"Actor: Cliff Osmond"

• The Fortune Cookie | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Billy Wilder directs this first-time pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a brilliant comedy in which a larcenous lawyer convinces his brother-in-law to perpetrate insurance fraud. Jack Lemmon portrays Harry Hinkle a TV cameraman who gets injured by a very considerate player while working a Cleveland Browns football game. Walter Matthau is the devious lawyer Willie Gingrich who encourages the expensive lawsuit. Co-written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond the film garnered

• Irma La Douce | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £14.18   |  Saving you £1.81 (12.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Irma La Douce reunited The Apartment team of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine with director Billy Wilder in an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name which had been a hit in Paris, London and New York. The screen transfer by Wilder and his colleague--writer IAL Diamond--however, omits the show's songs, relegating them to a background score refashioned by Andre Previn with some additional themes of his own. Background here is a complimentary term, for whatever qualms one might entertain as to this move, the two sets of themes are skilfully woven together by Previn and emerge as a witty and lyrical aural delight in their own right which is given due prominence on the soundtrack. Wilder is no rush to tell prostitute Irma's story: her affair with Lemmon being the pivot of the tale as he takes on the disguise of an English Lord. Lemmon and MacLaine beautifully play their mutual attraction under Wilder's deft direction with the slapstick never allowed to get out of hand. Many will recognise Wilder's touch in his handling of the scene where Lemmon as a policeman is carted off in a van full of voracious prostitutes from the bunks-in-the-train sequence in Some Like It Hot. The handsome production, designed by Alexander Tranner--with the occasional view of the Seine thrown in for good measure--and the Panavision photography by Joseph La Shelle are further assets. On the DVD: The DVD contains a longer than usual theatrical trailer, half shot as a cartoon with characters closely resembling those Pink Panther figures who emerged at the same time from the Mirisch Brothers, a pair prominent in sustaining the unique success of United Artists, whose name was deleted, in favour of the MGM logo, in the early 1960s. It's too bad that the music on this DVD transfer sometimes strikes a coarse note particularly over the extended opening credits. --Adrian Edwards

• Kiss Me, Stupid | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £18.60   |  Saving you £-5.61 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When world-renowned singer Dino (Martin in a hilarious self-parody) passes through Climax Nevada he doesn't count on meeting two would-be songwriters with a plan to trap him there and serenade him with their songs. But then again they weren't counting on Dino's insatiable appetite...for wine and women! And when one of the men learns that his own wife was once president of Dino's fan club he hires a replacement wife (Kim Novak) to help lure the carousing star into a song-buying moo