"Actor: Gerald Sim"

• The Persuaders - Complete | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £69.99

  Between heroic spells as the Saint and James Bond, Roger Moore was teamed with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders, a derivative but fun series about a couple of millionaire dilettante adventurers who swan around the world competing for the attention of beautiful women and getting involved in perplexing mysteries. Moore is Lord Brett Sinclair, an upper crust Brit of impeccable breeding, while Curtis is Danny Wilde, an up-from-the-streets self-made man whose trademark is a pair of brown gloves. The allegedly tasteful Brett and the crasser Danny both model a succession of garish early 70s fashions while their pursuits of duplicitous crumpet usually wind up with the women getting away and the heroes stuck with each other. Given all that, this may well be the most blatantly homoerotic of all the buddy television pairings (see the eponymous stars of Starsky and Hutch, Regan and Carter in The Sweeney, Bodie and Doyle of The Professionals) that ran ove! r the screen in the 70s, in which the male leads sublimated their feelings for each other by pulling out their guns and shooting at baddies. --Kim Newman

• The Angry Silence | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Guy Green's film represented the beginning of a lack of solidarity in unions as Tom Curtis (Richard Attenborough) with wife Anna (Pier Angeli) expecting a child refuses to join an unofficial strike in his machine shop and becomes the victim of assaults both mental and physical. Acclaimed as one of the most moving and powerful films ever made in Britain The Angry Silence won unprecedented acclaim. Within a week of its opening it had become the most talked-about film in the country

• Seance On A Wet Afternoon | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An intensely claustrophobic nail-biter to rival prime Hitchcock, 1964's Séance on a Wet Afternoon is a classic British thriller written and directed by Bryan Forbes. Set largely in an imposing Gothic house in north London, the film stars Richard Attenborough as Bill Savage, a man struggling to maintain his marriage to his increasingly unbalanced wife, Myra, played in an Oscar-nominated performance by the little-known but brilliant Broadway actress Kim Stanley. Myra, who believes she is a medium, plans a scheme that will make her famous, involving kidnapping then "psychically" locating a little girl. Attenborough (who won a BAFTA) and Stanley are both superb in what is part riveting battle of wills, part nerve-wracking kidnap thriller with, just possibly, a touch of the supernatural. Gerry Turpin's precise b/w cinematography and John Barry's chilling score add significantly to the atmosphere of dread, and if the plot has one or two gaping holes, Forbes's direction covers them deftly. Forbes explored female delusion again in The Whispers (1967) and The Mad Woman of Chaillot (1969); the film also marked a major entry in his long-term collaboration with John Barry and with his wife, the actress Nanette Newman. Séance clearly had an influence on Attenborough's own directorial contribution to the genre, the highly unsettling Anthony Hopkins vehicle, Magic (1978). On the DVD: Séance on a Wet Afternoon is presented in an excellent 16:9 transfer, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions, that effectively captures the brooding look of Gerry Tupin's BAFTA-nominated cinematography. Unfortunately the print used, though generally very good, does show some damage, including some instances that appear to run through the best part of a reel. Though noticeable and sometimes distracting, they barely mar this gripping film. The mono soundtrack is fine, though there is the very occasional touch of distortion. The disc comes with optional English subtitles, the excellent original trailer and a new and first-rate 33-minute interview with Bryan Forbes in which he engagingly explains every aspect of the making of the film. --Gary S Dalkin

• Armchair Thriller Vol. 4 | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £12.93   |  Saving you £0.06 (0.50%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Vincent Craig's daughter is kidnapped and held for ransom. Can the police ensure her safe return or will he have to go it alone?