"Actor: Heinz"

• The Prisoner | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Two old pros light up the screen... British theatrical director Peter Glenville made his film directorial debut with 1955's The Prisoner (Glenville had previous helmed the London stage production of this Bridget Boland play). The film is based on the real-life travails of Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty who after suffering under Nazi persecution was imprisoned by the new Communist regime for remaining loyal to his religious convictions. Alec Guinness plays an unnamed Cardinal in an un

• Regular Guys | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £9.97   |  Saving you £5.02 (33.50%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Not your typical buddy movie Regular Guys is a refreshingly witty German comedy that takes a tongue-in-cheek peek at the complexities of relationships - gay straight and somewhere in-between. Christoph a macho cop goes on a bender after his fiance throws him out of the house. After waking in the arms of the very cute (and very naked!) Edgar a gay auto-mechanic Christoph's world is immediately changed. Did he - in a drunken haze - get it on with a man? If he did i

• Formula 1 2000 - World Championship Review | DVD | (28/05/2001) from £12.61   |  Saving you £0.38 (3.01%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Hours of fun for F1 addicts, this official Formula One 2000 World Championship Review has neat interactive menu options that let the viewer switch back and forth between a number of perspectives during each race. First select the race you want to see, then choose either the "Continuous Version" or the "Interactive Version". Continuous play runs potted highlights (five minutes or so) of each race, but the "Interactive Version" is the really interesting bit: this lets you select the view from the on-board cameras or the trackside cameras, watch the reactions in the pit lane, or even see continually updated race data statistics. The stilted commentary hardly matches Murray Walker for excitement, but does a serviceable job pointing out the significant moments in each race. Gimmicks aside, this was a vintage F1 season anyway: from Australia to waterlogged Silverstone to the first American F1 race since 1991 at Indianapolis and beyond, 2000 was the year that Michael Schumacher gave Ferrari the Constructor's Championship for the first time in 20 years, not to mention winning the Driver's title for himself. But Schuey's race to the finish was not without its setbacks: he suffered his share of crashes and breakdowns, as well as inadvertently breaking the leg of one of his pit crew and bursting into tears at a post-race press conference. New British talent emerged with Jensen Button driving in his first season for the Williams team, and this was also the year that McLaren's David Coulthard (who survived a plane crash early in the season) began to outstrip team mate and former World Champion Mika Hakkinen: it was the Scot who turned out to be Schumacher's closest rival. This disc is an absorbing way to replay the highlights of a memorable F1 year. --Mark Walker

• Swedish Erotica Exposed | DVD | (23/01/2012) from £8.08   |  Saving you £-2.09 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Christina Lindberg stars as Lena Svensson, a 17 year-old living a double life of fantasy and reality. Her young boyfriend, Jan, is weak and unable to meet her salacious appetite for sex, whilst displaying an unhealthy oedipal relationship with his mother. In order to satisfy her wild side, Lena becomes involved with an older man named Helge, a brutal figure who hosts drug and sex-fuelled parties and who forces the young Lena to be photographed in uncompromising positions. When Lena tries to run away, Helge uses the photographs to blackmail her into remaining under his sadistic control. Directed by Gustav Wiklund, Exposed is a complex and twisted Lindberg classic. Banned in 36 countries, the film explores themes of sadomasochism and sexual oppression, showing the dark side of sex and human nature.

• From The Life Of The Marionettes | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in Munich while Bergman was in self-imposed exile from Sweden, From the Life of the Marionettes is not so much a "whodunit" as a "whydunnit". The film opens with the shockingly violent and senseless murder of a prostitute by Peter, a young, successful businessman. Through a series of non-chronological flashbacks to a time before the crime, we attempt to fathom just what impelled Peter to perpetrate this terrible murder. Along with wife Katarina, the character Peter also featured in Bergman's 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage. Here, as there, we see that they are wedded in the sense of being emotionally chained to each other, yet hating each other for their mutual dependency. There is also a perturbing scene in which they both appear to "get off" when he takes a knife to her throat. His cold and duplicitous psychiatrist glibly ascribes the murder to a repressed homosexuality resulting in a violent outburst, while Katarina's business partner, who is gay, appears to harbour a desire to sabotage the pair's marriage. This film has an airless, fake-lit quality about it, which reflects the conditions of the characters' lives but by the end, leaves you mesmerised and still uncertain as to why what happened has happened. A late but great Bergman work. On the DVD: This edition adequately enhances the stark monochrome in which most of the film is set. Bergman's notes reveal that his depictions of Peter in his psychiatric ward were based on his own behaviour during a recent spell in a similar institution following his arrest for tax evasion. Philip Strick's critical notes observe that the sparing use of colour at the beginning and end of the film signify what may have been the only times in Peter's life when he "experienced reality". --David Stubbs

• Franz Lehar - Das Land Des Lachelns (Ebert) | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £15.04   |  Saving you £4.95 (24.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  1974 film version of Franz Lehar's operetta Das Land Des Lachelns famous for the song 'Dein ist mein ganzes Herz'.

• The Last Metro | Blu Ray | (29/09/2014) from £22.72   |  Saving you £-2.73 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  François Truffaut again tackles the elusive nature of creativity and creation in his thoughtful, sumptuous 1980 film The Last Metro. Nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar, and a winner of various Césars, The Last Metro is set in occupied France during World War II. Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve) manages the Theatre Montmarte in the stead of her Jewish husband, director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent). He has purportedly fled France but is really hiding in the basement of the theatre. The one hope to save the Montmarte is a new play starring the dashing Bernard Granger (Gérard Depardieu). The attraction between Marion and Bernard is palpable, and as usual Truffaut creates tension and drama from even the most casual of occurrences. The theme of the director locked away while his lover and his creation are appropriated by others makes for interesting Truffaut study, but first and foremost this is a well-spun romance.--Keith Simanton, Amazon.com

• The Brides Of Fu Manchu | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £20.97   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Fu Manchu and his army of henchmen are kidnapping the daughters of prominent scientists and taking them to his remote island headquarters. Instead of asking for ransom Fu demands that the fathers help him to build a death ray which he intends to use to take over the world. But Fu's archenemy Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard is determined not to let that happen...

• Nosferatu | DVD | (16/11/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Nosferatu ... the name alone can chill the blood!". F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, released in 1922, was the first (albeit unofficial) screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Nearly 80 years on, it remains among the most potent and disturbing horror films ever made. The sight of Max Schreck's hollow-eyed, cadaverous vampire rising creakily from his coffin still has the ability to chill the blood. Nor has the film dated. Murnau's elision of sex and disease lends it a surprisingly contemporary resonance. The director and his screenwriter Henrik Gaalen are true to the source material, but where most subsequent screen Draculas (whether Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella or Gary Oldman) were portrayed as cultured and aristocratic, Nosferatu is verminous and evil. (Whenever he appears, rats follow in his wake.)The film's full title--Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror)--reveals something of Murnau's intentions. Supremely stylised, it differs from Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) or Ernst Lubitsch's films of the period in that it was not shot entirely in the studio. Murnau went out on location in his native Westphalia. As a counterpoint to the nightmarish world inhabited by Nosferatu, he used imagery of hills, clouds, trees and mountains (it is, after all, sunlight that destroys the vampire). It's not hard to spot the similarity between the gangsters in film noir hugging doorways or creeping up staircases with the image of Schreck's diabolic Nosferatu, bathed in shadow, sidling his way toward a new victim. Heavy chiaroscuro, oblique camera angles and jarring close-ups--the devices that crank up the tension in Val Lewton horror movies and edgy, urban thrillers such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice--were all to be found first in Murnau's chilling masterpiece. --Geoffrey Macnab

• Circus Of Fear | DVD | (20/06/2005) from £10.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (-9.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Behind the sparkle of the big top lies a terrifying truth of murder and corruption... When a robbery near London's tower bridge turns sour and one of the bandits ends up dead in Barberini's Circus it's only a matter of time before the stolen money is traced to thew big top. When another body turns up this time the knife throwers glamorous assistant Gina (Margaret Lee) Scotland Yard soon puts Inspector Elliot (Leo Genn) on the case. Suddenly panic spreads through the circus

• Judgment In Berlin | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £4.88   |  Saving you £-2.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  An American judge in Germany must decide if the hijacking of an East German plane into West Berlin was justified.

• The Last Metro | DVD | (26/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  François Truffaut again tackles the elusive nature of creativity and creation in his thoughtful, sumptuous 1980 film The Last Metro. Nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar, and a winner of various Césars, The Last Metro is set in occupied France during World War II. Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve) manages the Theatre Montmarte in the stead of her Jewish husband, director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent). He has purportedly fled France but is really hiding in the basement of the theatre. The one hope to save the Montmarte is a new play starring the dashing Bernard Granger (Gérard Depardieu). The attraction between Marion and Bernard is palpable, and as usual Truffaut creates tension and drama from even the most casual of occurrences. The theme of the director locked away while his lover and his creation are appropriated by others makes for interesting Truffaut study, but first and foremost this is a well-spun romance.--Keith Simanton, Amazon.com

• Herold - La Fille Mal Gardee | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Herold: La Fille Mal Gardee (Lanchbery Wiener Symphoniker)

• Giordano - Andrea Chenier (Santi) | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £15.37   |  Saving you £1.62 (9.50%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Political intrigue during the French Revolution and the fate of a woman desired by two men are the focal points of Giordano's gripping drama Andrea Chenier. Placido Domingo sings the title role with great passion and tenderness in this acclaimed 1981 Vienna State Opera production; Gabriela Benackova portrays the hero's beloved Maddalena.

• Berg: Wozzeck | DVD | (15/11/2001) from £34.31   |  Saving you £-9.32 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The bleakness of Berg's operatic masterpiece Wozzeck is relatively easy to bring off: the plot, after all, tells of a man who is bullied, cuckolded and mocked by the society around him. What are harder to realise are the gallows humour and pitch-black comedy--and it's those qualities, along with the brilliant acting and edge-of-seat orchestral playing, that make this 1987 Vienna Staatsoper staging a stunning televisual operatic production. Everything works: the simple yet evocative sets translate effortlessly to the small screen, the pacing of the 15 short scenes is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and the singing is beautifully focussed. Baritone Franz Grundheber is vocally and dramatically outstanding as Wozzeck, cringing and shuffling around the stage in a bewildered hang-dog manner and yet never losing sight of the character's humanity. Hildegard Behrens (Marie) has rarely sounded better, and switches between Straussian lushness and spiky sluttishness with ease. The direction is also full of wonderful touches, such as Wozzeck squeezing the Captain's nose while he's shaving him (and making his voice sound like a kazoo), and the musicians of the on-stage band being fully integrated into the tavern scene. Ironic, emotionally rich, musically faultless--this one's got it all. On the DVD: the production works beautifully on DVD, and bar one or two moments in the second tavern scene (Act 3, Scene 3) the voices rarely move out of microphone range. There are subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish and four trailers for other Arthaus DVD operas, but no other special features. --Warwick Thomson

• Wagner - Siegfried (Boulez, Bayreuther Festspiele) | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £21.41   |  Saving you £3.57 (19.38%)   |  RRP £21.99

  The opera Siegfried.

• Fontane - Effi Briest | DVD | (17/10/2011) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In the nineteenth century, seventeen year old Effi Briest is married to the older Baron von Instetten and moves into a house, that she believes has a ghost, in a small isolated Baltic town. She soon bears a daughter, Annie, and hires the lapsed Catholic Roswitha to look after her. Effi is lonely when her husband is away on business, so she spends time riding and walking along the shore with Major Crampas. Instetten is promoted to Ministerial Councillor and the family moves to Berlin, where Effi enjoys the social life. Six years later, the Baron is given letters from Crampas to Effi that convince him that they had an affair. He feels obliged to challenge Crampas to a duel and banish Effi from the house.Nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1974.

• After Darkness | DVD | (27/08/2002) from £11.15   |  Saving you £-5.16 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Lawrence Hunningford (Julian Sands) becomes insane when as a child he witnesses the tragic drowning of his twin brother in the sands. He becomes gradually schizophrenic and is committed to the clinic. His elder brother Peter (John Hurt) accepts an invitation to teach at the University near the clinic. After Lawrence attempts to end his life Peter discharges his brother from the clinic and moves with him into a huge run down apartment and commits to take care of his brother. But the

• Senso | DVD | (09/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Venice. 1866. After a night walking the empty streets of the ancient city together a countess (Alida Valli The Third Man) falls in love with an Austrian officer (Farley Granger Strangers on A Train) and becomes his mistress. War breaks out and separates them until she eventually finds him again in the throes of battle against the Italians. Betraying both her principles and her cause she tries to reform him with cruel and tragic consequences for them both.

• God's Gun | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Violence begins when a wild bunch of outlaws hit the town. No mortal man can stop them - but what about the man of God?