sellers). There's a touch of Royal romance as the King gets together with a rival princess (the winning Luciana Paoluzzi), but it's mostly mild laughs at the expense of British ineptitude, with Thorley Walters as the dim army officer who sends his men to put down a rebellion with orders that lead them to turn in a circle and capture his own command post, Miles Malleson as the gouty consul who should have come home in 1916, and a snarling Raymond Huntley as the minister appalled that the new monarch of a British ally was a member of the Labour Party at Oxford. The film finds Sellers' non-specific foreign accent unusually upstaged, with Terry Thomas walking off with most of the comedy scenes, blithely inspecting a line of shabby crack troops who keep passing out at his feet. It fumbles a bit with obvious targets, especially in comparison with similar films like Passport to Pimlico and The Mouse That Roared, but you can't argue with a cast like this. Down in the ranks are: John Van Eyssen, Irene Handl, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Griffith, Sam Kydd and Kynaston Reeves. On the DVD: Carlton-Browne of the F.O. comes to disc in fullscreen, with a decent-ish quality print. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection.--Kim Newman

• Thug Life | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Boo is living the straight life now but he still owes Mecca. So when the favour is called in he has to ride shotgun with Mecca and Vee to deliver some hot wheels to a Southside chop shop. But when the shop owner sets them up to take the rap for a rival gang member it'll take all they've got to make it out of Southside alive...