Drama

• From The Life Of The Marionettes | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in Munich while Bergman was in self-imposed exile from Sweden, From the Life of the Marionettes is not so much a "whodunit" as a "whydunnit". The film opens with the shockingly violent and senseless murder of a prostitute by Peter, a young, successful businessman. Through a series of non-chronological flashbacks to a time before the crime, we attempt to fathom just what impelled Peter to perpetrate this terrible murder. Along with wife Katarina, the character Peter also featured in Bergman's 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage. Here, as there, we see that they are wedded in the sense of being emotionally chained to each other, yet hating each other for their mutual dependency. There is also a perturbing scene in which they both appear to "get off" when he takes a knife to her throat. His cold and duplicitous psychiatrist glibly ascribes the murder to a repressed homosexuality resulting in a violent outburst, while Katarina's business partner, who is gay, appears to harbour a desire to sabotage the pair's marriage. This film has an airless, fake-lit quality about it, which reflects the conditions of the characters' lives but by the end, leaves you mesmerised and still uncertain as to why what happened has happened. A late but great Bergman work. On the DVD: This edition adequately enhances the stark monochrome in which most of the film is set. Bergman's notes reveal that his depictions of Peter in his psychiatric ward were based on his own behaviour during a recent spell in a similar institution following his arrest for tax evasion. Philip Strick's critical notes observe that the sparing use of colour at the beginning and end of the film signify what may have been the only times in Peter's life when he "experienced reality". --David Stubbs

• Tai Pan | DVD | (08/07/2008) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-9.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In 1839 China was an unknown forbidden land for up to four centuries her shores had remained untouched by the west. This epic dramatisation of James Clavell's famous novel recalls the buccaneering spirit of the early western merchants drawn to the mouth of the great Pearl River by the wealth of silk jade and opium. The story tells of the problems of romance between an ambitious European and a beautiful Chinese girl and the dangerous exploits of the feuding crews off the great sailing ships from Britain...

• Ivul | DVD | (27/09/2010) from £8.70   |  Saving you £12.28 (215.06%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Ivul

• Della (1964) - Joan Crawford | DVD | (10/09/2012) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Joan Crawford plays the daughter of the town's founder, an uncompromising woman who rules her home with an iron fist and exerts her influence over the town she owns so much of. The story finds a young lawyer attempting to get Della to sell a parcel of land to a government contractor who will bring lots of jobs to the town. He's invited to visit her home in the middle of the night and discovers her and her daughter living in a nocturnal world, sleeping during the day and going about their bus...

• Fifteen and Pregnant | DVD | (15/12/2008) from £6.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.14%)   |  RRP £6.99

  At fourteen Tina Spangler's just another happy carefree kid. But by the time she's fifteen a devastating event has changed her life forever. She's pregnant. The choices facing Tina are stark: abortion adoption or a lonely exhausting life as a single parent. Based on a true story.

• Coronation Street - The 1960s | DVD | (31/07/2006) from £75.58   |  Saving you £4.41 (5.83%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Coronation Street was first broadcast in December of 1960 and since then has gone from strength to strength in establishing itself as the nation's favourite soap opera. With a more light-hearted slant on the genre Coronation Street has always drawn viewers from across the generations and its longevity is tribute to it's across the board appeal. Specially selected by Coronation Street's official historian you can now relive the trials tribulations joy and jubil

• Jane Austen Book Club, the | DVD | (15/08/2011) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-0.74 (-12.40%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Six Californians start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen, only to find their relationships -- both old and new -- begin to resemble 21st century versions of her novels.

• Hotel | DVD | (26/07/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Hotel

• Vs. | DVD | (11/02/2019) from £3.77   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A troubled foster teen (Swindells)- is introduced to the no limits world of UK battle-rap, where his aggression and sharp lyricism quickly makes him a controversial fan favourite. But when he doorsteps his biological mother after twelve years in care, he's forced to face his toughest opponent yet: his past. In VS. director, Ed Lilly, creates a dynamic world full of action, humour and roasting. Touching on themes of family, gender and sexuality the film is replete with a series of unpredictable turns that challenges the posturing machismo image of the battle rap scene.

• La Bamba | DVD | (19/03/2001) from £32.98   |  Saving you £-26.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Lou Diamond Phillips leaves a haunting impression in La Bambaas the late 1950s pop idol Ritchie Valens, who made the Latino influence in rock & roll conspicuous through his hit songs. Filmmaker Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit) creates a nimble, exciting, and sympathetic portrait of the boy driven to rise above obstacles of race and family legacy, and Esai Morales is equally fine as Ritchie's envious, searching brother. Great support from Elizabeth Pena and Danielle von Zerneck as Valens's sister and mother, respectively, and Joe Pantoliano is solid as the singer's straight-talking manager. Valdez brightens up the third act with a rock & roll show featuring, among others, Brian Setzer as Eddie Cochrane. Marshall Crenshaw turns up as Buddy Holly getting on that plane with Valens, and Los Lobos (who actually performs Valens's music on the soundtrack) has a nifty cameo as a Tijuana band that gives Valens a piece of crucial inspiration. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• School Hitchhikers | DVD | (28/09/2009) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-2.01 (-11.20%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Swastika

• I Know You Know | DVD | (24/05/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Trainspotting) is Charlie, a highly charged individual on the edge.

• Bigga Then Ben | DVD | (22/06/2009) from £6.46   |  Saving you £9.53 (59.60%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the best selling diaries by two self confessed pieces of Moscow scum who produced their own rough guide to London. This dark comedy is the tale of two likeable but wayward young Russian immigrants who come to London to amass an easy fortune. But it's not too long before Spiker (Ben Barnes) and Cobakka (Andrei Chadov) realise that legally they are not going to get very far. So aided by the dodgy Artash they learn to shoplift rip off banks joyride on the tube and turn mobile phones in to crack. Finding themselves drawn into the shadowy underworld life begins to turn sour and the highs begin to fade. When Spiker begins to fall prey to the easy drugs Cobakka is forced to making some life-changing decisions.

• Les Espions | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £16.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (17.66%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Clouzot's most ambitious movie remains one of his most modern with an elaborate screenplay giving his grand European cast a full chance to shine in this tale of a doctor who takes on a Faustian pact in order to save his failing practice...

• Coronation Street - 1979 | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Coronation Street was first broadcast in December of 1960 and since then has gone from strength to strength in establishing itself as the nation's favourite soap opera. With a more light hearted slant on the genre Coronation Street has always drawn viewers from across the generations and its longevity is tribute to it's across the board appeal. On this DVD we take a look back to 1979 and eight classic episodes from that year.

• Fascination | DVD | (12/01/2015) from £7.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The closest British film ever got to having its own Garbo, Madeleine Carroll continues to fascinate viewers nearly ninety years after her cinematic debut. Lazy journalism has reinforced and perpetuated the cinematic myth that she was purely a Hitchcock creation (springing fully formed into the limelight courtesy of smash-hit drama The 39 Steps), but nothing is further from the truth. By the time she worked with Hitchcock, Carroll had been successfully acting in films for seven years, her early body of work coinciding with an incredibly exciting period in film history the transition from silent film to sound. Though she had notable successes both in Britain (Atlantic, The Dictator) and Hollywood (The General Died at Dawn, The Prisoner of Zenda), her idiosyncratic entry into films (via a beauty competition), peripatetic body of work and all-but-abandonment of her career following her sister's death during the Blitz have ensured that her career is reduced time and again to just a namecheck for The 39 Steps, which while certainly a worthy epitaph is a disservice nonetheless. By 1931, Carroll had successfully made the transition from support player to lead actor, and her role in Fascination as Gwenda Farrell a jaded actress on the rebound is arguably one of her best. Ostensibly the bad girl in a tale of marital infidelity, her warm, vulnerable performance especially so in her scenes with Dorothy Bartlam (as good girl Vera) shows just how good she could be with the right material. A significant degree of the credit for this successful character interplay can be laid at the door of director Miles Mander. Acting in British films since 1920, within a decade Mander had expanded his activities and had become an accomplished playwright, scriptwriter, dialogue polisher and director. He had scored a major hit in 1928, writing, directing and starring in The First Born based on his own play and starring opposite Madeleine Carroll. He followed this up with an adaptation of another of his plays The Woman Between, trade-shown in January 1931 and then went straight into Fascination, which was shot at BIP's Elstree studios for Regina Films and trade-shown a few months later, in July 1931. Mander's obvious skill is in coaxing appealing performances out of all his actors from the three leads, through supporting actors (special mention for Kay Hammond as Gwenda's airhead girlfriend) and even down to the walk-ons the grievously disappointed drunken toff, for instance, is a classic bit of comedy business. Unfortunately, Mander directed only three more films before concentrating wholly on acting, carving out a lucrative niche during his final working years as an in-demand character actor. From a technical point of view the film is rough around the edges, but there's a noticeable Warhol/Factory-style energy inherent in both the direction and performances which carries things through. Its script (courtesy of BIP stalwart Victor Kendall) tries gamely to transcend its theatrical origins, creating a film which gives a good kicking to the cherished prejudice that all pre-war British films are either low-rent quota fodder or high-minded, middle-class frippery. It also presents a final act so devastatingly modern in its interpersonal relationships that it beggars belief that this film is actually just over fifteen years shy of celebrating its centenary. Despite going on general release across the country, only one copy of Fascination is known to exist a 35mm print held at the bfi in its original nitrate format. Being an original exhibition print, continuous cinema projection during its theatrical run has resulted in missing frames, tears and general film damage throughout. The soundtrack is in a similar condition and, though restored as much as possible, subtitles have been created specifically for this DVD release as an aid to the viewing experience. Transferred in 2014 courtesy of a grant from the bfi's Unlocking Film Heritage fund, Fascination is one of those joyous (re)discoveries which definitively fills a gap in our knowledge of early British talkies whilst opening our eyes to how daring such films could be in the right hands. Despite its technical shortcomings, this is a film worth watching. Directed by multi-talented writer, director and actor Miles Mander, Fascination stars a luminous Madeleine Carroll heading up a strong cast in this light-hearted, emotionally engaging drama from the early 1930s. Childhood sweethearts Vera and Larry Maitland have been happily married for several years. When Larry encounters vampish actress Gwenda Farrell, however, he lets himself be led astray... and when Vera finds out the truth, her solution is a novel one! Fascination is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the only remaining copy of the film known to exist - a nitrate print. Though it has gone through a restoration process viewers will notice a drop in quality compared to other films in this range.

• Magic | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Abracadabra I sit on his knee. Presto change-o and now he's me! Hocus Pocus we take her to bed. Magic is fun...we're dead. Anthony Hopkins is Corky a painfully shy failed magician who finds overnight success as a ventriloquist. His brash foul-mouthed dummy Fats becomes a huge nightclub hit. With his star on the rise talent agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith) arranges an important shot at national TV. But the pressure of failing the network's required physical sends Corky into a panic. With Fats in tow he flees the city to a nearly-deserted resort in the Catskills run by the love of his youth Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret). Peg's spent years trapped in a loveless marriage with her high-school sweetheart Duke (Ed Lauter). In Corky she sees the chance for a loving relationship and accepts an offer to run away with him. However when Corky confides to Fats that he may leave show business altogether Fats becomes furious and lashes out at him playing on his guilt and insecurity. Now under Fats' control Corky is manipulated into a series of violent and unexpected confrontations. Based on the novel by William Goldman writer of the Marathon Man and Butch Cssidy And The Sundance Kid novels and screenplays who had previously collaborated with Richard Attenborough in supplying the script for epic war film A Bridge Too Far.

• Patience (After Sebald) | DVD | (23/04/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The work of cult writer W. G. Sebald has been brought to the big screen for the first time by Grammy-nominated filmmaker, Grant Gee. Gee 's previous work includes the Radiohead documentary Meeting People is Easy which followed the band on tour for their third album, OK Computer, as well as music videos for Gorillaz, Nick Cave, Suede and The Kills. In 1993 he made Joy Division. Patience is a haunting, hypnotic richly textured essay film on landscape, art, history, life and loss. Taking a walk through East Anglia, Patience tracks Sebald's most influential book THE RINGS OF SATURN and has contributions from major writers, artists and film-makers including Sir Andrew Motion and Tacita Dean.

• Midsomer Murders - Death in A Chocolate Box | DVD | (09/06/2008) from £6.54   |  Saving you £10.45 (61.50%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Nothing is as it seems behind the well-trimmed hedges of the picturesque cottages in the idyllic English county of Midsomer. Beneath the tranquil surface of sleepy village life exist dark secrets scandals and downright evil. John Nettles stars as the humorous thoughtful and methodical Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby. Attending a farewell presentation for ex-criminal Ronnie Tyler in Midsomer Holm a safe haven for reformed offenders Barnaby encounters ex-colleague Jack Colby. Jack and his wife Professor Gina Colby live with Lord Holm at Holm Manor. Gina is feted for her work reforming criminals and Jack is now the administrator of the halfway house. The following morning Jack's body is discovered bludgeoned to death. With Jones's help Barnaby has to go back 16 years to solve this mystery.

• Sixty Glorious Years | DVD | (03/01/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Alongside Victoria The Great the film to which this is the sequel Sixty Glorious Years is a fine early example of the kind of lavish sweeping romance on which Anna Neagle built her career. Although it was the years during and after the war in which she truly sealed her position as the brightest star of the day her magisterial performance as a monarch who was in 1938 still very much part of collective living memory drew great acclaim and undoubtedly paved the way for successes to come.