"Actor: Charles Halton"

• Mr & Mrs Smith | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Before Hollywood had entirely typecast Alfred Hitchcock as the master of suspense, with Mr & Mrs Smith he was allowed to fashion an elegant romantic trifle starring Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard. It probably won't replace Rear Window or Psycho in your affections, but the film is more than a curious footnote to the director's career. The two leads play David and Ann Smith, a devoted but endlessly squabbling couple who discover their three-year marriage isn't legal. When he unexpectedly hesitates to arrange a second wedding, she storms out in a huff and soon begins dating his solid, dependable business partner Jeff (Gene Raymond). The rest follows the formula laid down by such previous screwball comedies as The Awful Truth (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938): David employs fair means or foul to win back Ann's heart, causes all sorts of complicated mischief, then... well, three guesses what happens in the end. The intriguing thing about the movie is how Hitchcock takes Norman Krasna's paper-thin script and adds sly undercurrents of menace. You may note, for instance, that the ostensibly happy Smiths treat each other with subtle sadism right from the start, and that David's tactical pursuit of his ex-wife (spying on her and deliberately offending Jeff's parents) involves them both in humiliations that are really quite sinister and ugly. Violence seems about to erupt in the recurring scenes where Ann shaves her husband (suggestively holding a razor up to his throat)--and make what you will of our hero's symbolic nosebleeds. There's a touch of Vertigo in one scary moment when a jammed amusement park ride leaves two characters dangling helplessly high above the ground--and a touch of shall we say relief for Hitchcock's well-known love of toilet humour in another oddball sequence. Montgomery and Lombard keep the mood acceptably frivolous, while indicating the flawed nature of the marital relationship. From the evidence of this one-off, Hitchcock might have been among the best comedy directors in the business, had he so wished. --Peter Matthews

• 3 Godfathers | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £14.02   |  Saving you £-0.03 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  When three outlaws stumble across a dying woman and her baby they vow to escort the infant to New Jerusalem across the white-hot desert...

• Because Of Him | DVD | (07/03/2011) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-0.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Young and beautiful Kim Walker (Durbin) aspires for the life of a Broadway actress and singer. She devises a scheme which will get her on stage in fact she gets the lead role in a new play through the help of the magnificent John Sheridan (Laughton) even against the writer's objections.

• War of the Wildcats/In Old California (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £13.45   |  Saving you £-3.46 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  War Of The Wildcats (Dir. Albert S. Rogell 1943): A cowboy battles with an oil tycoon for drilling rights on Indian lands in Oklahoma during the oil boom days. In Old California (Dir. William McGann 1942): Tom Craig (John Wayne) is a recent arrival to Sacramento California where he is trying to set up his pharmacy. He unfortunately finds out that the town is owned by political boss Britt Dawson (Albert Dekker) who is getting protection money from the townspeople. The town boss meets his match when he tries to frame Craig with poisoned medicine but Craig is ready for a fight.

• Gounod: Romeo et Juliette | DVD | (19/11/2001) from £24.19   |  Saving you £10.80 (44.65%)   |  RRP £34.99

  A performance of Gounod's opera 'Romeo Et Juliette' in five acts recorded live at The Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

• Stranger on the Third Floor | DVD | (15/06/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A