"Actor: Gino"

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £7.79   |  Saving you £-2.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Ernest Hemingway's tragic wartime romance comes to vivid life in this classic 1932 film starring Oscar winners Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. The cataclysm of WW1 sets the stage for an impassioned story of star-crossed love between a daring American ambulance driver (Cooper) and an English nurse (Hayes) in an army hospital. The tumult of war conspires to push the pair together and then wrench them apart in what becomes an ultimate test of love. Boasting beautiful cinematogrpahy and poe

• La Boheme | DVD | (30/11/1999) from £37.20   |  Saving you £-18.74 (-101.50%)   |  RRP £18.46

  One way to use the DVD format for opera is to provide a video format with a clear picture and sumptuous sound and let a good performance speak more or less for itself. Severini's La Boheme comes with a minimum of trimmings--subtitles in English, French and German; even a short account of the performance history is relegated to text in a booklet. The live performance has real theatrical presence, even to the extent that, at times, the vocal and orchestral subtleties get lost in wild applause. Pavarotti's Rodolfo was, in 1988, as plangently lyrical as ever and Freni's care-worn Mimi is a deeply touching and musical performance; Pacetti is a beefy full-blooded no-nonsense Musetta--the waltz song and ensuing duet with Marcello is for once the Broadway show-stopper it ought to be. Of the supporting roles, though, perhaps the most moving is Ghiaurov's Colline--his farewell to his old coat is a short passage of deep pathos which he has rarely sung as well as he does here. --Roz Kaveney

• The Bicycle Thieves | Blu Ray | (18/04/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Heralded as the greatest film ever made on release winning an Oscar in 1949 and topping the Sight & Sound film poll in 1952 De Sica's seminal work of Italian neorealism has had an impact on cinema worldwide from release to the present day with filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray and Ken Loach claiming the film as a direct influence on their own. Bicycle Thieves tells the of Antonio a long unemployed man who finally finds employment putting up cinema posters for which he needs a bicycle. His wife pawns all the family linen to redeem the already pawned bicycle and for Antonio salvation has come until the bicycle is stolen. Antonio and his son take to the streets in a desperate search to find the bicycle which will keep them away from poverty and humiliation but amidst a sea of bicycles and without proof the search is fruitless. Bicycle Thieves us as much about the position of Italians in post-War post-Fascist Italy as well as the relationship between father and son told through the labyrinth of the cinematic city with De Sica's visual poetry. With pared down minimalism eschewing studios and famous actors for real locations and non-professional actors who lived the lives they were playing Bicycle Thieves defined the neorealist period a small period of filmmaking that focused on simple humanist stories of which Bicycle Thieves was one of the most captivating and moving. Arrow Academy presents Vittorio De Sica's masterpiece Bicycle Thieves on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

• Indiscretion Of An American Wife | DVD | (19/03/2012) from £6.46   |  Saving you £-4.47 (-224.60%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Mary Forbes falls in love with a local man whilst visiting relatives in Rome. Eventually she decides to break offthe relationship and return home to her husband, but then realises she is not sure which direction to take.

• John Wayne: The Early Years (15 discs) | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  This box set of early John Wayne western classics comprises: Blue Steel / The Dawn Rider / The Desert Trail / The Lawless Frontier / The Lucky Texan / The Man From Utah / Neath The Arizona Skies / Paradise Canyon / Randy Rides Alone / Riders Of Destiny / Sagebrush Trail / The Star Packer / Texas Terror / The Trail Beyond / West Of The Divide

• TV Drama: Sword Of Honour, Shackleton, Longitude | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Sword Of HonourAward-winning novelist and screenwriter William Boyd brings Evelyn Waugh's classic trilogy of the Second World War vividly to life in this epic two-part drama starring Daniel Craig Megan Dodds Leslie Phillips Julian Rhind-Tutt Robert Pugh and Katrina Cartlidge. ShackletonDirected by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited Gulliver's Travels Longitude) this biopic of explorer Ernest Shackleton (Kenneth Branagh) is at once a fascinating character study of a driven man and a thrilling true life adventure. Concentrating on Shackleton's 1914 Endurance expedition to the the South Pole it details the incredible struggle he undertook to lead his 28 man crew to safety after his ship was trapped and then crushed in the pack ice. LongitudeLongitude is the fascinating story of John Harrison (Gambon) who in the 18th century believed he could make a clock that would work on board a ship - and so solve the problem of finding longitude at sea. Harrison has to struggle against a bigoted establishment in order to win recognition for his achievements. This story is intertwined with that of Rupert Gold (Irons) the former naval officer who in the 1920s discovered Harrison's clocks and - at the cost of his health his reputation and his marriage began the mammoth task of restoring them.

• Rabbit Test | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The story of Lionel the first man ever to get pregnant who soon goes from unknown to celebrity when he is diagnosed! Soon everyone's trying to cash in on his act including the president! But will his fiancee and his mother EVER recover from the shock!

• Malombra | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £23.34   |  Saving you £-12.35 (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  A young man's sexual longings are awakened by strange happenings in the night. Aroused by a seductive figure of a mysterious and ghostly woman in black lace he seeks sexual fulfilment with the other women of the household. Gradually his sexual desires are transformed into a steamy reality.

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (01/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The 1932 version of A Farewell to Arms owes as much to the shimmering house style of Paramount Pictures as it does the novel by Ernest Hemingway. If Hemingway purists can get past the romanticising of the book, however, this film offers its own glossy appeal. On the Italian front in World War I an American ambulance driver (Gary Cooper) falls in love with a nurse (Helen Hayes). Cooper was a Hemingway friend in real life, and later played the hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; his boyish simplicity is just right for director Frank Borzage's heartfelt approach. The Oscar-winning cinematography of ace cameraman Charles Lang is the kind of lush black and white that can capture the glow from a cigarette as it plays across Cooper's darkened face--a breathtaking touch. The jaded battle scenes show the influence of the hit film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, especially in a gripping montage depicting Cooper's progress alone through the war zone. Hemingway would have none of it, of course; he once disdainfully wrote that "in the first picture version Lt. Henry deserted because he didn't get any mail and then the whole Italian Army went along, it seems, to keep him company". This is first and foremost a love story, however, and as such it succeeds beautifully, right through to the remarkably intense ending. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

• Paradise Canyon | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An undercover federal agent is on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters. John Wyatt (Wayne) is sent under cover to follow Doc Carter's medicine show to expose a counterfeiting gang. When the main suspect is kidnapped with his daughter by the real villain Wyatt realises he has been chasing the wrong man and switches his attentions to the notorious Curly Joe...

• Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) -- Vienna/Chailly | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £33.73   |  Saving you £-8.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun--partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm--but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic. Anne Murray is an ideal Angelina, equally good at the heroine's witty intelligence and at the complexity of her emotional situation--loyal to the family that mistreats her. Francisco Araiza is an attractive Don Ramirez; the byplay between him and his servant Dandini (Gino Quilico)--in the duet "Zitto, zitto. Piano, piano", for example is for once genuinely amusing. Parts like Don Magnifico were the late Walter Berry's stock-in-trade--his occasionally menacing portrayal is far richer and more interesting than a mere buffoon. On the DVD: As usual with Arthaus Musik, an excellent production and performance is left to sink or swim without any detailed production notes either on the disc or in the leaflet. The sound is standard PCM stereo and the picture ratio 4:3. There are instructions in French, German, English and Spanish and subtitles in all of those languages plus Italian. --Roz Kaveney

• The Cure | DVD | (08/05/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A young female researcher whose life is in danger when she discovers the pharmaceutical company she works for had developed a cure for cancer many years earlier. They haven't released it because that would destroy their chemotherapy drug sales. She must now escape and release the cure to world while the company tries to stop her.

• Paradise Canyon | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  An undercover federal agent is on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters. John Wyatt is sent under cover to follow Doc Carter's medicine show to expose a counterfeiting gang. When the main suspect is kidnapped with his daughter by the real villain Wyatt realises he has been chasing the wrong man and switches his attentions to the notorious Curly Joe.

• The Medium | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £27.95   |  Saving you £-2.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The renowned contralto Maureen Forrester transcends the conventions of operatic acting to deliver a brilliant and gripping portrayal of the enigmatic Madame Flora in this 1977 television production of Menotti's classic thriller. Based on the acclaimed 1974 production by the Comus Music Theatre of Canada this video captures the opera's erie atmosphere and emotional intensity making clear why it is one of the most frequently-performed works of the 20th-century repertoire.

• Gino Vannelli& Metropole Orchestra/The North Sea Jazz Festival 2002 | DVD | (11/07/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Canadian singer-songwriter Gino Vannelli performs alongside The Metropole Orchestra for the 2002 North Sea Jazz Festival. Among the featured tracks are 'Wild Horse', 'People Gotta Move' and 'I Just Wanna Stop'.

• Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

• Otello | DVD | (01/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  After recording Andrea Chenier in 1955 and Il Trovatore in 1957 for RAI the Italian national broadcaster Del Monaco recorded Otello for Rai on 30 September 1958. Conducted by the magisterial Tullio Serafin the performance also profited from direction by Franco Enriquez who made the most of the limited resources available in those pioneering days of Italian television: using the rather modest studio scenery he created an expressionist ambience of contrasting light and shadows a dark and gloomy atmosphere that evoked the impending tragedy.

• John Wayne - Guns Along The Trail | DVD | (07/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  John Wayne: Guns Along The Trail

• Various Composers - Mad About Opera | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In this screwball comedy a group of Italians presents an opera concert in London with Scipa Gigli Caniglia Gobbi and Bechi. The singers play themselves with Bechi and Gobbi getting the most singing and screen time. The arias are fully staged vividly filmed with lots of closeups. With few exceptions the camera stays directly on the singers. The print is superb.

• John Wayne - 3 On 1 - Blue Steel / Paradise Canyon / The Desert Trail | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £5.44   |  Saving you £0.55 (10.11%)   |  RRP £5.99

  3 x John Wayne classics on 1 DVD. 'Blue Steel' - A fun western with a young John Wayne giving an energetic performance. 'Paradise Canyon' - John Wayne is an undercover federal agent assigned to a counterfeiting case where an ex-convict and proprieter of a roving medicine show Dr. Carter is the suspect. 'Desert Trail' - After being falsely accused of murder a rodeo performer and his sidekick roam the countryside in search of the real killers.