"Director: Billy Wilder"

• The Audrey Hepburn Collection | Blu Ray | (10/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.68

  Titles Comprise: Breakfast at Tiffany's Funny Face Sabrina

• The Apartment | Blu Ray | (29/07/2013) from £9.50   |  Saving you £3.49 (36.74%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele

• Irma La Douce | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £14.18   |  Saving you £1.81 (12.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Irma La Douce reunited The Apartment team of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine with director Billy Wilder in an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name which had been a hit in Paris, London and New York. The screen transfer by Wilder and his colleague--writer IAL Diamond--however, omits the show's songs, relegating them to a background score refashioned by Andre Previn with some additional themes of his own. Background here is a complimentary term, for whatever qualms one might entertain as to this move, the two sets of themes are skilfully woven together by Previn and emerge as a witty and lyrical aural delight in their own right which is given due prominence on the soundtrack. Wilder is no rush to tell prostitute Irma's story: her affair with Lemmon being the pivot of the tale as he takes on the disguise of an English Lord. Lemmon and MacLaine beautifully play their mutual attraction under Wilder's deft direction with the slapstick never allowed to get out of hand. Many will recognise Wilder's touch in his handling of the scene where Lemmon as a policeman is carted off in a van full of voracious prostitutes from the bunks-in-the-train sequence in Some Like It Hot. The handsome production, designed by Alexander Tranner--with the occasional view of the Seine thrown in for good measure--and the Panavision photography by Joseph La Shelle are further assets. On the DVD: The DVD contains a longer than usual theatrical trailer, half shot as a cartoon with characters closely resembling those Pink Panther figures who emerged at the same time from the Mirisch Brothers, a pair prominent in sustaining the unique success of United Artists, whose name was deleted, in favour of the MGM logo, in the early 1960s. It's too bad that the music on this DVD transfer sometimes strikes a coarse note particularly over the extended opening credits. --Adrian Edwards

• Marilyn Monroe: The Collection (Vol. 2) | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  How To Marry A Millionaire (1953) Marilyn delivers one of the finest comedic performances of her career in this outrageously funny film co-starring Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall! Three beautiful models plan to snag rich husbands by pooling their funds and renting a posh Manhattan penthouse in which to lure their victims. What follows is a series of near-marital mishaps where love prevails over money proving that even gold-diggers sometimes have hearts of gold! There's N

• The Major And The Minor | Blu Ray | (23/09/2019) from £10.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From one of Hollywood s most acclaimed auteurs, Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard), comes the charming comedy classic The Major and the Minor. Legendary actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (Monkey Business) stars as Susan Applegate, a struggling young woman who pretends to be an 11-year old girl in order to buy a half-price train ticket. Fleeing the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland, The Big Clock, The Pyjama Girl Case). The Major believes Susan is a child and takes her under his wing, but when they arrive at the military academy where Kirby teaches, his fiancée (Rita Johnson) grows suspicious of Susan's ruse... Co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (Hold Back the Dawn), The Major and the Minor assumes the guise of a light romance narrative in order to cleverly explore themes of identity and deception. Wilder s American debut is presented here for the first time in stunning High Definition, with a selection of illuminating extras. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation transferred from original film elements Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing New audio commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin Half Fare Please!, a newly filmed video appreciation by film critic Neil Sinyard Archival interview with Ray Milland Rare hour-long radio adaptation from 1943 starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland Image gallery Original trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork FIRST PRESSING ONLY: COLLECTOR S BOOKLET WITH ESSAY BY RONALD BERGAN

• Bing Crosby Collection - The Emperor Waltz / A Conneticut Yankee | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £7.02   |  Saving you £8.97 (127.78%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Emperor Waltz (Dir. Billy Wilder 1948): A rare musical comedy for Wilder it stars Bing Crosby as Virgil H. Smith a phonograph salesman plying his wares in turn-of-the-20th-century Vienna. Believing that if he's able to sell a phonograph to Emperor Franz Joseph I the rest of Austria will soon follow his example Virgil attempts to gain access to the man. After he's refused admission to the palace by guards who believe the phonograph to be a bomb he meets Countess Johan

• Audrey Hepburn Collection Box Set | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £9.73   |  Saving you £40.26 (413.77%)   |  RRP £49.99

  This Audrey Hepburn Collection box set contains the following films: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, Funny Face, Paris When It Sizzles and Roman Holiday.

• The Apartment Limited Edition | Blu Ray | (18/12/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele

• Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection | DVD | (05/08/2002) from £29.95   |  Saving you £50.04 (167.08%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Released to mark the 40th anniversary of her death in 1962, The Diamond Collection brings together all of Marilyn Monroe's films for 20th Century Fox. This handsome box set stands as a salutary reminder of the considerable achievements of an actress who still reigns supreme as the greatest screen goddess of them all. The uninitiated might be surprised at the versatility of someone whose legend is founded so much on her image as a sex symbol. In particular, her touching performance as the abused second-rate bar singer Cherie in Bus Stop (1956) is a rounded study of a woman still capable of dreaming when life has done everything to dull her. The box set as a whole offers plenty of evidence that while she certainly specialised in a unique and complex variation on the blonde bombshell stereotype--embodied in her timeless performances as Lorelei Lee (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and short-sighted Pola in How to Marry a Millionaire, both 1953--she could certainly diversify. The documentary, Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days, provides a sympathetic take on the troubles and behaviour which led to her being sacked from her final picture, Something's Got to Give. The presentation of the restored footage from that movie is less successful, though, as the glimpses of Monroe's incandescent screen presence, belying her illness and depression, leave a palpable sadness in their wake. Better by far to focus on her earlier work. Whatever the role, her luminous beauty and statuesque figure, combined with an unselfconsciously joyful sexuality and an on-screen vulnerability, were always at their best under the careful guidance of directors like Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger. These qualities continue to give her an enduring appeal. On the DVD: The Diamond Collection has been digitally restored using, for the most part, the original negatives, making this a sumptuous package for any Monroe fan. Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes are both presented in standard 4:3 ratio but the rest--filmed in Cinemascope and presented here in letterbox format--are certainly better-served by widescreen viewing. The colours, like Monroe, come alive. The sound quality is crisp and Monroe's singing--she had limited but genuine musical talent--has polished up well. Multiple extras include before-and-after restoration comparisons, trailers from various countries, stills and posters, and newsreel footage. Eleven discs of Marilyn in one box, this is a veritable feast indeed. --Piers Ford

• Ginger Rogers - Screen Goddess Collection | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £24.66   |  Saving you £25.33 (102.72%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Major And The Minor (Dir. Billy Wilder 1942): A woman disguises herself as a child to save on a train fare and is taken in charge by an army man who doesn't notice the truth. Bachelor Mother (Dir. Garson Kanin 1939): Ginger Rogers stars as a department store salesclerk about to be laid off after the Christmas holiday who happens to be passing an orphanage when a woman leaves a baby on the doorstep. The orphanage assumes that Rogers is the mother despite her protests; when they contact the department store the owner's son (David Niven) decides to restore her job so that she can take care of the child. Before long rumors are flying that Niven is the child's father... Top Hat (Mark Sandrich 1935): Following a case of mistaken identity dancer Jerry (Astaire) follows Dale (Rogers) the girl of his dreams to Europe and tries to win her heart through song and dance routines... This most lavish of musicals from Hollywood's golden era features lyrics and music by Irving Berlin. Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich 1934): In one of their best loved most charming song-and-dance comedies Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers demonstrate just how they became best known as America's greatest dance team. It Had To Be You (Dir. Don Hartman Rudloph Mate 1947): Victoria Stafford (Ginger Rogers) is a wealthy young woman who has been engaged three times and who has changed her mind at the last second at all three weddings. She is engaged again and is determined to wed her fourth fiance Oliver H.P. Harrington (Ron Randell) when she has a dream in which a man dressed like an Indian (Cornel Wilde) breaks up her fourth wedding. Upon awakening she is startled to find that the ""Indian"" from her dream is real... Tight Spot (Dir. Phil Karson 1955): Sherry Conley a street tough and cynical woman with an unhappy family background is taken from prison to a hotel where the DA tries to convince her to testify against a mobster. Sherry is reluctant because the last witness was murdered before he made it to the stand and why should she stick her neck out? At the hotel several attempts are made on her life and she falls for Vince the policemen guarding her...

• Kiss Me, Stupid | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £18.60   |  Saving you £-5.61 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When world-renowned singer Dino (Martin in a hilarious self-parody) passes through Climax Nevada he doesn't count on meeting two would-be songwriters with a plan to trap him there and serenade him with their songs. But then again they weren't counting on Dino's insatiable appetite...for wine and women! And when one of the men learns that his own wife was once president of Dino's fan club he hires a replacement wife (Kim Novak) to help lure the carousing star into a song-buying moo

• Sabrina | DVD | (14/09/2009) from £3.89   |  Saving you £6.10 (156.81%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Humphrey Bogart William Holden and Audrey Hepburn star in a Cinderella story directed by renowned filmmaker Billy Wilder. Bogie and Holden are the mega-rich Larrabee brothers of Long Island. Bogie's all work Holden's all playboy. But when Sabrina daughter of the family's chauffeur returns from Paris all grown up and glamorous the stage is set for some family fireworks as the brothers fall under the spell of Hepburn's delightful charms.

• Marilyn Monroe - The Best Of Marilyn | DVD | (19/06/2006) from £17.58   |  Saving you £7.41 (42.15%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Celebrate the 80th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe with the delightful 4 disc boxed set featuring: 1. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 2. The Seven Year itch 3. How To Marry A Millionaire 4. Marilyn Monroe - The Final Days For individual synopses' please refer to the individual products.

• Seven Year Itch | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £7.90   |  Saving you £5.09 (64.43%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When a seductive starlet moves in upstairs a married man (Tom Ewell) has his fidelity put to the test. Keeping his marriage vows in the face of her flirtations proves hilariously tough when challenged by the notorious ""Seven Year Itch""!

• How To Marry A Millionaire / Seven Year Itch / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  How To Marry A Millionaire: Three screen goddesses - Betty Grable Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe - star as golddigging models blessed with fabulous looks but limited brain power. The three blondes pool their resources and conspire to nab millionaire husbands renting an expensive penthouse to lure in their likely prey. But with Rory Calhoun Cameron Mitchell David Wayne Fred Clark Alex D'Arcy and William Powell playing the desired millionaires the ladies are pushed to

• A Foreign Affair | DVD | (13/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair was criticised when it was first released for it's humourous take on Nazi war guilt bombed-out Berlin and the post-war European black market. However Wilder has managed to create a very funny take on the bleak outlook of life in Europe after World War II. John Lund and Marlene Dietrich play a couple embarking on an affair and Jean Arthur is the American congresswoman sent to Berlin who while being initailly shocked by the levels of corruption surrounding her soon falls for Lund's charms much to Dietrich's annoyance.

• The Lost Weekend | Blu Ray | (25/06/2012) from £31.98   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  "I'm not a drinker--I'm a drunk." These words, and the serious message behind them, were still potent enough in 1945 to shock audiences flocking to The Lost Weekend. The speaker is Don Birnam (Ray Milland), a handsome, talented, articulate alcoholic. The writing team of producer Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder pull no punches in their depiction of Birnam's massive weekend bender, a tailspin that finds him reeling from his favorite watering hole to Bellevue Hospital. Location shooting in New York helps the street-level atmosphere, especially a sequence in which Birnam, a budding writer, tries to hock his typewriter for booze money. He desperately staggers past shuttered storefronts--it's Yom Kippur, and the pawnshops are closed. Milland, previously known as a lightweight leading man (he'd starred in Wilder's hilarious The Major and the Minor three years earlier), burrows convincingly under the skin of the character, whether waxing poetic about the escape of drinking or screaming his lungs out in the D.T.'s sequence. Wilder, having just made the ultra-noir Double Indemnity, brought a new kind of frankness and darkness to Hollywood's treatment of a social problem. At first the film may have seemed too bold; Paramount Pictures nearly killed the release of the picture after it tested poorly with preview audiences. But once in release, The Lost Weekend became a substantial hit, and won four Oscars: for picture, director, screenplay, and actor. --Robert Horton

• Barbara Stanwyck | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A bumper box set of classic films featuring 'The Queen' Barbara Stanwyck! Double Indemnity (Dir. Billy Wilder 1944): Director Billy Wilder 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 cou

• Sabrina / Funny Face Double Pack | DVD | (22/04/2013) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  SabrinaAudrey Hepburn is the delightful, young, eponymous Sabrina, the daughter of a chauffeur who is hopelessly in love with David Larrabee (William Holden), the playboy younger son in the rich Long Island household her father works for. In order to help her forget her woes, Sabrina is shipped off to cooking school in Paris. While there, she befriends a baron who provides a bit of culture--and the encouragement to snip off her childlike ponytail. Upon her return to New York, Sabrina is transformed into a sophisticated woman, and David is entranced by her. However, his older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) has arranged David's marriage to Elizabeth Tyson in order to seal a business merger and thus must steer David away from Sabrina. To do this, Linus takes on the task of wooing her for himself. Full of great dialogue ("A woman happy in love, she burns the soufflé; a woman unhappy in love, she forgets to turn on the oven") and wonderful performances, this film is a romantic masterpiece. Also enjoyable is the 1995 remake, starring Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford. --Jenny Brown Funny FaceFred Astaire plays a fashion photographer based on real-life cameraman Richard Avedon, in this entertaining musical directed by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story finds Astaire's character turning Audrey Hepburn into a chic Paris model--not a tough premise to buy, especially within this film's air of enchantment and surrounded by a great Gershwin score. Based on an unproduced play, this is one of the best films from the latter part of Astaire's career. --Tom Keogh

• Complete Marilyn Collection | DVD | (03/11/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Collection of classic films and a documentary featuring Marilyn Monroe. Films include: As Young As You Feel Bus Stop Lets Make It Legal Dont Bother To Knock Love Nest Niagra Lets Make Love River Of No Return Theres No Business Like Show Business Were Not Married Monkey Business The Seven Year Itch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes And How To Marry A Millionaire. In 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' (1953) Lorelei Lee (Monroe) and her showgirl partner Dorothy (Jane Russell) are a pair of gold-diggers who go to Paris in search of rich husbands and set their sights on the wealthy male passengers on their transatlantic liner crossing. In the meantime they must fend off unsuitable beaux - including the US Olympic team. In 'How to Marry a Millionaire' (1953) three models (Lauren Bacall Monroe and Betty Grable) rent an expensive New York apartment and set out to catch millionaire husbands. Suitable millionaires prove to be thin on the ground however and all three find that true love wins out after all - especially for Bacall whose choice turns out to have been a millionaire all along. In 'The Seven Year Itch' (1955) happily-married Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) is left in New York City while his wife and child go on summer vacation. His lively imaginings of what a summer of freedom has in store seem to have some validity when a beautiful and sensuous young girl (Monroe) moves into the sublet upstairs. Finally 'Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days' looks back at the life and career of Monroe including her final project 'Something's Got to Give' one of the most talked about unfinished films in history.