Classic Films

• Breakfast At Tiffany's | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £6.50   |  Saving you £9.49 (59.30%)   |  RRP £15.99

• The Agony and the Ecstasy | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Carol Reed (The Third Man) directed this 1965 portrait of the relationship between Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), who commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Based on a novel by Irving Stone, the script of The Agony and the Ecstasy plods along, juggling the dynamics between the two men along with a somewhat perfunctory love story and distracting battle sequences. Reed seems more attuned to the nuances and great pains of the artistic process, as seen in sequences of Michelangelo working. But the overall focus of the film is unfortunately fuzzy. --Tom Keogh

• Mikado | DVD | (08/02/2010) from £7.25   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Films in the sumptuous Technicolor, this unrivalled 1939 production of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivans most talented of D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, American Radio star Kenny Barker and the London Symphony Orchestra. Adapted, conducted and produced by Geoffrey Toye, this witty and truly lavish musical extravaganza captured some of the most legendary members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at their very finest (including Sydney Granville and Martyn Green) and recreates the thrilling sound and spectacle of one of their greatest productions. "Agreeable films version...with some of the D'Oyly Carte Company's most celebrated members in excellent form" - Halliwell's Film Guide "Marvelous use of early Technicolor..." - Radio Times Guide to Films

• Dead Reckoning (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (22/04/2024) from £13.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Humphrey Bogart (The Harder They Fall), Lizabeth Scott (Pitfall), and Morris Carnovsky (Gun Crazy) star in Dead Reckoning, a dark tale of blackmail, vengeance, and murder. When Captain 'Rip' Murdock (Bogart) learns that his war buddy has been murdered, he sets out to find answers. His search leads him to nightclub owner Martinelli (Carnovsky) and the beautiful, dangerous Coral (Scott), and death and intrigue follow. Directed by John Cromwell (The Prisoner of Zenda), Dead Reckoning is a tense and atmospheric film noir, starring one of Hollywood's greatest screen icons. Product Features High Definition remaster Original mono audio Audio commentary with film scholar and preservationist Alan K Rode (2022) A Pretty Good Shot (2022, 17 mins): appreciation by writer and film programmer Tony Rayns Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945, 16 mins): short film, directed by John Cromwell, documenting the formation of the United Nations following World War II Image gallery: promotional and publicity material New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• The Stranger (Dual Format - Blu-ray & DVD) | Blu Ray | (04/05/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  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

• Tunes Of Glory | DVD | (18/05/2009) from £9.01   |  Saving you £-3.02 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Major Jock Sinclair has been in this Highland regiment since he joined as a boy piper. During the Second World War as Second-in-Command he was made acting Commanding Officer. Now the regiment has returned to Scotland and a new commanding officer is to be appointed. Jock's own cleverness is pitted against his new CO his daughter his girlfriend and the other officers in the Mess.

• Poldark - Complete Series 1-2 | DVD | (22/06/2015) from £9.95   |  Saving you £0.05 (0.50%)   |  RRP £10.00

  The entire first and second series of this romantic TV drama series set in 1780s Cornwall. The story begins when Ross Poldark (Robin Ellis) returns from the American War of Independence to claim his inheritance and marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Jill Townsend). However during his two year absence false reports of Poldark's death have been circulated and Elizabeth has found comfort in the arms of another.

• How to Marry a Millionaire | DVD | (23/07/2012) from £11.23   |  Saving you £-1.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.

• The Grapes of Wrath | Blu Ray | (13/01/2014) from £9.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Winner of two including Best Director for John Ford The Grapes of Wrath comes to Blu-ray for the first time! This American classic based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows Tom Joad (Henry Fonda in an Oscar-Nominated role) and his family as they escape the Depression-era Oklahoma dust bowls for the promised land of California. But the arduous trip and harsh living conditions offer little hope and family unity proves as daunting a challenge as any other they face.

• Planet Of The Apes Collection | Blu Ray | (01/12/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £74.99

  Filled with iconic images fierce epic battles and breathtaking twists these action-packed films revolutionized science fiction...and remain as thrilling and timely as ever! Planet Of The Apes: Charlton Heston stars as an astronaut lost in a world run by evolved apes in this highly influential Oscar'-winning and epic film! (1968) Beneath The Planet Of The Apes: James Franciscus discovers new horrors on the Planet of the Apes including a subterranean world of highly advanced humans who worship a WMD! Escape From The Planet Of The Apes: Refugee chimps from the feature Cornelius and Zira (Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter) are hunted down as an evolutionary threat in twentieth-century America. (1971) Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes: In the not-too-distant future an ape named Caesar (Roddy McDowall) defies his human masters launching a revolt that will change the way the world is run...and by whom. (1972) Battle For The Planet of The Apes: The peaceful coexistence of man and ape is shattered when militant factions of both species clash igniting an explosive final conflict! (1973)

• Rear Window | Blu Ray | (13/05/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Alfred Hitchcock playfully explores the role of the voyeur in one of his best-loved suspense thrillers. After breaking his leg during a shoot, photo-journalist L.B. 'Jeff' Jeffries (James Stewart) is forced to spend a humid summer recuperating in his Greenwich Village apartment. The wheelchair-bound Jeff whiles away his time observing his neighbours through a telephoto lens, bestowing them with nicknames and growing familiar with their daily routines. However, his society girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) is exasperated and then alarmed when Jeff becomes obsessed with the notion that Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), who lives in the apartment opposite, has murdered his wife. A 53-minute making of feature, 'Rear Window Ethics', is also included. Special Features: Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of The Master Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock Rear Window Re-Release Trailer Narrated by James Stewart Feature Commentary with John Fawell Author of Hitchcock's Rear Window

• Jane Eyre | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £8.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (66.74%)   |  RRP £14.99

  An all-star cast - including Orson Welles Joan Fontaine Agnes Moorehead and Elizabeth Taylor - breathes magnificent life into this captivating 1943 black and white film version of Charlotte Bront's gothic romance novel. Adapted for the screen by Aldous Huxley Robert Stevenson and John Houseman and directed by Stevenson this stirring film is the definitive version of the engrossing classic! After spending her childhood in an orphanage young Jane Eyre (Fontaine) becomes governess to the ward of an imposing older man named Edward Rochester (Welles). Ultimately Jane's gentle influence forces Rochester to drop his forbidding veneer and he proposes to her. But the discovery that Rochester is already married and further that his volatile wife is locked in the attic prompts Jane to leave as a series of tragic events unfold in this riveting classic that also features Margaret O'Brien.

• Doctor Who - Time-Flight & Arc of Infinity | DVD | (06/08/2007) from £9.97   |  Saving you £20.02 (200.80%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Time Flight: The Doctor finally manages to deliver Tegan to Heathrow Airport where he gets drawn into investigating the in-flight disappearance of a Concorde. Following the same flight path in another Concorde with the TARDIS stowed in the hold he discovers that it has been transported back millions of years into the past through a time corridor. Arc of Infinity: An antimatter creature has crossed into normal space via a phenomenon known as the Arc of Infinity but needs to bond physically with a Time Lord in order to remain stable. A traitor on Gallifrey has chosen the Doctor as the victim.

• A Shot In The Dark | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  As murder follows murder with the beautiful Maria as the obvious suspect; bumbling Inspector Clouseau drives his boss Dreyfus mad by stubbornly vowing to prove her innocence!

• Carry On Collection Vol.2 | DVD | (01/09/2008) from £9.00   |  Saving you £3.99 (44.33%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Titles Comprise: 1. Carry On Regardless: It's non stop romps as the Carry On team deliver the goods in one of the rudest and funniest of the Carry On films. The cast are all on top form as a bunch of no-hoppers who join an agency in the search for a job. The anarchy mounts as they do a series of odd jobs including a chimps tea party trying to stay sober at a wine tasting and demolishing a house. 2. Carry On Cruising: A life on the ocean wave with the Carry On crew! Sid James is the long-suffering Captain of the luxury cruise liner S.S. Happy Wanderer a ship full of misfits who don't know their portholes from any other holes! It isn't long before the luckless passengers mix with the hopeless crew to raise titanic laughs on the ship of fools. 3. Carry On Jack: Able seaman Poop-Decker (Bernard Cribbins) signs up for adventure on the high seas with the wicked Captain Fearless (Kenneth Williams). Those swabbing the decks include Juliet Mills Charles Hawtrey and Donald Houston. 4. Carry On Cabby: Charlie (Sid James) owner of the Speedee Cabs company finds he has some serious competition when his wife Peggy (Hattie Jacques) sets up a rival firm consisting only of glamorous female drivers.

• Thunderbirds - The Movie | Blu Ray | (07/10/2019) from £7.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This live-action, big-budget family blockbuster brings Gerry Anderson's cult classic 1960s puppet sci-fi TV series to the big screen. Directed by Jonathan Frakes, the film follows the intergalactic adventures of the Tracy family, headed by former astronaut Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton), who lives with his five sons on the top-secret Tracy Island, which also houses the headquarters of the top-secret International Rescue organisation. When villainous criminal 'The Hood' (Ben Kingsley) orchestrates an elaborate plan to remove Jeff and his four eldest sons temporarily from home, so that he can invade the island and attempt to steal some of the organisation's most valuable equipment, it is left to Jeff's youngest son Alan (Brady Corbet) to save the day...

• Tokyo Joe | DVD | (26/05/2008) from £14.34   |  Saving you £-1.36 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Humphrey Bogart plays Saloonkeeper Joe Barrett in postwar Tokyo. With an interesting cast including Alexander Knox and an outstanding performance by Sessue Hayakawa (Bridge on the River Kwai) as the japanese gang lord. Florence Marly adds a european/international touch as White Russian Cabaret singer. The theme of postwar Japan is rarely touched on, and like Sam Fuller's 'House of Bamboo', Tokyo Joe takes a long, slow look at the underbelly of Japan's postwar milieu. Like Casablanca, this film has all the elements, haunting theme music, guns, girls and gangsters with a whiff of geopolitical intrigue.

• Mary Of Scotland | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £5.61   |  Saving you £4.38 (78.07%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Based on Maxwell Anderson's play set in 16th century Scotland starring Katharine Hepburn and Fedric March. A rare excursion by Ford into the historic costume drama a very entertaining and rewarding experience.

• The Dam Busters | Blu Ray | (21/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A much-loved British classic Michael Anderson's 1954 drama captures the tension and bravery of an audacious raid on the centre of Nazi Germany's industrial complex and the quintessentially English combination of inventiveness and dogged determination. Split into two distinct sections the film deals first with the fraught but ultimately successful development of a new weapon by Dr. Barnes N. Wallis (Michael Redgrave). The second and pacier section deals with the mission itself during the British raid on the Ruhr Dams and its associated costs for the enemy and for the British airmen. Adapted by R.C. Sherriff from Paul Brickhill's book Enemy Coast Ahead and featuring superlative special effects photography by Gilbert Taylor (to say nothing of Eric Coates' stirring theme tune) The Dam Busters was Britain's biggest box-office success of 1955. Shot in black and white to allow the integration of original footage of the bomb trials the film boasts a 'gritty' documentary-style reality.

• Classic Films Triple - On Golden Pond/Fried Green Tomatoes/Sophie's Choice | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) an overweight middle aged woman is in a rut. Her husband Ed ignores her and even his bedridden aunt throws blunt objects at her! But a chance encounter with a spry octogenarian Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) leads to an unexpected friendship. Ninny tells Evelyn an absorbing story of two very different women who lived half a century ago in the town of Whistle Stop Alabama: the irrepressibly dare devilish tomboy Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and the demure and good-hearted Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker). Together they ran the Whistle Stop Caf'' a railside eatery serving good old southern food as well as a good helping of friendship and laughter and even an occasional murder. The events of the past inspire Evelyn to make changes in her own dowdy life - the results are often hilarious in this endearing tale of friendship and courage. Sophie's Choice Meryl Streep plays Sophie Zawistowska in this penetrating drama set in 1947 post-World War II Brooklyn. Kevin Kline plays her all consuming lover Nathan. The story revolves around Sophie's struggle as a Polish-Catholic immigrant in the United States who had survived a Nazi concentration camp. The lovers' drama unfolds through the observations of a friend and would-be writer Stingo (Peter MacNicol). As the trio grows closer Stingo discovers the hidden truths that they each harbour resulting in a narrative that is both captivating and moving... On Golden Pond Family tensions explode for a loving couple Ethel and Norman Thayer (Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda in Academy Award winning performance) at their New England summer cabin on Golden Pond. Their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) has come to visit with her new lover Bill (Dabney Coleman) and his tough young son Billy (Doug McKeon). The three generations collide. But what begins as a stubborn battle of wills between Norman and Billy slowly turns into a relationship that Chelsea always wanted with her father and Norman discovers how much he has missed by denying his daughter's love.