"Actor: Ward Bond"

• Western Box Set | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  THE SEARCHERS: (Languages:English French Italian:MONO Subtitles:English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian) Often acclaimed as John Ford's best film The Searchers is the saga of an ex-Confederate soldier named Ethan Edwards who embarks on a long obsessive search for his niece Debbie who was kidnapped by Comanche Indians. Accompanied by Martin Pawley a young man he had saved from Indians several years earlier Ethan searches throughout the West in vain. This DVD includes Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood Interviews Two Trailers and featurettes. UNFORGIVEN: (Languages: English 5.1 SURROUND Subtitles: English Arabic) Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven is an exciting modern classic that rode off with four 1992 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director (Eastwood). Eastwood and Morgan Freeman play retired down-on-their-luck outlaws who pick up their guns one last time to collect a bounty offered by the vengeful prostitutes of the remote Wyoming town of Big Whiskey. Richard Harris is an ill-fated interloper a colorful killer-for-hire called English Bob. And Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winner Gene Hackman is the sly and brutal local sheriff whose brand of law enforcement ranges from unconventional to ruthless. Big trouble is coming to Big Whisky. Written by David Webb Peoples (12 Monkeys). WILD BUNCH: DIRECTOR'S CUT: (Languages: English 5.1 SURROUND Subtitles: English Arabic) By any standard director Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch a powerful tale of hang-dog desperados bound by a code of honour rates as one of the all-time greatest westerns perhaps one of the greatest of all films. This Original Director's Cut restores it to a complete pristine condition unseen since its July 1969 theatrical debut. The image is letterboxed the colour renewed the stereo soundtrack remixed and reintegrated - all to blood-and-thunder effect. This DVD also features (on side B) the home video debut of The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage the Acadaemy Award-nominated 1996 documentary by Paul Seydor and Nick Redman.

• Callan - Series 1 - Part 2 Of 3 - Episodes 4 - 6 | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent Callan (Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems a strong show, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman

• Tall In The Saddle | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When a stranger arrives in a western town he finds that the rancher who sent for him has been murdered. Further most of the townsfolk seem to be at each other's throats and the newcomer has soon run contrariwise to most of them...

• Callan - Series 1 - Part 1 Of 3 - Episodes 1 - 3 | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £6.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (129.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode of Callan written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent of the same name (starring Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken-light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems as strong, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. A great deal of the series opener is devoted to bringing on new regulars. Theres a fresh Mr Hunter who, like Number Two on The Prisoner--with which Callan shares series editor George Markstein--was a title not a name, so several actors held the position over the course of the show. Theres also the trendily mulleted thug Cross (Patrick Mower), who would go spectacularly off the rails in the next series and a half. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman

• The Searchers (2 Disc Special Edition) | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  With The Searchers John Wayne and director John Ford forged an indelible saga of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards an ex-Confederate who sets out to find his niece captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger thirst the elements or loneliness. And in his obsessive quest Ethan finds something unexpected: his own humanity. One of the most influential movies ever made.

• The Time Of Your Life | DVD | (01/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  When James Cagney starred in the movie adaptation of The Time of Your Life in 1948, it was hotly been debated whether William Saroyan’s stage play was really filmable at all. Because of its small cast, because all the action takes place on a single claustrophobic set, because the "plot" consists entirely of sub-plots, and because Saroyan’s "dirty sentimentality" isn’t to everyone’s taste, such doubts are still understandable today. However, accept the movie for what it is--a play in a box--and you’ll be captivated. The story revolves around a slightly down-at-heel bar-restaurant, where a group of disparate characters come and go as their stories gradually unfold. They include an ex-prostitute desperately seeking a new life, a dancer looking for a break into showbusiness, a down-and-out who discovers a vocation as a pianist, a beer-sodden cowboy and a villainous "stoolie" who, needless to say, gets his comeuppance. This gaggle of misfits is presided over by an enigmatic, champagne-drinking philanthropist (brilliantly played by Cagney) who gently nudges them towards their goals while indulging his own fascination with the minutiae of daily life. Throughout this quietly delightful picture the audience are not told why he’s this way, but it is possible to make an educated guess. On the DVD: The Time of Your Life might be a classic, but it apparently warrants no extra features. The black and white picture is 4:3. --Roger Thomas

• Callan - Series 1 - Part 3 Of 3 - Episodes 7 - 9 | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £15.70   |  Saving you £0.29 (1.85%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent Callan (Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems a strong show, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman

• The Quiet Man | Blu Ray | (27/02/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  John Wayne is retired boxer Sean Thornton, who makes a pilgrimage to his home village in Ireland in order to claim his family's estate. He meets his match in the spirited young Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), only to find himself confronted by her belligerent brother and the town's strict customs. An Oscar® winner* for Best Director and Cinematography, this Republic Pictures classic lives on in the hearts of moviegoers and moviemakers alike. John Ford's THE QUIET MAN is simply one of the greatest love stories ever told. Product Features The Making of THE QUIET MAN

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Made For Each Other | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £10.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (54.60%)   |  RRP £16.99

  This highly appealing comedy drama stars James Stewart and Carole Lombard as a young couple battling illness lack of money inept servants and interfering in-laws...

• The Searchers | HD DVD | (18/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  With The Searchers John Wayne and director John Ford forged an indelible saga of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards an ex-Confederate who sets out to find his niece captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger thirst the elements or loneliness. And in his obsessive quest Ethan finds something unexpected: his own humanity. One of the most influential movies ever made.

• Edward G. Robinson - Scarlet Street / The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture". But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as the Nazi Franz Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clocktower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: sparse pickings. Both films have a full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne which adds the occasional insight, but is repetitive and not always reliable. The box claims both print have been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles' The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to Edward G. Robinson, who is marvellous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles, the director, is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of the film is a well designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. --Sean Axmaker

• The Stranger | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• The Grapes Of Wrath - Book & DVD | DVD | (08/08/2005) from £27.99   |  Saving you £-12.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  John Ford's memorable screen version of John Steinbeck's epic novel of the Great Depression--often regarded as the director's best film--stars Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. After having served a brief prison sentence for manslaughter Joad arrives at his family's Oklahoma farm only to find it abandoned. Muley (John Qualen) a neighbor now nearly mad with grief tells Tom of the drought that has transformed the farmland of Oklahoma into a desert and of the preying land agents who have plowed under the shacks of the sharecroppers. Joined by former hellfire preacher Casy (John Carradine) Tom finds his extended family including Pa (Charles Grapewin) and his indomitable Ma (Jane Darwell) packing their ramshackle truck to seek work in the fields of California. As the family treks across the country their dissolution begins with the deaths of Tom's grandparents at close intervals. When they arrive in California the Joads find only an abundance of poverty-stricken migrants like themselves and little in the way of potential work. Yet ever resilient they maintain their dignity hoping for the best. Among the talented cast Fonda does perhaps the best work of his career as does Qualen in the film's most haunting sequence. Director of photography Gregg Toland captures the suffering and the weathered luminous nobility of the Joads and the other uprooted drifting families creating striking images equal to the best work of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. In a stirring film that stands as a microcosm of the depression experience of millions Ford gives poverty a human face in a way that was rare then and even rarer in the decades to follow as Hollywood films with a sense of class consciousness dwindled like a species nearing extinction.

• Bringing Up Baby | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £13.34   |  Saving you £2.65 (19.87%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A dog belonging to an eccentric heiress (Hepburn) steals a dinosaur bone from David (Grant) an absent-minded Zoology professor. David follows the heiress to her home and all hell breaks loose when he loses his pet leopard known as 'Baby'. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn give fantastic performances in one of Hollywood's finest screwball comedies superbly directed by Howard Hawks.

• Callan - Third Series | DVD | (03/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• SILKWOOD (1983) - SILKWOOD (1983) (1 Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (25/07/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A