"Actor: Burt R"

• Rollerball | DVD | (24/04/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the year 2018, violence and crime have been totally eliminated from society and given outlet in the brutal blood sport of rollerball, a high-velocity blend of football, hockey, and motor-cross racing sponsored by the multinational corporations that now control the world following the collapse of traditional politics. James Caan plays Jonathan ., the reigning superstar of rollerball, whose corporate controllers fear that Jonathan's popularity has endowed him with too much power. They begin to pressure him according to their own ruthless set of rules, but Jonathan has rules of his own--ones for a man determined to retain his soul in a world gone mad. As directed by Norman Jewison (who was enjoying a peak of success during the early and mid-1970s), Rollerball creates a believable society that's been rendered passive and compliant by the homogenisation of corporate dictatorships, where the control and flow of information is the only currency of any importance. It's a world in which natural human aggressions have been sublimated and vented through the religious fervour toward rollerball and its players. Rollerball now looks like one of those 1970s science fiction films (another example being Logan's Run) that seems a bit dated and quaint, but its ideas are still provocative and fascinating, and the production is visually impressive. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• The Longest Yard | Blu Ray | (16/05/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Vera Cruz | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £6.40   |  Saving you £6.59 (102.97%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Vera Cruz was only director Robert Aldrich's second Western (his first, made a few months earlier, was the revisionist, pro-Native-American Apache), but it's such an assured, stylish affair that he might have been roaming the sagebrush for decades. In the aftermath of the American Civil War two lone adventurers make their way south of the border, where Mexico is fighting a civil war of its own to rid the country of the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian. Neither the dour Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) nor the grinning, devil-may-care Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) has much in the way of idealism, but Trane still retains a thin bitter edge of integrity, a quality quite alien to the cheerfully amoral Erin. In uneasy alliance, constantly looking to outwit or double-cross each other, the two find themselves escorting a beautiful French countess (Denise Darcel) and a shipment of gold across country. Cooper and Lancaster create a superb double-act, using their contrasted screen personas to point up the humour and the cynicism of the two mercenaries' relationship. Darcel makes less than she might of the femme fatale role, but there are relishable cameos from Cesar Romero as a suavely duplicitous aristo and Ernest Borgnine as another gringo with an exceptionally vicious streak. The script, according to Aldrich, was written on the run, "always finished about five minutes before we shot it", but you wouldn't guess it from the laconic wit of the dialogue. It looks great, too--Ernest Laszlo's widescreen photography makes the most of the handsome Mexican locations. With its irreverent take on the accepted moral conventions of the genre, Vera Cruz ushered in a new kind of Western, and its central love-hate relationship would be replayed in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). On the DVD: Not much in the way of extras but the mono sound has been expertly remastered to the benefit of Hugo Friedhofer's spirited score. Above all, the film's presented in its full Superscope ratio (16:9), a blessed relief after all those years when it showed up panned-and-scanned on BBC1. If ever a movie needed widescreen, it's this one--if only to fit in all Burt's teeth. You can see why they called him "Crockery Joe". --Philip Kemp

• Batman - The Movie | Blu Ray | (14/07/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.98

  Holy blu-ray bonanza Batman! This super special edition includes hours of thrill-packed extras that take you behind the scenes and let you explore the dynamic duo's background as never before. The fate of the world hangs in the balance when Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) face off against four of the most powerful villains of all time - Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) The Joker (Cesar Romero) and The Riddler (Frank Gorshin)!

• Smokey and the Bandit | Blu Ray | (17/04/2019) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

• Scorpio | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £15.36   |  Saving you £-2.37 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Though not quite a classic, director Michael Winner's Scorpio is still an underrated espionage thriller that was well attuned to the political cynicism of its time. Burt Lancaster plays Cross, a CIA operative who dates back to the agency's earliest days as the OSS. Scorpio (Alain Delon) is a protégé of Cross, and one of Cross's best friends in a netherworld where everyone's allegiances, personal and political, are in question. Higher-ups within the intelligence agency decide that Cross knows too much and is better off eliminated; at first, Scorpio refuses the job until the CIA frames him on a phoney narcotics bust and coerces him into the assignment. The two men play a game of global cat-and-mouse as Cross consorts with his Russian counterparts--fellow ageing dinosaurs in a young man's game. Cross's links with the Russians go back to the days of the Spanish Civil War and the time when Cross was given the ironic label of "premature anti-Fascist" by the House Unamerican Activities Committee. The incredibly convoluted plot is rife with double-crosses and reverse double-crosses, in an environment in which nothing is quite as it seems and no one is to be trusted. Winner infuses enough energy and excitement into the film's many action segments to make Scorpio worthy of comparison to John Frankenheimer's best political thrillers. The director also throws in several curveballs, such as the zither music during a meeting in a Vienna café (shades of The Third Man) and the preposterous device of disguising Lancaster as an African-American priest. The best line must be "I want Cross, and I want him burned!" --Jerry Renshaw

• Vengeance Valley | DVD | (04/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  An unusual adult Western for its time Vengeance Valley (1951) gave Burt Lancaster his first Western role. His athletic prowess made him perfect for the genre and he'd go on to make Gunfight At O.K. Corral Apache and The Unforgiven among others. Vengeance Valley emphasises character development and the solid cast meets the challenge. Robert Walker plays Burt's foster brother. Joanne Dru John Ireland Ted de Corsia Hugh O'Brien and Glenn Strange lend support. One of the real stars of the picture is the gorgeous three-strip Technicolor photography by George J.Folsey. The West has rarely looked more colorful.

• Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie | DVD | (19/03/2007) from £7.30   |  Saving you £7.69 (105.34%)   |  RRP £14.99

  One Man. One Masterpiece. One Very Big Mistake. When the Royal National Gallery of London is asked to send their finest scholar to oversee the unveiling of Whistler's Mother in California they send their most inept and detested employee in a desperate attempt to get him out of their lives. That employee is Mr. Bean - the master of disaster! Within days of his arrival Mr. Bean destroys virtually everything he comes into contact with be it the career and marriage of his ho

• The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas | DVD | (24/12/2001) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This is an energetic, but ultimately mediocre adaptation of the play, directed on Broadway by Tommy Tune. Burt Reynolds is the town sheriff and a regular patron of a local bordello. He wages a public battle to keep it open after it is targeted as the devil's den by a television minister. Charles Durning won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and there are some lively song and dance numbers featuring Dolly Parton as the madam of the Chicken Ranch. However, this becomes bogged down in too many serious moments for it to be more than a lightweight musical comedy. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• Smokey And The Bandit 2 / Smokey And The Bandit 3 | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Smokey And The Bandit 2: It's another race against time for Burt Sally and Jackie! This time the Bandit is hired to transport a pregnant elephant from Miami to the Republican Party convention in Dallas. But old rival sheriff Buford T. Justice will do whatever he must to prevent Bandit from getting that $400 000 fee. And this time Buford T. has some relatives to help him in his search his brothers Reginald and Gaylord -- all played to the hilt by the incomparable Jacki

• Convoy | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the country song by C.W. McCall Convoy is a feel-good action movie from the legendary Sam Peckinpah. A group of independent-minded truckers take to the roads in a massive stand against the corrupt authorities. Led by 'Rubber Duck' (Kris Kristofferson) the rogue drivers keep in touch by CB radio in their efforts to stay one step ahead of the cops...

• Best Little Whorehouse in Texas | Blu Ray | (11/07/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This is an energetic, but ultimately mediocre adaptation of the play, directed on Broadway by Tommy Tune. Burt Reynolds is the town sheriff and a regular patron of a local bordello. He wages a public battle to keep it open after it is targeted as the devil's den by a television minister. Charles Durning won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and there are some lively song and dance numbers featuring Dolly Parton as the madam of the Chicken Ranch. However, this becomes bogged down in too many serious moments for it to be more than a lightweight musical comedy. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• Rocky Balboa | Blu Ray | (21/05/2007) from £9.96   |  Saving you £15.03 (150.90%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The greatest underdog story of our time is back for one final round of the Academy Award-winning franchise.

• Zulu Dawn | DVD | (05/01/2004) from £12.80   |  Saving you £1.19 (9.30%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Cy Endfield cowrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives--the British contingent was outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another and this is wryly illustrated in a moment when neither he nor his officers can be bothered to pronounce the name of the land they're in. That it's a beautiful land none the less is made clear by the superb cinematography, which drinks in the massive open spaces that shrink the British army to a line of red ants. Splendidly stiff-upper-lipped support comes from a heroic Burt Lancaster and a fluffy, yet gruff, Bob Hoskins. Although the story is less focused and inevitably more diffuse than the concentrated events of Rorke's Drift that followed soon after, Zulu Dawn is an unflinchingly honest depiction of British Imperial diplomacy. --Paul Tonks

• The Pink Panther Film Collection | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection stars everyones favourite cool cat in 124 original theatrical Pink Panther cartoons from the 1960s and 1970s. 1964-1969 MIRISCH GEOFFREY O.F. THE PINK PANTHER and the Pink Panther Figure are trademarks of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £6.05   |  Saving you £9.94 (164.30%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A collection of vignettes, loosely based on the book by Dr. David Rueben, written and directed by Woody Allen, Everything contains some very funny moments. It's easy to forget that the cerebral Allen excelled at the type of broad, Catskill, dirty jokes and visual gags that run amok here. It's also remarkable how dirty this 1972 movie really was--bestiality, exposure, perversion and S&M get their moments to shine. The Woody Allen here, who appears in many of the sketches, is a portent of the seedy old Allen of Deconstructing Harry. Although the final bit, which takes place inside a man's body during a very hot date, is hilarious, most of Everything feels like the screen adaptation of a 70's bathroom joke book. Still, a must for Allen fans. --Keith Simanton

• Mystery Alaska | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £13.70   |  Saving you £1.29 (9.42%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Mystery, Alaska -- In this little town on the outskirts of greatness, completely isolated by glaciers and vast, snowy mountains, there are only two things to do when the temperature drops below zero

• The Killers | DVD | (12/02/2007) from £18.99   |  Saving you £-9.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Two professional killers invade a small town and kill a gas station attendant ""the Swede "" who's expecting them. Insurance investigator Reardon pursues the case against the orders of his boss who considers it trivial. Weaving together threads of the Swede's life Reardon uncovers a complex tale of treachery and crime all linked with gorgeous mysterious Kitty Collins.

• Brute Force | Blu Ray | (15/09/2014) from £19.21   |  Saving you £0.78 (4.06%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Nobody Really Escapes. Before making the French crime classic Rififi Jules Dassin was arguably the greatest of film noir directors responsible for a string of gems including The Naked City Thieves' Highway and Night and the City. Brute Force kickstarted that run of pictures and never did a film live up to its name more. Burt Lancaster is Joe Collins one of a number of convicts squeezed into cell R17 intent on staging a prison break. Not only does he need to return to the side of his cancer-ridden wife (Ann Blyth) he also wants to escape the clutches of sadistic warden Captain Munsey (an unforgettable performance from Hume Cronyn) who enjoys a reign of terror over the inmates. Beautifully shot by the great William H. Daniels tautly written by Richard Brooks (Blackboard Jungle In Cold Blood) and impeccably acted by its ensemble of noir familiars Brute Force remains a prison movie classic. Special Features: High definition digital transfer Newly created and exclusive content Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed! Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more!

• Before Women Had Wings | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Bird' Jackson is a young girl whose life with her parents is painful and frightening. She turns to her reclusive neighbour Miss Zora played by Oprah Winfrey to escape the harsh realities of her home life and it is through their friendship that Bird learns to dream of a better life. But Miss Zora knows that Bird cannot survive on dreams alone and there is only one way to save her.