"Director: Jean Negulesco"

• Joan Crawford Collection | DVD | (05/10/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Titles Comprise: Mildred Pierce: Joan Crawford delivers a critically acclaimed performance as Mildred Pierce a woman clawing her way to success to provide her daughter with everything she lacks. No sacrifice is too much - ending her middle class marriage climbing to the top of a male-dominated business world and marrying a man she doesn't love - but is murder a step too far? Grand Hotel: Oscar-winning drama with an all-star cast exploring the interwoven relationships of the residents of a plush Berlin hotel... Humoresque: Glamorous socialite Helen Wright (Joan Crawford) takes what she wants clothes alcohol men uses them up and tosses them aside. Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield). But this is one toy she can't break. Instead her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point. In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire Crawford makes Helen a rich layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius. Possessed: She loves him when he goes away for months. She loves him when he refuses to marry her. But when callow David Sutton chooses to marry someone else Louise Howell's love for him takes a darker turn. Give her a gun and she'll love him to death. Joan Crawford reteams with producer Jerry Wald of her Academy Award winning 'Mildred Pierce' and claims a 1947 Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of tempestuous mentally unstable Louise. The Damned Don't Cry: It's a man's world. And Ethel Whitehead learns there's only one way for a woman to survive in it: be as tempting as a cupcake and as tough as a 75-cent steak. In the first of three collaborations with director Vincent Sherman Joan Crawford brings hard-boiled glamour and simmering passion to the role of Ethel who moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion to high society one man at a time. Some of those men love her. Some use her. And one a high-rolling racketeer abuses her. When the racketeer murders his rival in Ethel's swanky living room she flees a sure murder rap right back to the poverty she thought she had escaped. And this time there may not be a man to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

• 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.

• Studio Classic: Classic Encounters | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £16.15   |  Saving you £18.84 (116.66%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Anastasia (Dir. Anatole Litvak 1956): The world will never know if the real Russian princess Anastasia met her death at the hands of red Russian rebels or if she lived on. Based on fact this story is set against the mystery surrounding this elusive puzzle. Ingrid Bergman portrays the destitute woman who remarkably resembles the true Princess Anastasia. She is chosen by two Russian courtiers to masquerade as the princess in order to gain ten million pounds. Meeting scepticism

• Three Came Home | DVD | (19/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The true story of Agnes Newton Keith's imprisonment in several Japanese prisoner-of-war camps from 1941 to the end of WWII. Separated from her husband and with a young son to care for she has many difficulties to face.

• Daddy Long Legs | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £5.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This 1955 Oscar-nominated musical romance features the incomparable Fred Astaire in some of his most stunning dance sequences. Daddy Long Legs is a magical musical following a young French girl (Leslie Caron) through college her education sponsored by a mysterious man with long legs. Millionaire Jervis Pendleton III (Fred Astaire) is from old money and although generous with his wealth he must learn how to give of his emotions. Amid sparkling musical numbers and dream sequences comic relief comes from Fred Clark as Griggs Jervis' assistant and Thelma Ritter as Jervis' secretary.

• Joan Crawford Signature Collection - Mildred Pierce/Grand Hotel/Humoresque/Possessed/The Damned Don't Cry | DVD | (25/06/2007) from £49.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Mildred Pierce:Joan Crawford delivers a critically acclaimed performance as Mildred Pierce a woman clawing her way to success to provide her daughter with everything she lacks. No sacrifice is too much - ending her middle class marriage climbing to the top of a male-dominated business world and marrying a man she doesn't love - but is murder a step too far? Grand Hotel:Oscar-winning drama with an all-star cast exploring the interwoven relationships of the residents of a plush Berlin hotel... Humoresque:Glamorous socialite Helen Wright (Joan Crawford) takes what she wants clothes alcohol men uses them up and tosses them aside. Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield). But this is one toy she can't break. Instead her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point. In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire Crawford makes Helen a rich layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius. Possessed:She loves him when he goes away for months. She loves him when he refuses to marry her. But when callow David Sutton chooses to marry someone else Louise Howell's love for him takes a darker turn. Give her a gun and she'll love him to death. Joan Crawford reteams with producer Jerry Wald of her Academy Award winning 'Mildred Pierce' and claims a 1947 Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of tempestuous mentally unstable Louise. The Damned Don't Cry:It's a man's world. And Ethel Whitehead learns there's only one way for a woman to survive in it: be as tempting as a cupcake and as tough as a 75-cent steak. In the first of three collaborations with director Vincent Sherman Joan Crawford brings hard-boiled glamour and simmering passion to the role of Ethel who moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion to high society one man at a time. Some of those men love her. Some use her. And one a high-rolling racketeer abuses her. When the racketeer murders his rival in Ethel's swanky living room she flees a sure murder rap right back to the poverty she thought she had escaped. And this time there may not be a man to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

• The Joan Crawford Collection (4 Disc Box Set) | DVD | (17/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Humoresque (Dir. Jean Negulesco 1946): Helen Wright a neurotic society woman sets her sights on ambitious young violinist Paul Boray who returns her love but is undeterred from his music. She becomes his patroness helping him to great success but cannot abide being of secondary importance (""second fiddle?"") in his life. Tragedy ensues. Possessed (Dir. Jean Negukesco 1947): A dazed woman walks the streets of Los Angeles looking for a man named David. After collapsing in a diner she's taken to the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. Flashbacks reveal her obsession for David as a result of borderline personality disorder which ultimately leads to murder. The Damned Don't Cry (Dir. Vincent Sherman 1950): The murder of gangster Nick Prenta touches off an investigation of mysterious socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes who seems to have no past and has now disappeared. In flashback we see the woman's anonymous roots; her poor working-class marriage which ends in tragedy and her determination to find ""better things."" Soon finding that sex appeal is her only salable commodity she climbs from man to man toward the center of a nationwide crime syndicate...a very perilous position. Grand Hotel (Dir. Edmund Goulding 1932): Berlin's plushest most expensive hotel is the setting where in the words of Dr. Otternschlag ""People come people go. Nothing ever happens."". The doctor is usually drunk so he missed the fact that Baron von Geigern is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya's pearls. He ends up stealing her heart instead. Powerful German businessman Preysing brow beats Kringelein one of his company's lowly bookkeepers but it is the terminally ill Kringelein who holds all the cards in the end. Meanwhile the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing's mistress Flaemmchen but she doesn't end up with either one of them in the end...

• War | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Jet Li and Jason Statham go head to head in this all action spectacular as an FBI Agent seeks revenge on a mysterious assassin.

• The Ernest Hemingway Collection - A Farewell To Arms/Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man/The Snows Of Kilimanjaro/Under My Skin | DVD | (17/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  Titles Comprise: A Farewell To Arms (Dir. Charles Vidor) (1957): This dense adaption of Ernest Hemingway's novel features Rock Hudson as American soldier Lt. Henry and his ill-fated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Jennifer Jones during World War I. The two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Charles Vidor's direction. Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man (Dir. Martin Ritt) (1962): Nick Adams leaves his rural Michigan home to embark on an eventful cross-country journey. He is touched and affected by his encounters with a punch-drunk ex-boxer a sympathetic telegrapher and an alcoholic advanceman for a burlesque show. After failing to get a job as reporter in New York he enlists in the Italian army during World War I as an ambulance driver. His camaraderie with fellow soldiers and a romance with a nurse he meets after being wounded propel him to manhood. The Snow Of Kilimanjaro (Dir. Henry King) (1952): Based on the Ernest Hemigway novel of the same name Peck plays the part of a wounded hunter who is accompanied by two young women in the African wilds. Each of them tries to analyse his or her past life. Under My Skin (Jean Negulesco) (1950): After expatriate American jockey Danny Arnold double-crosses ruthless gambler Louis Bork he flees Italy with his adoring son Joe who isn't aware of his father's lies and corruption. While in France he begins a relationship with a beautiful French nightclub singer and buys a problematic racehorse that no one seems to be able to train. After Joe suggests that the horse has a future as a jumper Danny converts him to the steeplechase and turns him into a consistent winner. When Bork shows up and tells him he must lose the big race or die Danny must weigh his life against his son's faith that he has become a man of honor.

• The Best Of Marilyn Collection - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes/Seven Year Itch/How To Marry A Millionaire | DVD | (14/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  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 the end of their wits as they try to decide whom to wed.... 'How To Marry A Millionaire' was the first movie to be filmed in CinemaScope but 'The Robe' (1953 directed by Henry Koster) beat it to the cinemas. The Seven Year Itch: Marilyn Monroe proves that no man can resist her - especially a married man - in this sexy romp directed by Billy Wilder and heralded as one of the quintessential comedies of all time! When a seductive starlet (Monroe) 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."" Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and her friend Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) are a pair of showgirls Dorothy the sassy one looking for true love Lorelei the blonde hoping to marry a millionaire with her sights set on Gus Esmond a wealthy nerd stuck under his father's thumb. When Lorelei and Dorothy take a transatlantic cruise to Paris an undercover detective follows to find out if Lorelei is really a gold-digging schemer. Unfortunately the irrepressible Lorelei is a born flirt and soon finds herself in a compromising position with Sir Francis Beekman (Charles Coburn) owner of a diamond mine. The girls have to use all their wits to get out of trouble and still find love and marriage. Thanks to the talents of the luminous stars and director Howard Hawks plus stunning technicolor cinematography 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' emerges as one of the most charming entertaining musicals of the 1950s. Marilyn Monroe never more luminous sings her legendary musical number ""Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"" (which later inspired Madonna's 'Material Girl' video). 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' is based on the hit Broadway musical which was adapted from the book by Anita Loos.

• Three Came Home | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £6.46   |  Saving you £-1.47 (-29.50%)   |  RRP £4.99

  A true story based on the life of author Agnes Newton Keith an American woman caught up in the Japanese invasion of Borneo in 1942. She is separated from her British husband and forced to endure three years of hell being switched from one Japanese prison camp to another.

• War | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Gung Ho!:Marine raiders in a new outfit train for invasion in this gripping World War II action film. The bloodthirsty misfits of the 'Gung Ho' squadron become fierce fighting machines... The Big Lift:It's 1948. It's Berlin and the city is in a state of devastation. Although in the hands of Allied troops the Soviet Union as a member state blockades all Allied sectors in an attempt to take sole control of the fallen German capital. The result is the Berlin Airlift and the story follows the lives of two US Airmen Sgt. Danny MacCullough and Sgt. Hank Kowalski who are there to help the civilians but have very different views of the German people. The arrogant Kowalski cannot forgive them for WWII and will not be dissuaded from holding every German accountable but MacCullough grasps the beleaguered city with both hands and opens his heart to an attractive German widow... in return she opens Danny's eyes to the twilight world of occupied Berlin. Shot on location in bomb blasted Berlin this movie shows some truely harrowing scenes of a post war capital city in ruins. Blood On The Sun:Newspaper editor Nick Condon (James Cagney) is the crusading chief of the Tokyo Chronicle in 1920s Japan. He has his suspicions about Japanese plans for future expansion suspicions that are confirmed when he runs an article accusing Japanese Premier Tanaka (John Emery) and Colonel Tojo (Robert Armstrong) of planning world conquest and gets a visit from the Imperial Police. Then one of his reporters Ollie Miller (Wallace Ford) and his wife Edith (Rosemary DeCamp) are murdered shortly after being entrusted with the Tanaka Memorial a document that proves his theory. Go For Broke:A tribute to the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team formed in 1943 by Presidential permission with Japanese-American volunteers. We follow the training of a platoon under the rueful command of Lt. Mike Grayson who shares common prejudices of the time. The 442nd serve in Italy then France distinguishing themselves in skirmishes and battles; gradually and naturally Grayson's prejudices evaporate with dawning realization that his men are better soldiers than he is. Three Came Home:The true story of one woman's confinement in a World War II Japanese prison camp from the account by Agnes Newton Kieth. She and her British husband were separated when the Japanese invaded Borneo during WWII. Though the camp commander took an interest in her he could not prevent her torture starvation or humiliation by the guards....