"Director: Richard Brooks"

• The Professionals | Blu Ray | (23/06/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Four soldiers of fortune are hired by a wealthy Texan oil baron to rescue his kidnapped wife (Cardinale) who's been spirited across the Mexican border by a band of mercenaries led by Jesus Raza (Palance). The four rugged professionals each regarded as a specialist in his selected field - an expert marksman and tracker (Strode) the explosives master (Lancaster) horse handler (Ryan) and one skilled in tactics and weaponry (Marvin) - make their way across the treacherous landscape to retrieve the beautiful kidappee but discover all is not what it seems...

• Cat On A Hot Tin Roof | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof offers a smouldering, angry Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, the feline in question. Paul Newman is her ex-athlete husband, Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic who frustrates and disappoints his wife and his overbearing father, Burl Ives, the vulgar patriarch of this positively Gothic Southern family whose children return to the nest like vultures when they learn he is dying of cancer. Infidelities, addictions, latent homosexuality, depression, unrequited love and mendacity are woven into this powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Though it was somewhat whitewashed by Hollywood, the sentiment remains powerful due to the provocative performances. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor and Actress for Newman and Taylor. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• In Cold Blood | DVD | (14/01/2008) from £11.03   |  Saving you £-1.04 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In Cold Blood is Richard Brooks' stylish and powerful 1967 drama adapted from Truman Capote's novel about a shocking real-life murder case. This daring cinematic portrait employs flashbacks to fully examine what drives an individual to commit thoughtless and brutal crimes while using a highly innovative jazz score by Quincy Jones to capture the moody atmosphere. A prosperous and respected Kansas farmer his wife and his two teenage children are wantonly and brutally slaughtered. The murderers are two mindless ex-convict drifters. Neither man is sane enough to regret their crime. The story penetrates the inner workings of the criminals' minds as it follows their purposeless meandering through Mexico and the United States in evasion of the law...

• The Professionals | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £19.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Director Richard Brooks' marvellous ode to friendship, loyalty and disillusionment The Professionals may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of Sam Peckinpah's more famous The Wild Bunch, but Brooks' storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is that Brooks is a lot more optimistic. Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster are buddies who have drifted into oblivion after fighting together in the Mexican Revolution. Marvin, the principled loyalist and munitions expert, lost his wife and his heart. Lancaster, the dynamite expert and unprincipled adventurer, keeps losing his pants. They team up with wrangler Robert Ryan and archer Woody Strode to rescue the beguiling Claudia Cardinale, who has been kidnapped by their old revolutionary buddie Jack Palance. So it's back into bloody Mexico they go on a "mission of mercy" for railroad tycoon Ralph Bellamy, who's paying handsomely for the return of his wife. But nothing is what it seems in this exciting, existential adventure, which was beautifully shot by Conrad Hall. Sarcastic quips, philosophical musings and heart-rending reversals underlie Brooks' humanistic sentiments. These are tired, world-weary men who somehow find the strength and the will to pull together for the sake of love and commitment. Through it all, Brooks seems to be lamenting a decline in professionalism much deeper than his story. He's decrying Hollywood and the society at large, anticipating Peckinpah's later strategy. --Bill Desowitz

• The Great Epics | DVD | (17/10/2016) from £38.99   |  Saving you £-16.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Elmer Gantry | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £15.29   |  Saving you £-2.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Brothers and sisters, can we get a witness for Elmer Gantry, a woeful tale of saints and sinners? Burt Lancaster earned his only Oscar as the wide-smiling, glad-handing, soul-saving charlatan Gantry, a salesman who turns his gift for preaching into a career at the pulpit. Climbing on board the barnstorming evangelical tour of revivalist Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), Gantry declaims, invokes, and sermonises his way to the top, until a former flame-turned-prostitute (Shirley Jones in an Oscar-winning performance) threatens to reveal his dark past as a womaniser and con man. Lancaster harnesses all his physical vigour and natural charisma for this role, literally throwing himself into his preaching with the suppleness of an acrobat and the sing-song delivery of a gospel singer--he even brays like a hound to show the Holy Spirit within him. Gantry is a showman, pure and simple, and while he doesn't fool true-believer Sister Sharon, he gives her a few object lessons in playing the crowd. Director Richard Brooks, who also took home an Oscar for his screenplay (adapted from the Sinclair Lewis novel), creates a rousing drama both on and off the pulpit, and provides fine roles for an excellent supporting cast, including Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, John McIntire, and singer Patti Page. --Sean Axmaker

• In Cold Blood (1967) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (04/04/2022) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Truman Capote's best seller, a breakthrough narrative account of real-life crime and punishment, became an equally chilling film in the hands of writer-director RICHARD BROOKS (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Cast for their unsettling resemblances to the killers they play, ROBERT BLAKE (Lost Highway) and SCOTT WILSON (The Great Gatsby) give authentic, unshowy performances as Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who in 1959 murdered a family of four in Kansas during a botched robbery. Brooks brings a detached, documentary-like starkness to this uncompromising view of an American tragedy and its aftermath; at the same time, stylistically In Cold Blood is a filmmaking master class, with clinically precise editing, chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography by the great CONRAD L. HALL (American Beauty), and a menacing jazz score by Quincy Jones. Special Features New 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New interview with cinematographer John Bailey on the film's cinematography New interview with film historian Bobbie O'Steen on the film's editing New interview with film critic and jazz historian Gary Giddins on the film's music by Quincy Jones New interview with writer Douglass Daniel on director Richard Brooks Interview with Brooks from 1988 from the French television series Cinéma cinemas Interview with actor Robert Blake from 1968 from the British television series Good Evening with Jonathan King With Love from Truman, a short 1966 documentary featuring novelist Truman Capote, directed by Albert and David Maysles Two archival NBC interviews with Capote: one following the author on a 1966 visit to Holcomb, Kansas, and the other conducted by Barbara Walters in 1967 Trailer PLUS: An essay by critic Chris Fujiwara

• Lord Jim | DVD | (27/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Three years after Lawrence of Arabia, the largely impressive Lord Jim (1965) finds Peter O'Toole again essaying a self-doubting but remarkable, white Englishman who leads a foreign people against their oppressor. Based on the Joseph Conrad novel, Lord Jim is the story of a British maritime officer, Jim (O'Toole), who takes a brief post on a tramp steamer and flees in terror during a storm at sea. Dogged by a reputation for cowardice, Jim attempts to reinvent himself in his own eyes, commanding an attack against a feudal warlord (Eli Wallach) in a distant, Southeast Asian village and basking in god-like glory afterward. A sinister plot by a gentleman pirate (James Mason) sets the stage for Jim's confrontation with his true destiny. Simplified and adapted by writer-director Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood), Lord Jim sometimes feels rushed and obvious, but O'Toole's golden performance and legendary cinematographer Freddie Young's 70mm footage are outstanding. --Tom Keogh

• In Cold Blood | DVD | (15/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Richard Brooks's In Cold Blood is a faithful 1967 screen adaptation of Truman Capote's extraordinary non-fiction book about the course of two killers in this world--their lives, their senseless slaughter of an entire family, and their executions. Robert Blake and Scott Wilson are remarkable as the murderers, but what has kept this film special over the decades is Brooks's blunt, clearheaded, and non-sensational approach to the story. (The term "semi-documentary" has been applied to Brooks's style on this film, and it's an entirely fair description.) The experience of watching In Cold Blood is naturally unsettling, but the director--as with Capote--leaves final judgments about justice to the beholder. --Tom Keogh

• Bite The Bullet | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1908 Arizona a newspaper organises an endurance horse race. The course is 700 miles long and there are few days to complete it. Nine different adventurous entrants have their own reasons for winning but some could be destined never to see the finish line...

• Capote / In Cold Blood (Box Set) | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Capote (Dir. Bennett Miller ): In November 1959 the shocking murder of a smalltown Kansas family captures the imagination of Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) famed author of Breakfast at Tiffany's. With his childhood friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) writer of the soon-to-be published To Kill a Mockingbird Capote sets out to investigate winning over the locals despite his flamboyant appearance and style. When he forms a bond with the killers and their execution date nears the writing of In Cold Blood a book that will change the course of American Literature takes a drastic toll on Capote changing him in ways he never imagined. In Cold Blood (Dir. Richard Brooks 1967): Richard Brooks' stylish and powerful 1967 drama adapted from Truman Capote's novel about a shocking real-life murder case. This daring cinematic portrait employs flashbacks to fully examine what drives an individual to commit thoughtless and brutal crimes while using a highly innovative jazz score by Quincy Jones to capture the moody atmosphere. A prosperous and respected Kansas farmer his wife and his two teenage children are wantonly and brutally slaughtered. The murderers are two mindless ex-convict drifters. Neither man is sane enough to regret their crime. The story penetrates the inner workings of the criminals' minds as it follows their purposeless meandering through Mexico and the United States in evasion of the law...

• The Last Time I Saw Paris | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £4.67   |  Saving you £-0.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  This tragic love story is brought to life with vitality and verve in this no expense spared lavish production. Van Johnson stars as a G.I. with literary ambitions who relocates to Paris after World War 2 and meets a wealthy American girl. They fall in love and settle down as he attempts to write his first novel. His work is not well received and he hits the bottle. The story follows Johnson to America and then back to Paris as the tragic tale of these two star-crossed lovers unfolds. Elizabeth Taylor was never more beautiful and both she and Van Johnson turn in superb performances.

• The Last Time I Saw Paris | DVD | (07/04/2008) from £7.09   |  Saving you £-1.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic story Babylon Revisited this epic romance is a captivating blend of Parisian expatriate high society and the struggles of post World War II Europe. When American war reporter Charles Wills (Van Johnson) meets the restless and fun-loving Helen Ellswirth (Elizabeth Taylor) they immediately fall in love. They spend their time staying out all night gambling and living life in the glory of the Parisian artistic Left Bank society. Eventually they get married and have a family but life becomes more difficult as they try to continue on their free-spirited and reckless adventure.

• Classic Cuts Collection - Modern Epics | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Guns Of Navarone (Dir. J. Lee Thompson): One of the most exciting action films ever made! It's W.W. II and concealed deep within the solid rock of a cliff impregnable to assault by sea or air are the German Army's mighty guns of Navarone. Because they control a strategic channel in the Aegean Sea it's imperative that the guns are destroyed. A specialised commando team is assembled. Included are mountaineer Keith Mallory explosive expert Corporal Miller Greek resistance fighter Andrea Stravos and British Major Franklin. Led by Mallory the team's goal is to reach Navarone and sabotage the colossal guns. The tense down-to-the-wire ending is spellbinding. The Man Who Would Be King (Dir. John Huston): Two soldiers of fortune in 19th Century India carry out a plan to become rulers in the small isolated land of Kafiristan. The Bridge On The River Kwai (Dir. David Lean): Set in Burma during World War II the story tells of British P.O.Ws who are forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese while a British Commando team is sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards. Lord Jim (Dir. Richard Brooks): Peter O'Toole stars in Joseph Conrad's compelling tale of an idealistic Marine officer betrayed by his own overactive imagination. Based on Joseph Conrad's classic novel Jim serves an apprenticeship on a tramp liner and graduates to first officer on a ship which is mercilessly lashed by a hurricane. In a moment of desperation the idealistic Jim abandons the ship and leaves its passengers to their fate. To redeem himself he agrees to take a shipment of dynamite and deliver it to a tribe who are located in uncharted territory.

• Wrong Is Right | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (48.20%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Political double-talk dirty tricks hidden microphones spy satellites bugging the Oval Office and a nuclear bomb for sale are all ingredients in this swift funny and frightening look at the possibilities in today's political arenas. Globe-trotting ace TV news reporter Partick Hale (Connery) is on the trail of a terrorist offering the sale of a nuclear bomb to a Mid-East oil country. Hale juggles Arab sheiks and international intelligence agents to get at the story. Meanwhile

• The Last Time I Saw Paris | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £8.20   |  Saving you £-1.22 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

• The Last Time I Saw Paris | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £5.38   |  Saving you £-3.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story this romantic epic stars Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson as two strangers who meet fall in love and marry in post-war Paris. Taylor represents the Ellswirth family: eccentric and free spending but seemingly always on the brink of bankruptcy. When she is unable to change her ways when married life becomes more difficult...

• Classic Cuts Collection - Westerns | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Professionals (Dir. Richard Brooks): Four soldiers of fortune are hired by a wealthy Texan oil baron to rescue his kidnapped wife (Cardinale) who's been spirited across the Mexican border by a band of mercenaries led by Jesus Raza (Palance). The four rugged professionals each regarded as a specialist in his selected field - an expert marksman and tracker (Strode) the explosives master (Lancaster) horse handler (Ryan) and one skilled in tactics and weaponry (Marvin) - make their way across the treacherous landscape to retrieve the beautiful kidappee but discover all is not what it seems... High Plains Drifter (Dir. Clint Eastwood): Eastwood portrays a mysterious stranger who emerges out of the heat waves of the desert and rides into the guilt-ridden town of Lago. After committing three murders and one rape in the first 20 minutes The Stranger is hired by the town to protect it from three gunmen just out of jail. The Stranger then paints the entire town bright red renames it ""Hell "" and supplies Divine retribution in a fiery climax. Tall In The Saddle (Dir. Edwin L. Marin): 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... Shenandoah (Dir. Andrew V. McLaglen): James Stewart stars as a Virginia farmer during the Civil War. He refuses to support the Confederacy because he is opposed to slavery yet he will not support the Union because he is deeply opposedito war. When his son is taken prisoner Stewart goes to search for the boy. Seeing first-hand the horrors of war he is at last forced to take his stand...

• Love Actually/Definitely, Maybe/Bridget Jones's Diary | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £22.96   |  Saving you £5.02 (25.14%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Love Actually: From the new bachelor Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) instantly falling in love with a refreshingly real member of the staff (Martine McCutcheon) moments after entering 10 Downing Street... To a writer (Colin Firth) escaping to the south of France to nurse his re-broken heart who finds love in a lake... From a comfortably married woman (Emma Thompson) suspecting that her husband (Alan Rickman) is slipping away... To a new bride (Keira Knightley) mistaking the distance of her husband's best friend for something it's not... From a schoolboy seeking to win the attention of the most unattainable girl in school... To a widowed stepfather (Liam Neeson) trying to connect with a son he suddenly barely knows... From a lovelorn junior manager (Laura Linney) seizing a chance with her long-tended unspoken office crush... To an ageing seen it all remember very little of it rock star (Bill Nighy) jonesing for an end-of-career comeback in his own uncompromising way... Love the equal-opportunity mischief-maker is causing chaos for all. These London lives and loves collide mingle and climax on Christmas Eve-again and again and again-with romantic hilarious and bittersweet consequences for anyone lucky (or unlucky) enough to be under love's spell. Definitely Maybe: Definitely Maybe features Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes a 30-something Manhattan dad in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year-old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love. Will's story begins in 1992 as a young starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the Clinton campaign. For Maya Will relives his past as an idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. Will hopelessly attempts a PG version of his story for his daughter and changes the names so Maya has to guess who is the woman her father finally married. Is her mother Will's college sweetheart the dependable girl next-door Emily (Elizabeth Banks)? Is she his longtime best friend and confidante the apolitical April (Isla Fisher)? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz)? As Maya puts together the pieces of her dad's romantic puzzle she begins to understand that love is not so simple or easy. And as Will tells her his tale Maya helps him to understand that it's definitely never too late to go back...and maybe even possible to find a happy ending. Bridget Jones's Diary: In the screen adaptation of 'Bridget Jones Diary' Helen Fielding's international best-selling phenomenon documentary filmmaker Sharon Maguire has managed a rare feat: a film as captivating as the novel! Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is a pretty and neurotic thirtysomething singleton (in her vernacular) who vows to take control of her life after being humiliated by handsome standoffish barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) at her parents' New Year's party. Determined to lose weight and cut back on vices like wine cigarettes and workaholic-alcoholic-misogynistic men Bridget begins a diary to chart her progress. Unfortunately the P.R. executive hits a snag when her boss gorgeous cad Daniel (Hugh Grant) instigates a sexy e-mail flirtation. Despite her tendency to bungle book launch parties and any situation involving the ever-disapproving Mark Darcy Bridget's winning combination of charm vulnerability and wit intrigues not only the seductively dangerous Daniel but also the arrogant barrister. Featuring a note-perfect performance by Zellweger a devilish one by

• Force Within | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £1.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (201.01%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Nick Larsen a degenerate yet oddly sensual criminal combines a love of the spiritual aspects of kung fu with a delight in murder mayhem and a kinky sex life!