"Actor: Ernest"

• The Trouble With Harry | DVD | (11/02/2000) from £4.98   |  Saving you £8.28 (166.27%)   |  RRP £13.26

  The Trouble with Harry is a lark, the mischievous side of Hitchcock given free reign. A busman's holiday for Alfred Hitchcock, this 1955 black comedy concerns a pesky corpse that becomes a problem for a quiet, Vermont neighbourhood. Shirley MacLaine makes her film debut as one of several characters who keep burying the body and finding it unburied again. Hitchcock clearly enjoys conjuring the autumnal look and feel of the story, and he establishes an important, first-time alliance with composer Bernard Herrmann, whose music proved vital to the director's next half-dozen or so films. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Old Dark House | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £16.92   |  Saving you £-3.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales several travellers are admitted to a gloomy foreboding mansion belonging to the extremely strange Femm family. Trying to make the best of it the guests must deal with their sepulchral host Horace Femm and his obsessive malevolent sister Rebecca. Things get worse as the brutish manservant Morgan gets drunk runs amok and releases the long pent-up brother Saul a psychotic pyromaniac who gleefully tries to destroy the residence by setting it on fire!

• The Revengers | DVD | (08/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  He bought six men out of hell and they brought it with them. Very much a traditional western 'The Revengers' stars William Holden (The Wild Bunch) as a peacful rancher driven to revenge when his family are murdered.

• Yoga For Me And My Baby | DVD | (22/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In the American west during the 1870's U.S Marshal Mike S. Blueberry tries to stop Wally Blount the man who killed his girlfriend from snatching a stockpile of gold hidden deep in Indian territory...

• Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, Vol. 2 | DVD | (28/09/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Charlie Chaplin - Circus | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £19.22   |  Saving you £-5.23 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Made in 1928 while he was in the middle of a painful divorce case, Charlie Chaplin's The Circus was so associated with bad memories for its maker that he refused even to mention it in his 1964 autobiography. Consequently, it has enjoyed less of a reputation than films such as The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). However, while it's not quite in their league, The Circus undoubtedly deserves to be rescued from relative obscurity. Here, Chaplin's Tramp is taken on as a clown at the circus, having been chased into the big tent by a policeman wrongly suspected of theft and wowing the audience with his pratfalls. He falls in love with the ill-treated ringmaster's daughter (Merna Kennedy) but is swiftly rivalled by a new addition to the circus, a handsome tightrope walker. To try to win back her affections the Tramp attempts the same act, culminating in the best sequence of the film, when he is assailed by monkeys as he totters amateurishly and precariously along a rope suspended high in the tent. Although The Circus is marred by the rather hackneyed and (even in 1928) stale melodramatic device of the cruel father and imploring daughter, it scores high on its slapstick content, with routines involving a hall of mirrors and a mishap with a magician's equipment demonstrating Chaplin's dazzling ability to choreograph apparently improvised mayhem. On the DVD: The Circus features a generous trove of extras on this two-disc set, including extracts from Lord Mountbatten's home movies of Chaplin, a deleted scene involving a prankster prize-fighter, as well as original footage showing how the perfectionist Chaplin would shoot and reshoot scenes. An introduction from David Robinson explains the adverse circumstances which held up the shooting of The Circus, including a fire and gales, which destroyed the set, while a further documentary delves into Chaplin's earliest work to provide context for the film. On the first disc, the film itself is an excellent transfer. --David Stubbs

• 3 Classics Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 1 - His Private Secretary / His Girl Friday / The Amazing Adventure | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  His Private Secretary: Dick Wallace (John Wayne) a millionaire's son tends to chase rather dubious women causing his father to despair of him. When he really falls in love his father assumes the girl is a gold digger... His Girl Friday: A classic unrelenting hilarious war of the sexes comedy in which a reporter and her ex-husband editor helps a condemned man escape the law - while at the same time furthering their own ends as they try to get the big scoop on politica

• Penny Serenade / His Girl Friday | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £2.68   |  Saving you £2.31 (86.19%)   |  RRP £4.99

  His Girl Friday (Dir. Howard Hawks 1940): Perhaps the funniest comedy ever made. This inspired adaptation adds an extra dimension of exploitation by turning Hildy Johnson into Walter Burns ex-wife. A classic unrelenting hilarious war-between-the-sexes comedy in which a reporter and her ex-husband editor helps a condemned man escape the law - while at the same time furthering their own ends as they try to get the big scoop on political corruption in the town. One of Howards H

• Massacre in Rome/Skeleton Coast/the Klansman/Return from River Kwai | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Massacre In Rome In the last days of the Nazi Occupation, a group of partisans plan an attack on a German police colunm.; Return From The River Kwai One of the last untold stories of World War 2 in the Far East. Starving British and Australian POWs make an attempt to escape Japanese brutality.; Skeleton Coast Colonel Smith's son,. a CIA agent, is captured by some mercenaries involved in an African civil war. Smith puts together a group of military press to save him. ;

• Charlie Chaplin - City Lights | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Made in 1931 shortly after the introduction of the talkies, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights is nonetheless near-silent. Chaplin was afraid that, should his universally known and beloved Tramp speak onscreen, he would be severely limited and compromised as a character. And so, City Lights is billed as "pantomime", a piece of cinema harking back to the manners and methods of an already defunct era. Chaplin fell out of fashion towards the end of the 20th century as a new wave of comedians (Rowan Atkinson for one) castigated him for what they saw as his excessive, maudlin sentimentality. Certainly, City Lights--which sees Chaplin's Tramp befriended by a blind flower girl who mistakes him for a rich benefactor--is hokum indeed. Accepting this, however, what makes the film so marvellous is the deceptive skill and artistry of Chaplin the filmmaker, the immaculate timing and acrobatic grace of his seemingly slapstick comedy, in particular a justly famous boxing sequence. Chaplin's sparing use of sound is inventive also: the wordless waffle of public speakers in the opening scene and another in which the tramp swallows a whistle. Moreover, the conclusion, in which the dishevelled Tramp encounters again the flower girl, her eyesight restored is--sentimentality notwithstanding--one of the most moving and superbly executed scenes in cinema history, not least for its economy and restraint. On the DVD: City Lights contains a generous package of extras on this two-disc set, including an introduction by David Robinson, in which he relates how poorly Chaplin and his leading lady Virginia Cherrill got on, an extended documentary/interview with Peter Lord (partner in animation to Nick Parks), who sings the praises of Chaplin's screen art, and a deleted scene, an immaculate piece of business involving a grate and a stick. There's a bonus in the form of an excerpt from 1915's The Champion, in which Chaplin prefigures the boxing scene from City Lights. Meanwhile, the "documents" section includes a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage, including a test screening for alternative actress Georgia Hale, rehearsal shots, chaotic scenes of Chaplin being mobbed in Vienna, a meeting with Winston Churchill and 1918 footage of Chaplin horsing around with famous boxers of the day including Benny Leonard. It also contains trailers, photo gallery and subtitles. On the first disc, the film's transfer to DVD is splendid. --David Stubbs

• Steamboat Bill, Jr. | DVD | (26/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.36

  Steamboat Bill Jr dates from 1928 and is the last great film Buster Keaton made before he gave up his independence and signed for MGM. Buster is the rather fey son of an elderly steamboat owner who is being driven out of business by a wealthy competitor. More by accident than intention Buster turns things around and gets the girl as well. The last 15 minutes are truly astonishing: a storm sequence in which a whole town is blown apart, with Buster experiencing a series of amazing escapes as buildings fall down around his ears. On the DVD: The print is a good one, best seen in the 4:3 ration, with unobtrusive organ music added. As a nautical extra there's The Boat, a 1921 short (the print not in such a good state as the feature), in which in the course of launching his newly built craft Buster manages to wreck his house, tip his car into the river and sink the boat. And that's only the beginning. --Ed Buscombe

• Train School: Learning For Tots | DVD | (16/04/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Trackers | DVD | (17/09/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Revengers | Blu Ray | (25/08/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Willard - Mediabook - Limitiert (+ Bonus-DVD) | Blu Ray | (18/11/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• King Lear | DVD | (02/10/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• DAS ALTE, FINSTERE HAUS - MOVI | DVD | (31/01/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A