"Actor: Elspeth March"

• Woman Times Seven | DVD | (16/03/2009) from £10.18   |  Saving you £7.81 (76.72%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Shirley MacLaine lights up the screen in this collection of seven sexy stories of love and adultery set against the romantic backdrop of Paris. Whether she's playing an amorous widow a meek housewife gone wild or a socialite who will literally kill for a dress Shirley MacLaine displays the irresistible charm beauty and humor that catapulted her to stardom. Famed Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves) directs this tour de force performance that earned Shirley MacLaine a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical/Comedy.

• The Playboy of the Western World | Blu Ray | (10/05/2021) from £8.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Brian Desmond Hurst adapts and directs JM Synge's scandalous comedy in what was to be the final film of a highly successful career stretching back to the mid-1930s. Featuring stunning cinematography of County Kerry by multiple Oscar-winner Geoffrey Unsworth and a memorable soundtrack from influential composer Seán Ó Riada, The Playboy of the Western World stars Siobhán McKenna and Gary Raymond alongside a host of players from Dublin's Abbey Theatre. It is featured here as a brand-new High Definition remaster from original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio. Weary and dishevelled, Christy Mahon stumbles into a remote inn on the Irish coast and tells anyone who'll listen how he's murdered his tyrannous father with a spade. As he enthrals the locals and charms the girls, his tale grows in its telling... until the day Christy's father turns up and he's not as dead as expected! SPECIAL FEATURES: The Man Who Played the Playboy: 2021 interview with Gary Raymond Theatrical trailer Image gallery

• The Sherlock Holmes Collection (23 Disc Box Set) | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £159.99

  The Sherlock Holmes Collection is a comprehensive box set containing all 36 hour-long episodes plus the five feature-length specials of Granada TV's classic series starring Jeremy Brett. Originally screened in 1984, the series ran intermittently until the mid-1990s, when the leading actor's chronically failing health forced a final end (he died in 1995). Still hailed by many as the definitive Holmes, Brett presented the great detective as a solitary, nervous and depressive personality whose brilliant flashes of inspiration were interrupted by long bouts of introspection and drug-induced lethargy. In the later feature-length episodes, the actor's own ill-health added a poignant extra dimension that both deepened and darkened his portrayal of Holmes. In a welcome departure from earlier adaptations, Dr Watson (originally played by David Burke, then by Edward Hardwicke) is a thoroughly sensible, pragmatic--if rather unimaginative--companion, not at all the bumbling sidekick made famous by Nigel Bruce in the Basil Rathbone era. Aside from impeccable central casting--bolstered by a host of distinguished thespian guest stars--and scripts that remain remarkably faithful to Conan Doyle's original stories, the series also boasts lavish period production design and a haunting music score from Patrick Gowers. Although latterly they both err too far on the side of melodrama, overall both the series and Jeremy Brett's tour de force performances are likely to remain unsurpassed. On the DVD: The Sherlock Holmes Collection DVD box set might be complete, but the individual discs themselves are disappointingly spartan, with no additional features of any kind nor any attempt to clean up the rather scratchy 4:3 picture quality or the dull mono sound. --Mark Walker

• The Sherlock Holmes Catalogue - The Eligible Bachelor | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £19.30   |  Saving you £-9.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A little over-extended as a two-hour movie, The Eligible Bachelor was one of several such feature-length productions made (late 1992) in Granada Television's long-running Sherlock Holmes series. Based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, this TV movie finds Holmes (the ailing Jeremy Brett, playing an increasingly darker and more neurotic detective) and Dr. Watson (Edward Hardwicke) called upon to help in a case involving the disappearance of Henrietta Doran (Paris Jefferson), fiancé of the noble Lord Robert St Simon (Simon Williams), who was last seen with a former lover of St Simon's, Flora Millar (Joanna McCallum). The unimaginative Scotland Yard instantly arrests Millar on suspicion of foul play, but it is Holmes who has to find the missing woman. Fans of the entire series might best enjoy this slightly clunky programme, though there is much of interest about Brett's performance to recommend it. --Tom Keogh