"Actor: George Pastell"

• From Russia with Love | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £5.28   |  Saving you £14.71 (278.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, From Russia With Love, the second James Bond spy thriller, is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by an assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. --Jeff ShannonOn the DVD: The "making of" documentary details the many problems that beset this production: actor Pedro Armendariz (Kerim Bey) was diagnosed with terminal cancer halfway through shooting so all his scenes had to be done before he became too ill to work (he died shortly afterwards); a helicopter carrying the director and designer crashed into a lake, but despite being narrowly rescued from drowning Young was shooting half an hour later; and Italian actress-model Daniela Bianchi's car crashed en route to location. Key scenes had to be reshot after the production had wrapped, and because of script problems and rewrites, much of the film's structure was assembled in the editing room. The audio commentary is another montage of interviews from cast and crew that is alternately absorbing and irritating (exhaustive biogs of every player too often run over key scenes that would have benefited from analysis). An appreciation of flamboyant co-producer Harry Saltzman, trailers and stills complete the package. --Mark Walker

• Tiger Bay | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £5.49   |  Saving you £7.50 (136.61%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Polish sailor Korchinsky (Buchholz) is furious to discover his lover has left him for another man and in a confrontation murders her. The crime is witnessed by 10 year old Gillie (Hayley Mills) who steals the gun used and as officer Graham (John Mills) closes in Korchinsky abducts Gillie...

• James Bond - From Russia With Love (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) | DVD | (17/07/2006) from £3.30   |  Saving you £13.69 (414.85%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The evil organization SPECTRE has hatched a plan to steal a decoder that will access Russian state secrets and irrevocably unbalance the world order. It is up to James Bond to seize the device first but he must confront enemies that include Red Grant and the ruthless Rosa Klebb a former KGB agent with poison-tipped shoes. Even as Bond romances a stunning Soviet defector he realizes he is being lured into a deadly trap and he will need all of his courage abilities and cutting-edge technology to triumph over the forces that seek to destroy him.

• That Riviera Touch | DVD | (20/05/2002) from £8.41   |  Saving you £1.58 (18.79%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Comedy duo Eric and Ernie become involved in the plots and counter-plots of international jewel thieves whilst trying to enjoy a quiet holiday on the Cote d'Azur...

• Department S - Vol. 1 - Episodes 1 And 2 - Six Days / The Trojan Tanker | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The hit of the 1969-1970 season, Department S was an attempt on the part of television company ITC to create a "with-it" follow-up to the The Saint and Man in a Suitcase series which were starting to look staid by then. The department of the title is notionally part of Interpol, a group managed by the first of many black TV top cops (here Denis Albana Peters), and assigned all the bizarre cases The Avengers hadn't handled. Often they would come up against modern variations on the classic "locked-room" or "paradox" mysteries so favoured in crime fiction, mysteries which verge on the sort of phenomena The X Files would later specialise in (except no aliens appear in Department S). The supposed leads are Action-Man-type Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) and English-rose computer whiz Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nichols), but the break-out character is the flamboyant Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), a mystery writer and puzzle-solver notable for his Fu Manchu facial hair and an enormous wardrobe of safari suits, ruffled shirts, flared trousers and velvet jackets. King was the only male character on TV to be as fashion-conscious as the Avengers girls, and his preening peacock attitudes--along with the scripts' above-average mysteries--made this essential viewing for the Age of Aquarius. Volume One includes the following episodes: "Six Days", in which a missing airliner turns up but the passengers have no idea that they've lost six days, with Peter Bowles; and "The Trojan Tanker", in which a mystery woman is found in a luxury suite concealed inside an oil tanker, with Simon (Doomwatch) Oates. --Kim Newman

• The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's 1900 and a British archaeological expedition has discovered the secret chamber of the Egyptian Prince Ra. The team decide to bring home a whole host of artefacts including the mummified Prince. However the Prince isn't so happy about this and decides to wake up just as the team are about to unveil their find to the unsuspecting pubic...

• The Mummy | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Three archaeologists searching for the 4 000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka among the ruins in Egypt are warned of grave consequences if they violate her tomb. Madness strikes one and as the others return to England with a mummy a series of murders take place as the mummy seeks a deadly revengre on those who desecrated the secret tomb...

• On The Beat / Man Of The Moment | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1962's On the Beat, Norman Wisdom's Pitkin, the most famous incarnation of his riotous buffoon character, is dreaming of something better as usual. Pitkin wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a policeman, but being decidedly on the short side, has to settle for washing police cars. Of course it's not long before Norman is impersonating an officer of the law. Wisdom also plays his nemesis here, the German General Schreiber, as well as the chief suspect in a series of jewel robberies which only Pitkin's chaotic antics can solve. Terence Alexander effectively reprises his character from The Square Peg (1958), and Wisdom regular David Lodge, previously seen costarring in The Bulldog Breed (1960), is also on hand, though otherwise the supporting cast is less stellar than before. By the time of 1955's Man of the Moment, Wisdom was firmly established as Britain's favourite movie comedian, his shy, helpful and good-natured "gump" character forever unintentionally causing catastrophe in the great tradition of Charlie Chaplin. However, while Chaplin ventured into politics in Modern Times (1936) for satirical purposes, when Norman's minor civil servant here accidentally becomes the UK delegate at a conference in Geneva the emphasis is on farce and pratfalls. The plot sees Norman sticking up for the rights of the fictional kingdom of Tawaki against less-than-honest government interests, while his new-found status brings the attention of the ladies, including the return of his Trouble in Store (1953) costar Lana Morris. Continuing his collaboration with veteran director John Paddy Carstairs, the film is a polished laughter machine that continues to entertain. --Gary S Dalkin

• On The Beat | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £8.96   |  Saving you £1.03 (11.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Having proved himself a war hero in The Square Peg (1958), Norman Pitkin, Norman Wisdom's most famous incarnation of his riotous buffoon character, is here demobbed and, as usual for a Wisdom movie, dreaming of something better. Norman wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a policeman, but being decidedly on the short side, has to settle for washing police cars. Of course it's not long before Norman is impersonating an officer of the law. As in The Square Peg, Wisdom also plays his nemesis here, the German General Schreiber, as well as the chief suspect in a series of jewel robberies which only Pitkin's chaotic antics can solve. In fact, as if emphasising that On the Beat really is The Square Peg with different uniforms, Terence Alexander, who later found fame as Charlie Hungerford in the long running BBC series Bergerac, also returns, albeit playing a different character. Wisdom film-regular David Lodge, previously seen co-starring in The Bulldog Breed (1960) is also on hand, though otherwise the supporting cast is less stellar than before. Solid if very predictable feel-good entertainment, Wisdom's particular brand of charming anarchy proves again his box-office formula could withstand endless variations. --Gary S Dalkin