"Actor: Charles"

• Messenger of Death | Blu Ray | (25/07/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Rewind back to the cinema of the 1980s and you might discover at least fun fact about an otherwise conservative decade: Hollywood was a lot less ageist! Indeed, in an action genre dominated by Arnold, Chuck and Sly, at least one big name looked as if he was more likely to be collecting his pension than provoking mayhem and that man was the late, great Charles Bronson. The star of DEATH WISH never slowed down, even as the decade came to a close, and 1988's fierce Cannon Films classic MESSENGER OF DEATH is one of the legendary genre star's most menacing motion pictures. In this fast-paced and potent thriller, Bronson plays an investigative journalist who prods a little too deeply into the affairs of a local, and lunatic, religious organisation. Bullets, blood and a slew of dead bodies soon follow. Mixing Mormonism and malevolence with the sort of high-octane brutality one might expect from director J. Lee Thompson (CAPE FEAR/ DEATH WISH IV: THE CRACKDOWN), MESSENGER OF DEATH is back in HD - and ready to blast its way into your Cannon collection!

• Q And A | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A grim, disheartening view of the underside of city life, Q & A is a legal drama with a disturbing twist. Not exactly a whodunit--the guilt of policeman Nick Nolte is established early on--the plot follows the closing of the circle around him. Leading the murder investigation is Timothy Hutton’s young, idealistic district attorney Al Reilly, who finds himself battling a fraudulent and cynical culture. Racism, corruption and political machinations are all added to the mix, resulting in a film that is just a little too dense and slow moving to capture the imagination. Director Sidney Lumet creates a feeling of enveloping darkness around Hutton, who slowly manages to let the light in and bring the truth to the surface. With an obviously small budget, the film has more of a made-for-television feel than that of a big blockbuster and some of the performances err too much on the side of cliché. The concept of the New York melting pot is fairly effectively dismissed by the film, painting a picture of distrust between communities that often spills into verbal and physical violence. Not quite as unremittingly bleak as Harvey Kietel’s Bad Lieutenant, Q & A is still a tough, dark piece of cinema. On the DVD: Q & A is very much a film of the night, with much of the action taking place either in the shadows or in rooms with harsh, artificial light. The picture on the DVD reflects that perfectly, although the lack of budget is hard to disguise. The soundtrack quality is good, if not startling, but there are no extras aside from the movie’s theatrical trailer. All in all, it’s a fairly average package. --Phil Udell

• Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe - Vol. 2 - Episodes 5 - 8 | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This second volume of the classic Saturday morning serial featuring Buster Crabbe as the dashing Flash Gordon aided in his galactic struggle against Emperor Ming the Merciless by Dale Arden and Dr Hans Zarkov. Chapter Five: The Palace Of Terror. Chapter Six: Flaming Death. Chapter Seven: The Land Of The Death. Chapter Eight: The Fiery Abyss.

• Une Parisienne | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (100.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Une Parisienne is a light charming cheeky comedy with the stunning and sexy Brigitte Bardot in flirty form. Brigitte Laurier (Bardot) the spoiled and innocent daughter of a French Ambassador cons one of her father's top aides Michel (Henri Vidal) into marrying her. Brigitte's brattish ways rile Michel and soon he is flirting with old girlfriends to teach her a lesson. In retaliation Brigitte flirts with Prince Charles (Charles Boyer). Michel is amazed by the jealousy his wife's f

• God of Gamblers | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £8.27   |  Saving you £7.72 (93.35%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Chow Yun-Fat is the mysterious Ko Chun invincible God of gamblers. A freak accident results in amnesia but leaves his supernatural skills unscathed. Unaware of his true identity small time hustler Andy Lau sets out to explore Chun's talents on Hong Kong's notorious gambling circuit only to find himself the target of vicious gangsters hell-bent on eliminating them both and unsurping Ko Chun's crown. Director Wong Jing blends violent action intense drama and classic Hong Kong comedy into the perfect backdrop for Chow's bravura tour-de-force as the enigmatic idiot-savant; a classic!

• Demetrius And The Gladiators | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This enormously successful sequel to The Robe continues the story of Demetrius (Victor Mature) the Greek slave who after the death of his master is sentenced to train as a gladiator in the Roman arena. There his newfound Christian faith is put to the test when he has to contend not only with the swordsmen and wild beasts of the arena but also the evil and sensuous Messalina (Susan Hayward) and the mad emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson). Crammed with astonishing action and fight sequences this heroic epic is not to be missed!

• Verdi: La Traviata (Aix-en-Provence, 2011) | DVD | (12/03/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Natalie Dessay made her first European appearances as Violetta in La traviata in a new production by the French director Jean-Franois Sivadier at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival. This DVD captures her intense performance in the company of American tenor Charles Castronovo as Alfredo and French baritone Ludovic Tzier as his father, Giorgio Germont. Her theatrical impact is devastating, wrote the Financial Times. With this new production of La traviata at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival, Natalie Dessay made her first European appearances as Verdi's Violetta, a pinnacle of the soprano repertoire. She made her debut in the role in 2009 at the Santa Fe Festival in the US, and subsequently sang Violetta in Japan. Dessay's 2011-12 season will include La traviata at the Vienna State Opera (in this Aix-en-Provence production by French theatre and opera director Jean-Franois Sivadier) and the New York Metropolitan. Violetta makes tremendous demands on a singer, both vocally and dramatically, and signals Dessay's transition from lighter coloratura roles to the more full-blooded lyric repertoire. I'm tired of playing weeping girls, she told the French magazine Tl 7 Jours, Violetta is a real woman. That makes a nice change! The change was clearly successfully achieved: describing Dessay’s performance, the Financial Times wrote that her theatrical impact is devastating. Sivadier's production was staged in the open air, in Aix-en-Provence's exquisite Thtre de l'Archevch with its huge spiral staircases, medieval arches and 18th-century wings. The stage dcor was minimal, the simple costumes evoked the 1940s or 1950s, and the prime focus was on intense characterisation.

• Sonic The Hedgehog - The Movie | DVD | (15/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Dr. Robotnik claims that he is hanging around the beautiful Land of the Sky because he has been booted from the Land of Darkness! An incredibly evil Metal Robotnik came out of nowhere drove him from the twisted city of Robotropolis and then sabotaged the high-voltage power-producing Robot Generator. Dr. Robotnik claims that if the Robot Generator isn't stopped it will blow all of planet freedom to smithereens! He needs some help - fast! Can Sonic trust his worst enemy? Should he rush headlong into an obvious trap and possibly save the universe? Or just smack the egg-shaped nightmare across his flapping moustache? The President's absolutely adorable daughter Sara says that she will marry Sonic if he saves the universe. So that settles it. But wait! Is she in love with Sonic or the never-before-seen Hyper Metal Sonic! You could turn blue just thinking about it or crack the entertainment barrier with ADV Films' Sonic the Hedgehog.

• Dancer's Dream - The Great Ballets Of Rudolf Nureyev - Raymonda | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The story of Raymonda takes place in the Middle-Ages and is set in the south of France. Raymonda is a young noblewoman waiting for the return of her fianc Jean de Brienne a knight who is on a crusade in the Holy Land. Meanwhile however the Saracen knight Abderachman appears on the scene and first of all pays her court but then uses force to try and make her bend to his will. Thanks to the warning and help of a ghost who is thought to be an ancestor and patron saint of her family

• The Sherlock Holmes Catalogue - The Golden Pince-Nez / The Red Circle | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Two enthralling investigations from Sherlock Holmes.

• Food Of Love | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Paul a handsome and talented music student is employed as the page-turner at one of the world famous pianist Kennington's concerts in San Francisco only to find the best way to make it to the top is to sleep his way there with older gentlemen who can assist him...

• Child's Play 2 | Blu Ray | (16/08/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Ginger In The Morning | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £17.97   |  Saving you £-11.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Ginger is hitch-hiking through New Mexico and is picked up by Joe who has just gone through a bitter divorce. A romantic story of opposites attracting.

• War Of The Colossal Beast | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A frightened young man races his truck down a dirt road constantly looking back in terror. He is being pursued by some unseen menace! Undoubtedly it is this menace that is responsible for a series of mysterious food truck robberies and the main suspect is the 60-foot tall Colossal Man! Previously presumed dead he is discovered living in a desolate mountain range in Mexico insane and horribly disfigured his face covered in scar tissue and missing an eye. Every effort of communicating with the giant fails and the military drugs him and transports him back to America where he promptly escapes to wreak havoc on an unfortunate city!

• Marlene Dietrich - Small Goddess | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The Lady Is Willing (Dir. Mitchell Leisen 1942): Bold eccentric Broadway performer Lisa Madden befuddles her handlers by coming home with a baby she picked up on the street. She wants to keep the baby but has to find a husband to make adoption viable. Why not her new obstetrician Dr. McBain? She offers him help with his research on rabbits in exchange for marriage - and he accepts. The marriage of convenience turns into a marriage of real love but when Dr. McBain's ex-wife comes looking for money matters get complicated... Shanghai Express (Dir. Josef von Sternberg 1932): Many passengers on the Shanghai Express are more concerned that the notorious Shanghai Lil is on board than the fact that a civil war is going on that may make the trip take more than three days. The British Army doctor Donald Harvey knew Lil before she became a famous ""coaster."" A fellow passenger defines a coaster as ""a woman who lives by her wits along the China coast."" When Chinese guerillas stop the train Dr. Harvey is selected as the hostage. Lil saves him but can she make him believe that she really hasn't changed from the woman he loved five years before? Destry Rides Again (Dir. George Marshall 1939): Kent the unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game that gives Kent a stranglehold over the local cattle rangers. The mayor who is in cahoots with Kent appoints the town drunk Washington Dimsdale as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control. But what the mayor doesn't know is that Dimsdale was a deputy under famous lawman Tom Destry and is able to call upon the equally formidable Tom Destry Jr to be his deputy. Foreign Affair (Dir. Billy Wilder 1948): In occupied Berlin an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi cafe singer and the U.S. congresswoman investigating her. Blonde Venus (Dir. Josef von Sternberg): American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance of being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend. While Ned is away in Europe she continues with Nick but when Ned returns cured he discovers her infidelity. Now Ned despises Helen but she grabs son Johnny and lives on the run just one step ahead of the Missing Persons Bureau. When they do finally catch her she loses her son to Ned. Once again she returns to entertaining this time in Paris and her fame once again brings her and Townsend together. Helen and Nick return to America engaged but she is irresistibly drawn back to her son and Ned. In which life does she truly belong? Devil Is A Woman (Dir. Josef von Sternberg 1935): Told in flashbacks Devil Is A Woman is a tale of an older man's obsession for a woman who can belong to no-one but can frustrate everyone. The backdrop is Sternbergs surreal and fantastic Carnaval in Spain. In a cafe the older man details his encounters with the heartbreaker that his younger friend has only just met at the parade. Forewarned the young man swears he will avoid the fate of his friend but rushes all the same to his evening rendevous. A dreamlike story of frustrated lost romance spoken in the past tense never really resolved.

• Charles Mingus - Epitaph | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £3.07   |  Saving you £13.18 (728.18%)   |  RRP £14.99

  On June 3rd 1989 the Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center was the venue for the world premiere performance of Charles Mingus' masterpiece Epitaph. Conductor Gunther Schuller directed 30 musicians in what the New York Times described as One of the most memorable jazz events of the decade. The piece had been discovered after Mingus' death in 1979 and painstakingly restored and copied. It is the largest and longest piece for jazz orchestra ever written and is now available here on DVD for the first time. 1. Main Score: Part One 2. Percussion Discussion 3. Main Score: Part Two 4. Started Melody 5. The Soul 6. Untitled Ballad 7. Moods In Mambo 8. Self Portrait: The Chill Of Death 9. O.P. (Oscar Pettiford) 10. Please Don't Come Back From The Moon 11. Monk Bunk And Vice Versa 12. Peggy's Blue Skylight 13. Wolverine Blues 14. The Children's Hour Of Dream 15. Freedom 16. Untitled Interlude 17. Better Get Hit In Your Soul 18. Noon Night 19. Main Score Reprise

• Real Genius | DVD | (17/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An underrated little picture, Real Genius offers a rare college comedy that doesn't rely on gross-out humour as well as a look at Val Kilmer before he turned into a star. A high school whiz kid (Gabriel Jarret) arrives at a brainy college, where the crème de la crème of the science students are marshalled under an ambitious professor (expert villain William Atherton). Unbeknown to them, the kids are working on a weapons system that the prof. plans on selling to the government. The star student and chief rabble-rouser is played by Kilmer, in good early form as a cocky genius who hasn't lost touch with his goofy side. The director is Martha Coolidge, whose Valley Girl was one of the brightest (and most unexpected) of 1980s comedies; she keeps the movie perking along and never worries about dumbing down a film that just happens to be about smart people. --Robert Horton

• Island of Lost Souls | Blu Ray | (28/05/2012) from £31.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Originally rejected by the BBFC on its original release for being against nature, this first and best screen adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau is a taboo-flaunting, blood-curdling spectacular, and one of Hollywood's wildest, most notorious, pre-Code pictures.Shipwrecked and adrift, Edward Parker finds himself a guest on Dr. Moreau's isolated South Seas island, but quickly discovers the horrifying nature of the doctor's work and the origin of the strange forms inhabiting the isle: a colony of wild animals reworked into humanoid form via sadistic surgical experiments. Furthermore, Parker quickly begins to fear his own part in the doctor's plans to take the unholy enterprise to a next level.Featuring a peerlessly erudite and sinister performance by Charles Laughton as the diabolical doctor, a sterling appearance by Bela Lugosi as the half-beast-half-man Sayer of the Law, and sensationally atmospheric cinematography by the great Karl Struss (Murnau's Sunrise, Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Island of Lost Souls now returns to claim a central position among the most imaginative and nightmarish fantasies from Hollywood's golden age of horror.

• Hard Times | DVD | (17/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Charles Bronson demonstrates exactly what tough is in this two-fisted action drama about a drifter suddenly caught up in the fight game during The Great Depression. Chaney (Bronson) a down-on-his-luck loner hops on a freight train to New Orleans where on the seedier side of town he tries to make some quick money the only way he knows how - with his fists. Chaney approaches a hustler named Speed (Coburn) and convinces him that he can win big money for them both. Chaney wins a f

• L'Ennui | DVD | (17/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Engrossing, erotic and sometimes comic, 'L'Ennui' tells the story of restless philosophy professor Martin (Charles Berling), tired of teaching and troubled by the happiness of his ex-wife (Arielle Dombasle). His mid-life crises takes a turn when he meets the young, enigmatic and far from intellectual Cecilia (Sophie Guillemin), with whom he embarks upon a sexually-charged affair. Enlisting his ex-wife as a reluctant confidante, Martin claims that he is bored by Cecilia, yet continues to see her, fascinated by her uncomplicated attitude toward love, life and sex. But, upon learning that Cecilia is also seeing a much younger man, Martin's desire becomes tainted with jealousy and eventually becomes an uncontrollable obsession that threatens to consume him. French Soundtrack with English Subtitles