"Actor: Charles Bates"

• Mosquito Squadron | DVD | (05/05/2003) from £8.50   |  Saving you £4.49 (52.82%)   |  RRP £12.99

  World War II aviation buffs may quibble with the details of Mosquito Squadron, but they'll love it just the same. It's an average war movie, capably directed by Boris Sagal, who thrived in television before he was tragically killed by a helicopter rotor in 1981. At the peak of his post-Man from UNCLE success, David McCallum plays a melancholy RAF ace, leading his squadron of De Havilland "Mosquito" bombers on low-altitude strikes over Nazi strongholds in Germany and France. His ground-based dilemma involves the grieving wife of his best friend, a fellow pilot presumed dead but later discovered alive with other POWs held at a French chalet where the Nazis are developing advanced V-class bombers. The RAF employs bouncing "highballs" capable of penetrating difficult targets, and the rousing climax doubles as a rescue mission and treacherous bombing run. Explosive action compensates for predictable melodrama, and Rocky Horror fans will enjoy seeing Charles ("the Criminologist") Gray as a stuffy RAF Commodore. --Jeff Shannon

• Town on Trial (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (29/05/2023) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Investigating the murder of a young woman in a small English town, a brusque Superintendent (John Mills - Hobson's Choice, Ice Cold in Alex, Young Winston) discovers that virtually everybody he encounters has something to hide. Setting the template for British crime thrillers for decades to come, director John Guillermin's audacious, often salacious, drama is untypical of mainstream British cinema of its time, and can be seen as both a direct antecedent of the Italian giallo and a blueprint for David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Town on Trial is a rare treat which is ripe for rediscovery. Product Features High Definition remaster Original mono audio The John Player Lecture with John Mills (1972, 96 mins): archival audio recording of an interview conducted by Margaret Hinxman at London's National Film Theatre Barry Forshaw on 'Town on Trial' (2018, 20 mins): appreciation by the author of British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order and Brit Noir Adventure in the Hopfields (1954, 59 mins): director John Guillermin's Children's Film Foundation drama starring Mandy Miller (The Snorkel) Shooting Hops (2018, 7 mins): focus puller Alec Burridge discusses working with John Guillermin and the production of Adventure in the Hopfields Original theatrical trailer Image gallery: original promotional material New English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Shadow Of A Doubt | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £5.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (49.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alfred Hitchcock considered this 1943 thriller to be his personal favourite among his own films, and although it's not as popular as some of Hitchcock's later work, it's certainly worthy of the master's admiration. Scripted by playwright Thornton Wilder and inspired by the actual case of a 1920s serial killer known as "The Merry Widow Murderer," Shadow of a Doubt sets a tone of menace and fear by introducing a psychotic killer into the small-town comforts of Santa Rosa, California. That's where young Charlie (Teresa Wright) lives with her parents and two younger siblings, and where murder is little more than a topic of morbid conversation for their mystery-buff neighbour (Hume Cronyn). Charlie was named after her favourite uncle, who has just arrived for an extended visit, and at first Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) gets along famously with his admiring niece. But the film's chilling prologue has already revealed Uncle Charlie's true identity as the notorious Merry Widow Murderer, and the suspense grows almost unbearable when young Charlie's trust gives way to gradual dread and suspicion. Through narrow escapes and a climactic scene aboard a speeding train, this witty thriller strips away the fa ade of small-town tranquillity to reveal evil where it's least expected. And, of course, it's all done in pure Hitchcockian style. --Jeff Shannon

• The Knack And How To Get It | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £17.95   |  Saving you £-1.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Cool and sophisticated Tolen has a monopoly on womanising - with a long line of conquests to prove it - while the naive and awkward Colin desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl it's not long before the self assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?

• Shadow of a Doubt | Blu Ray | (10/05/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A