"Actor: Charles Paton"

• Piccadilly | DVD | (28/06/2004) from £8.25   |  Saving you £7.74 (93.82%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Shosho a scullery maid in a fashionable London nightclub whose exotic dance routines catch the eye of suave club owner Valentine Wilmot. She rises to become the toast of London and the object of his erotic obsession - to the bitter jealousy of Mabel his former lover and star dancer.

• Hitchcock, The Early Years | DVD | (25/04/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  From Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense, nine of his earliest films presented together for the first time, running from the silent film era to the invention of talkies. Hitchcock's silent films such as The Ring(1928), The Farmer's Wife(1929) and Champagne(1928) were greeted with great enthusiasm by critics, and, at a time of expansion and increasing optimism for the British film industry, they were heralded as evidence that British films had reached an international standard of artistry. Hitchcock's final silent film The Manxman(1930) was also a considerable commercial success. In 1929, Hitchcock directed Blackmail, hailed as a film which used sound and dialogue with more flair and imagination than any Hollywood or European film of the time. In particular, Hitchcock's inventive and expressionist use of sound demonstrated that the new technology opened a new realm of possibilities. In the wake of Blackmail, there were searches for new challenges. These included an adaptation of a high profile West End play, The Skin Game(1931), two more thrillers Murder! (1930), Number Seventeen(1932), and an intriguingly odd marital drama, the appropriately titled Rich and Strange(1932).

• Classic Sherlock Holmes | DVD | (04/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  3 Classic Sherlock Holmes movies of the silver screen starring Basil Rathbone and 8 classic TV episodes starring Ronald Howard.

• The Man Who Knew Too Much | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £8.38   |  Saving you £-2.39 (-39.90%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Alfred Hitchcock himself called this 1934 British edition of his famous kidnapping story "the work of a talented amateur", while his 1956 Hollywood remake was the consummate act of a professional director. Be that as it may, this earlier movie still has its intense admirers who prefer it over the Jimmy Stewart--Doris Day version, and for some sound reasons. Tighter, wittier, more visually outrageous (back-screen projections of Swiss mountains, a whirly-facsimile of a fainting spell), the film even has a female protagonist (Edna Best in the mom part) unafraid to go after the bad guys herself with a gun. (Did Doris Day do that that? Uh-uh.) While the 1956 film has an intriguing undercurrent of unspoken tensions in nuclear family politics, the 1934 original has a crisp air of British optimism glummed up a bit when a married couple (Best and Leslie Banks) witness the murder of a spy and discover their daughter stolen away by the culprits. The chase leads to London and ultimately to the site of one of Hitch's most extraordinary pieces of suspense (though on this count, it must be said, the later version is superior). Take away distracting comparisons to the remake, and this Man Who Knew Too Much is a milestone in Hitchcock's early career. Peter Lorre makes his British debut as a scarred, scary villain. --Tom Keogh