"Director: Bernard"

• Cotton Queen | DVD | (24/06/2013) from £16.25   |  Saving you £-3.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Directed by Bernard Vorhaus and produced by the prolific Joe Rock at Rock Studios. Joe produced 123 tiles acted in 96 films and wrote 36. Cotton Queen is a story of two feuding Lancashire mill owners Sam (Stanley Holloway) and Bill (Will Fyffe). They find if they work together they can secure a major American contract. Further trouble ensues when Bills' niece (Mary Lawson) has a romance with Sams' son (Jimmy Hanley) - but all is sorted out at the annual Cotton Queen festival. Cotton Queen was the final film Vorhaus made in Britain. Following the collapse of Julius Hagen’s Twickenham Studios where he had directed most of his films during the previous few years. He then returned to the United States. Watch out for Gibson Gowland who played McTeague in Erich Von Stroheim's silent masterpiece Greed.

• Tinto Brass Presents - Julia / Quattro / Improper Liaisons / Hold My Wrists Tight | DVD | (11/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £32.99

  The undisputed King of Erotica lends his name to twelve of the sexiest short stories imaginable. Directed in the Tinto Brass style by some of the most talented new Italian directors working today Tinto Brass has produced the films as well as featuring in his trademark cameo appearances. Julia: One of the world's greatest erotic photographers takes three beautiful models on a trip to Rome. Perverse yet innocence they find redemption in the Vatican City... A Magic Mirro

• Columbo - Season 1 Episodes 1 - 6 | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Peter Falk stars as the iconic crumpled trenchcoat-clad detective Columbo. Features a collection of classic episodes from Season One.

• Paperhouse | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  To define the 1988 fantasy flick Paperhouse as a mere horror film would be an injustice--although this intelligent and thought-provoking British film is certainly scary in parts. In exploring the world of dreams, director Bernard Rose (Candyman) offers a far more elegant exposition of the subject than the Nightmare on Elm Street school of horror. Based on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, Paperhouse offers a believable cause for its intensified dreamworld: Anna (Charlotte Burke) falls ill with glandular fever--a fever which will blur her understanding of reality and dreams. It is clear from the start that Anna has an overzealous imagination, holding onto her childhood games while her best friend becomes more interested in boys. Before her descent into illness Anna draws the Paperhouse of the title, and it is this house that dominates her dream world. Although the acting is rather hammy and the scenes set in reality are tedious, the true beauty of the film comes from Production Designer Gemma Jackson and Cinematographer Mike Southon, whose talents emerge in the dream sequences. Clearly taking inspiration from the Surrealist movement, Jackson recreates a chilling version of Anna's drawing of the house, full of dark shadows and terrifying noises, that perhaps has more in common with Jan Svankmajer's macabre adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice than the innocent childhood offerings of Disney. Ultimately Paperhouse is an exploration of the traumatic transition into adulthood of a young girl on the cusp of her teenage years: at the start of the film Anna "hates boys", but by the end she is sharing her first kiss with Mark, her playmate in the dream world.On the DVD With a 1.66:1 ratio format and Dolby Digital sound the stylistic brilliance of this movie is much easier to see and enjoy than in its previous incarnations on television and video. The special features leave a lot to be desired, though, offering only an unexciting original trailer and four filmographies for the director and the three main adult actresses. --Nikki Disney

• Neil Young & Crazy Horse Live | DVD | (20/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £23.99

  Neil Young and Crazy Horse captured at the height of their powers ON 22. Oktober 1978 at The Cow Palace San Francisco Rust Never Sleeps. This concert film was directed by Young himself under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. The stage set features giant outsized amplifiers and microphone stands and the stage crew are dressed as creatures from the first 'Star Wars' film. Tracklisting: 1. Introduction: Star Spangled Banner / A Day In The Life 2. Sugar Mountain 3. I'm A Child 4. Comes A Time 5. After The Gold Rush 6. Trasher 7. My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) 8. When You Dance I Can Really Love 9. The Loner 10. Welfare Mothers 11. The Needle And The Damage Done 12. Lotta Love 13. Sedan Delivery 14. Powderfinger 15. Cortez The Killer 16. Cinnamon Girl 17. Like A Hurricane 18. Hey Hey My My (Into The Black) 19. Tonight's The Night

• Attack Of The Giant Leeches | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £5.96   |  Saving you £-0.97 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Unbeknown to the locals giant leeches live in caves under a swamp. The disappearance of a succession of trappers prompts the game warden to investigate matters with horrifying results.

• The Last Journey & Return of a Stranger | DVD | (26/03/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Last JourneyBernard Vorhaus directs this cracking Twickenham 1935 production. Film train driver Bob Holt (Julien Mitchell) is distraught with his up coming compulsory retirement and also believes his wife is having an affair with his fireman. The day arrives for his final journey and aboard his train are various passengers with their own problems. Bob suffers a mental breakdown and drives the train at high speed ignoring all signals. Great train sequences, a must for train fans. Picture and sound restored to very good quality.Return of a StrangerGriffith Jones and Rosalyn Boulter star in this 1937 Premier/Safford production, directed by Victor Hanbury.A young chemist (Griffith Jones) elopes with the bosses daughter, (Rosalyn Boulter) a murder is committed intheir hotel and the chemist is suspected of the murder. He flees the country and years later, now a successfulscientist returns to try and clear his name. Lots of train sequences and a good old fashioned melodrama make for an entertaining film. An interesting part played by Ellis Jeffries as the old Lady Wall, her only film role. Picture and sound of excellent quality.

• Airwolf - Vol. 2 | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £5.84   |  Saving you £4.15 (71.06%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Airwolf appeared only two years after Knight Rider and, perplexingly, the same year as the short-lived Blue Thunder series. However, creator Donald P Bellisario had spent more than a little time in fully conceptualising this series. Although the format allowed for stories-of-the-week, a B-plot always ran as background motivation for the individual tales. This was a trick Bellisario would also use to good effect later in Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap. The hook that sustains the audience here is an extremely bitter sub-plot: Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a peculiar anti-hero to root for since he is effectively being held to ransom and doing the same in return. His brother St. John is held captive somewhere and until his release the Airwolf chopper is Hawke's to keep hidden and use under the covert instructions of "Archangel". His best friend Dominic Santini (the ever-appealing Ernest Borgnine) is a surrogate father figure caught up in the family history. All this pre-determined angst means this is never a show that plays itself for laughs. Very specific character flaws are upfront from the beginning. We are hammered over the head with the idea of Hawke being a tortured intellectual; hence the cello, log cabin retreat and inability to smile. Of course the real star is the spurious technology showcased in the Mach One helicopter armed to the teeth and able to defy the laws of physics on a regular basis. As the mid-80s looked increasingly to the lighter side in most television successes, Airwolf is a rare display of aggression. Justice is fought, but dig only a little way and the moral motivations are often in question. Toward the end of its third season things began to lose coherence and after a year's pause the show was magically resurrected with an all-new cast. It didn't last. --Paul Tonks

• Airwolf - Vol. 4 | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £5.46   |  Saving you £4.53 (82.97%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The ultimate in Eighties action! Stringfellow Hawke (Vincent) and his irascible mentor Dominic Santini (Borgnine) continue their fight for freedom justice and liberty with the mighty Airwolf experimental helicopter at their disposal... Includes the episodes Dambreakers Random Target and The American Dream.

• Dead Heat On A Merry Go Round | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Eli Kotch plans to use the visit of the Russian premier to aid him in his attempts to rob a bank at Los Angeles airport but can he get away with it?

• Airwolf - Vol. 1 | DVD | (09/04/2001) from £11.08   |  Saving you £-1.09 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Airwolf appeared only two years after Knight Rider and, perplexingly, the same year as the short-lived Blue Thunder series. However, creator Donald P Bellisario had spent more than a little time in fully conceptualising this series. Although the format allowed for stories-of-the-week, a B-plot always ran as background motivation for the individual tales. This was a trick Bellisario would also use to good effect later in Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap. The hook that sustains the audience here is an extremely bitter sub-plot: Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a peculiar anti-hero to root for since he is effectively being held to ransom and doing the same in return. His brother St. John is held captive somewhere and until his release the Airwolf chopper is Hawke's to keep hidden and use under the covert instructions of "Archangel". His best friend Dominic Santini (the ever-appealing Ernest Borgnine) is a surrogate father figure caught up in the family history. All this pre-determined angst means this is never a show that plays itself for laughs. Very specific character flaws are upfront from the beginning. We are hammered over the head with the idea of Hawke being a tortured intellectual; hence the cello, log cabin retreat and inability to smile. Of course the real star is the spurious technology showcased in the Mach One helicopter armed to the teeth and able to defy the laws of physics on a regular basis. As the mid-80s looked increasingly to the lighter side in most television successes, Airwolf is a rare display of aggression. Justice is fought, but dig only a little way and the moral motivations are often in question. Toward the end of its third season things began to lose coherence and after a year's pause the show was magically resurrected with an all-new cast. It didn't last. --Paul Tonks

• The Tomorrow People - The Slaves of Jedikiah | DVD | (01/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Tomorrow People was a children's science fiction adventure series launched in 1973 as ITV's answer to Doctor Who. In the opening five-part adventure "Slaves of Jedikiah" we meet Stephen (Peter Vaughan-Clarke) who is about to "break-out" to the next level of human evolution, becoming a Homo Superior, or "Tomorrow Person". Developing telepathic and telekenetic powers, as well as the ability to teleport, he becomes the target for mysterious American cult leader, Jedikiah (Francis de Wolff). Already secretly established with biological supercomputer TIM in an abandoned underground tunnel are three Tomorrow People--John (Nicholas Young), Carol (Sammie Winmill) and Kenny (Stephen Salmon)--who rescue Stephen and then find themselves on a damaged starship in a race against time to save its alien captain. Although the budget was low--the tin robot with his head on fire is particularly laughable--the story is ambitious and the utilitarian special effects are in plentiful supply. There's a trippy, post-2001: A Space Odyssey quality to some of the visuals, a great theme tune and acting of decidedly pantomime calibre. The Tomorrow People themselves come from a past in which teenagers still say "smashing!", but the fantasy of advanced, pacifist children saving the world had a lasting appeal, enough that the show ran eight seasons, then was revived for three more in the 1990s. --Gary S Dalkin

• Cimarron Strip - The Last Wolf | DVD | (19/05/2007) from £4.75   |  Saving you £1.24 (26.11%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sam Gallatin heads a pack of wolf hunters who find their services are no longer required by the local ranchers and townspeople of Cimarron casualties of their own success. Broke and out of work the wolf hunters become a problem in the Strip spoiling for a fight with their previous employers. While the farmers in the territory agree to give the hunters work the local ranchers refuse setting the two parties on an inevitable collision course. With Gallatin trying to unite the wolf hunters against the settlers and the cattlemen Marshal Crown finds himself outgunned outnumbered and caught right in the middle of an all out range war.

• Rainbow Brite - Mega Disc | DVD | (24/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In 'Mom' Murky tries to trick his mother into helping him make Rainbowland gloomy. Also features: 'Beginning Of Rainbow Land (Parts One And Two) 'Peril Into The Pits' 'Mighty Montronmurk Menace (Parts One And Two) and 'A Horse Of A Different Colour'.

• Mitridate Re Di Ponto - Mozart | DVD | (31/01/2005) from £10.18   |  Saving you £16.07 (180.16%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A performance of 'Mitridate' composed when Mozart was just fourteen. Theodore Guschlbauer conducts the Lyon Opera Orchestra recorded live at the Lyon National Opera in 1986.

• The Mind Snatchers | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Christopher 'Barking Mad' Walken in his first leading role. In this his first leading role Christopher Walken plays a misfit G.I. who finds himself as a guinea pig in a bizarre brain research experiment. A compelling tale of mind-numbing drugs boisterous soldiers and a sinister German scientist. Hailed as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets A Clockwork Orange The Mind Snatchers is adapted from the Broadway play The Happiness Cage and features a very young Walken showing his early talent for spontaneous menace giving a chilling performance as Private James Reese who has his mental stability stolen from him. It seems that Walken never really got it back as he went on to build an illustrious film career playing killers gangsters and plain barking mad psychos. Reese is a constant offender sociopathic bordering on schizophrenic. His wild behaviour means he has inadvertently caught the attention of the army shrinks who have sinister plans for him. A German scientist Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland) is working on a way to pacify overly aggressive soldiers by developing implants that directly stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain. Reese is 'volunteered' by his superiors for the secret medical experiment and finds himself in a military hospital. There are two other patients only one of whom Sgt. Boford Miles (Ronny Cox) can speak. Reese's attempts to discover the nature of the experiment are unsuccessful - he knows that Miles and the other patient have fatal diseases and that the work has been sanctioned by The Major (Ralph Meeker) but when enlightenment finally comes Reese wishes he had been kept from the truth after all. In 1970 Walken had screentested for the Ryan O'Neil part in Love Story. They didn't think he was right for the part but things could have been so very different if they had. Following a brief appearance in The Anderson Tapes as Sean Connery's sidekick Walken's mesmerisingly dark performance in The Mind Snatchers in 1972 meant that he was never going to play the romantic lead and instead went on to become our favourite screen weirdo. Daring Brilliant - NEW YORK TIMES

• M.A.S.K. - Volume 1 | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  While investigating the mysterious death of his beloved wife Matt Trakker uncovers an international criminal organisation known as Venom. Matt gathers a group of friends who like himself possess extraordinary talents and creates M.A.S.K. Their objective; to destroy Venom and its mastermind - Miles Mayhem. The Death Stone: M.A.S.K. must beat Venom in the race to find The Death Stone a radioactive meteor capable of creating craters in the Earth's surface & wiping out countries. The Star Chariot Venom: are on the hunt to find the missing part of the Emerald Arrowhead which when joined with the rest of the emerald will lead to an alien spacecraft the Star Chariot that was buried in the desert 1000 years ago. The Book Of Power: The Book Of Power has been stolen M.A.S.K. immediately come to the rescue to save the once-vanished ancient city and Scott who somehow finds himself transported to a booby-trapped cave! Highway to Terror: M.A.S.K are on a mission to recover hugely radioactive plutonium that Venom have stolen from an army vehicle. The plutonium will be used with a computer box to create earthquakes but M.A.S.K already have the box. They must now try to steal back the plutonium as well before Venom cause destruction all over the world. Video Venom: Venom learn to hypnotise people through their televisions in order to make them help in their plans to incinerate the oil base in Texas. With Venom expecting to be paid billions by the Texan government M.A.S.K. need to stop this!

• Comme Un Frere | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The tearing away of youthful dreams and the realization of electric adulthood provide the core of Comme Un Frre the dramatic telling of both sides of a young man's life. When 18-year-old aspiring actor Sebastien leaves his small French town and moves to Paris he reinvents himself changing his name to Zack after the lead character in his favorite American TV show. Every night he cruises the city's most fashionable gay bars hoping to find love but despite numerous partners he's unable to find sexual or emotional fulfillment.When his old friend Romain calls and announces that he is coming to Paris Zack's unrequited feelings are rekindled and he is forced to make some big decisions about his life and how to live it honestly.

• Columbo - Series 1 Vols. 1-3 | DVD | (01/10/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The entire first series of investigations featuring Peter Falk's now classic depiction of crumpled trenchcoat-clad detective Columbo. Also contains the pilot movies Prescription: Murder and Ransom For A Dead Man. Episodes comprise: 1. Murder By The Book 2. Death Lends A Hand 3. Dead Weight 4. Suitable For Framing 5. Lady In Waiting 6. Short Fuse 7. Blueprint For Murder

• Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice? | DVD | (02/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? sees a change of direction for Robert Aldrich's unofficial trilogy which all involve "ageing actresses" in macabre thrillers (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte). The busy Aldrich only produced What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, calling in TV director Lee H Katzin (a Mission: Impossible regular) to handle the megaphone. Aldrich also opted to shoot the film in pastel colours appropriate to the unusual Arizona desert setting rather than the gothic black and white of the earlier films. The film cast the less iconic Geraldine Page as the genteelly unpleasant Mrs Clare Marrable. Left apparently penniless by her departed husband, Mrs M opts to keep up appearances by hiring a succession of timid elderly housekeepers, bossing them around with well-spoken nastiness, duping them out of their life savings and, on the pretence of getting help with a midnight tree-planting program, lures them into their own graves, batters them to death and plants lovely pines over them. Page gets her own way with the meek likes of Mildred Dunnock, until the feistier, red-wigged R!uth Gordon applies for the job and gets down to amateur sleuthing. While Bette Davis and her partners went wildly over the top in previous films, Page and Gordon play more subtly, finding odd pathetic moments in between the monstrous, irony-laced horror stuff. The supporting cast of pretty or handsome young things, mostly putty in the hands of the manipulative Page, contribute striking little cameos (Rosemary Forsyth sports a pleasing 1969 hairdo as the kindly but intimidated neighbour), but the film belongs to its leading ladies, delivering a fine line in twist-packed cat-and-mouse theatrics. The video is handsomely letterboxed, as befits a film made before widescreen films were shot with all the action in the middle of the frame to facilitate television sales. --Kim Newman