"Actor: Tom Byron"

• Double Indemnity | Blu Ray | (25/06/2012) from £17.25   |  Saving you £4.00 (25.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck: kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in these plots things never quite go as planned, and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily insurance investigator who must sort things out. From the opening scene you know Neff is doomed, as the story is told in flashback; yet, to the film's credit, this doesn't diminish any of the tension of the movie. This early film noir flick is wonderfully campy by today's standards, and the dialogue is snappy ("I thought you were smarter than the rest, Walter. But I was wrong. You're not smarter, just a little taller"), filled with lots of "dame"s and "baby"s. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, and MacMurray, despite a career largely defined by roles as a softy (notably in the TV series My Three Sons and the movie The Shaggy Dog), is convincingly cast against type as the hapless, love-struck sap. --Jenny Brown

• One True Thing | DVD | (04/07/2005) from £8.07   |  Saving you £-2.08 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Based on Anna Quindlen's bestselling novel, this is a mother-daughter and father-daughter story, two for the price of one. But director Carl Franklin also tries to inject a police-mystery angle that it neither needs nor will support. Renee Zellweger plays a young writer on the rise, who has finally got her break for a New York magazine. While home for a birthday party for her nearly famous writer father (William Hurt), she learns that her mother (Meryl Streep) has been diagnosed with cancer. Then her father does the unthinkable: he all but commands her to put her career on hold to take care of her mother and nurse her through her illness. Dad, a popular college professor who has never received the literary acclaim he always believed he deserved, essentially checks out--and daughter must play parent to her mother. Strong performances by Streep and Zellweger give this parent-child relationship the heart--and the anger--of the real thing, while Hurt seems slightly disembodied as the self-involved father whose needs have dominated both women. Still, the detective-story aspect (the film is told in flashback, as the cops try to discover whether someone slipped Mom a fatal dose of morphine) is a construct that could have been done without. --Marshall Fine

• Dukes Of Hazzard - Vol. 1 | DVD | (09/06/2003) from £7.11   |  Saving you £6.88 (96.77%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Based around a battle between good old-fashioned family values and comically corrupt authority, and always finding time for an action-packed car chase or two, the Dukes of Hazzard was perfect fun-filled family entertainment for its teatime viewing audience. Light on plotting, each episode featured the ongoing feud between the Duke family--loveable rogues Bo and Luke, their sexy cousin Daisy and Uncle Jesse--and the weasly duo of Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane. But the plot was arbitrary really; what audiences really waited for were the scenes involving General Lee--a souped-up Dodge Charger--racing, jumping, skidding and even flying around in hot pursuit of the baddies. That and Daisy Duke's fetching collection of hot pants. The Duke's theme tune became another series hallmark, performed by country music star Waylon Jennings, who also provided the cheesy voice-over narration. The original series ran from 1979-1985 and the three episodes featured here are taken from the second series: "Treasure of Hazzard", "Officer Daisy Duke" and "Mason Dixon's Girls". Taking the same premise for most episodes, this wasn't groundbreaking television but comfortable viewing that gratified its viewers with harmless action, humour and an idyllic view of life in the southern US of A. On the DVD: The Dukes of Hazzard's DVD special features are all text and photo-based, with "The General Lee: Star Car" offering a breakdown of the car's exact specifications. "Moonshine Merchandise" shows an array of tie-in products. Naturally enough there's a Daisy Duke photo gallery. --Laura Bushell

• Dukes Of Hazzard - Vol. 2 | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £11.65   |  Saving you £2.34 (16.70%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Based around a battle between good old-fashioned family values and comically corrupt authority and always finding time for an action-packed car chase or two, The Dukes of Hazzard was perfect fun-filled family entertainment for its teatime viewing audience. Light on plotting, each episode featured the ongoing feud between the Duke family--lovable rogues Bo and Luke, their sexy cousin Daisy and Uncle Jesse--and the weasly duo of Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane. But the plot was arbitrary really; what audiences really waited for were the scenes involving General Lee--a souped-up Dodge Charger--racing, jumping, skidding and even flying around in hot pursuit of the baddies. That and Daisy Duke's fetching collection of hot pants. The Dukes' theme tune, performed by country music star Waylon Jennings, became another series hallmark. Jennings also provided the cheesy voice-over narration. Taking the same premise for most episodes, this wasn't groundbreaking television but comfortable viewing that gratified its viewers with harmless action, humour and an idyllic view of life in the southern US of A. --Laura Bushell

• Dukes Of Hazzard - Season 6 | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  ""Just the good ole' boysNever meanin' no harmBeats all you never saw been in trouble with the law since the day they was bornStraightenin' the curvesFlattenin' the hillsSomeday the mountain might get 'em but the law never willMakin' their way the only way they know howThat's just a little bit more than the law will allowJust the good ole' boysWouldn't change if they couldFightin' the system like a true-modern day Robin Hood."" - The Ball

• Sniper 3 | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £4.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (68.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  He only needs one shot... Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett has over seventy confirmed kills in his long and illustrious career. The US Marine Corps' most decorated sniper has taken out warlords drug lords assassins and bitter foes. This time he's going after a friend. Paul Finnegan and Beckett fought side-by-side in the jungles of Vietnam. And in a tragic turn of events that's also where Finnegan lost his life. Or so Beckett believed for all these years... But Finnegan's

• Steamboat Bill Jr | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £5.94   |  Saving you £-0.95 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Steamboat Bill Jr dates from 1928 and is the last great film Buster Keaton made before he gave up his independence and signed for MGM. Buster is the rather fey son of an elderly steamboat owner who is being driven out of business by a wealthy competitor. More by accident than intention Buster turns things around and gets the girl as well. The last 15 minutes are truly astonishing: a storm sequence in which a whole town is blown apart, with Buster experiencing a series of amazing escapes as buildings fall down around his ears. On the DVD: The print is a good one, best seen in the 4:3 ration, with unobtrusive organ music added. As a nautical extra there's The Boat, a 1921 short (the print not in such a good state as the feature), in which in the course of launching his newly built craft Buster manages to wreck his house, tip his car into the river and sink the boat. And that's only the beginning. --Ed Buscombe

• Buster Keaton | DVD | (01/05/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Buster Keaton at his very best, with his trademark stoic, deadpan expressions that earned him the nickname The Great Stone Face . The General. Consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made. THE GENERAL is so brilliantly conceived and executed that it continues to inspire awe and laughter with every viewing. Rejected by the Confederate army as unfit, and taken for a coward by his beloved Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), young Johnny Gray (Keaton) is given a chance to redeem himself when Yankee spies steal his cherished locomotive. Johnny wages a one-man war against hijackers, an errant cannon and the unpredictable hand of fate while roaring along the iron rails. Steamboat Bill Jr. The last of the independent features made in the prime of Buster Keaton s career. STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. is a large-scale follow-up to The General. Keaton stars as William Canfield, Jr., a Boston collegian who returns to his deep-southern roots to reunite with his father, a crusty riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence) who is engaged in a bitter rivalry with a riverboat king coincidentally, the father of Willies sweetheart (Marion Byron). Keaton s athleticism and gift for inventive visual humor are in top form, and the cyclone that devastates a town (and sends houses literally crashing down around him) is perhaps the most ambitious, awe-inspiring and hilarious slapstick sequence ever created. THE NAVIGATOR. In a return to the pampered youth role he had played in The Saphead (and would return to in Battling Butler), Keaton stars as Rollo Treadway, an inexperienced lad of extraordinary wealth and surprisingly little common sense, who finds himself adrift on The Navigator with no one else on board except an equally naive girl (Kathryn McGuire). After discovering each other s presence in an ingenious ballet of unintentional hide-and-seek, the couple resourcefully fashion a home for themselves aboard the derelict boat, in spite of their unfamiliarity with the tools of domesticity. They then embark on a series of misadventures on the ocean floor (where Rollo in a diving suit must parry the attacks of an aggressive swordfish) and upon the high seas, surrounded by a fleet of menacing cannibals, where the film reaches its explosively funny climax, with the aid of a crate of rocket flares.

• Black Dynamite | Blu Ray | (16/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Hold Back The Night | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £5.11   |  Saving you £2.14 (55.58%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Two young protestors on the run from the police become friends lovers and try to lose their past...

• Double Indemnity | Blu Ray | (25/06/2012) from £49.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck: kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in these plots things never quite go as planned, and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily insurance investigator who must sort things out. From the opening scene you know Neff is doomed, as the story is told in flashback; yet, to the film's credit, this doesn't diminish any of the tension of the movie. This early film noir flick is wonderfully campy by today's standards, and the dialogue is snappy ("I thought you were smarter than the rest, Walter. But I was wrong. You're not smarter, just a little taller"), filled with lots of "dame"s and "baby"s. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, and MacMurray, despite a career largely defined by roles as a softy (notably in the TV series My Three Sons and the movie The Shaggy Dog), is convincingly cast against type as the hapless, love-struck sap. --Jenny Brown

• Double Indemnity (1944) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (30/05/2022) from £32.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Has dialogue ever been more perfectly hard-boiled? Has a femme fatale ever been as deliciously evil as BARBARA STANWYCK (The Lady Eve)? And has 1940s Los Angeles ever looked so seductively sordid? Working with cowriter RAYMOND CHANDLER, director BILLY WILDER (Ace in the Hole) launched himself onto the Hollywood A-list with this paragon of film-noir fatalism from JAMES M. CAIN's pulp novel. When slick salesman Walter Neff (The Caine Mutiny's FRED MACMURRAY) walks into the swank home of dissatisfied housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), he intends to sell her insurance, but he winds up becoming entangled with her in a far more sinister way. Featuring scene-stealing supporting work from EDWARD G. ROBINSON and the chiaroscuro of cinematographer JOHN F. SEITZ (Sunset Blvd.), Double Indemnity is one of the most wickedly perverse stories ever told and the cynical standard by which all noir must be measured. Product Features New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Audio commentary featuring film critic Richard Schickel New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment New conversation between film historians Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith Billy, How Did You Do It?, a 1992 film by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow featuring interviews with director Billy Wilder Shadows of Suspense, a 2006 documentary on the making of Double Indemnity Audio excerpts from 1971 and 1972 interviews with cinematographer John F. Seitz Radio adaptations from 1945 and 1950 Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Downtown '81 | DVD | (02/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A feature film starring the legendary American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) that follows him around NYC. Along the way he has encounters with Vincent Gallo Debbie Harry Melly Mel and a host of other Andy Warhol players. Downtown 81 not only captures one the most influential artists of the late twentieth century as he is poised for fame but also captures one of the most vital periods of American culture with the explosion of new wave music new painting hip hop and graffiti.

• Club Le Monde | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £6.13   |  Saving you £3.86 (62.97%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An affectionately tongue in cheek comedy exploring the early 1990's human traffic club culture in Britain where open air raves moved into more respectable indoor premises but the drugs dance music and dramas continued...

• The Buster Keaton Collection | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Buster Keaton's 1926 masterpiece The General shows the great stone-faced comedian at the height of his powers. Buster is a train driver from the South who's caught up in the American Civil War. The film is basically an extended chase, with trains pursuing each other up the track. The level of stuntwork (including a huge train wreck) has to be seen to be believed, but it's the deftness and elegance of Keaton's comedy that is ultimately most memorable. For many, Buster Keaton is the greatest comedian of the silent era rated even above Chaplin, and College (1927) is one of his finest films. A poor student who has to work his way through college, Buster is desperate to win the attention of a pretty girl so takes up sports. Through every disaster, the great "stone face" as he was nicknamed betrays not a flicker of emotion, enduring all humiliations with aplomb. College shows Keaton at the top of his form. Steamboat Bill Jr dates from 1928 and is the last great film Buster Keaton made before he gave up his independence. Buster is the rather fey son of an elderly steamboat owner who is being driven out of business by a wealthy competitor. More by accident than intention Buster turns things around and gets the girl as well. The last 15 minutes are truly astonishing: a storm sequence in which a whole town is blown apart, with Buster experiencing a series of amazing escapes as buildings fall down around his ears. Tragically, the following year he lost his independence when he signed for MGM. His career collapsed, his marriage broke up and he became an alcoholic, never to regain former glories. On the DVD: The organ music accompanying this silent feature is pleasantly unobtrusive, and apart from a short section in the middle where it deteriorates, the print quality is a reasonable 4.3. In addition there are five excellent Keaton shorts, One Week (1920), The Boat (1921) Cops (1922), The Blacksmith (1922) and The Balloonatic (1923). --Ed Buscombe

• Steamboat Bill Jr | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Steamboat Bill Jr dates from 1928 and is the last great film Buster Keaton made before he gave up his independence and signed for MGM. Buster is the rather fey son of an elderly steamboat owner who is being driven out of business by a wealthy competitor. More by accident than intention Buster turns things around and gets the girl as well. The last 15 minutes are truly astonishing: a storm sequence in which a whole town is blown apart, with Buster experiencing a series of amazing escapes as buildings fall down around his ears. On the DVD: The print is a good one, best seen in the 4:3 ration, with unobtrusive organ music added. As a nautical extra there's The Boat, a 1921 short (the print not in such a good state as the feature), in which in the course of launching his newly built craft Buster manages to wreck his house, tip his car into the river and sink the boat. And that's only the beginning. --Ed Buscombe

• Altered Paradise / Seduction Of Julia Ann | DVD | (10/02/2003) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-1.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

• Shaolin Warrior - Shaolin Qigong For Upper Body | DVD | (16/05/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

• Latex | DVD | (14/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

• Savannah R.N | DVD | (27/01/1997) from £7.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (62.58%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Filmed in the temple of Aphrodite but you can learn the basic moves involved in Egyptian in the privacy of your home home! Each segment of the dance is clearly explained including the camel and Egyptian walks snaky arms and shimmies and finishes with a section on the veil. Hilary Thacker is a professional Egyptian style dancer and percussionist. She performs throughout Britain as well as in the Middle East dancing at weddings balls cabarets corporate events and hotels often with Arabic musicians. She is also a teacher of the Alexander Technique and is interested in the therapeutic side of this dance.