"Actor: Jacques"

• Betty Blue | Blu Ray | (25/11/2013) from £14.59   |  Saving you £5.40 (37.01%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One of the most iconic films int he history of French cinema arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray in a deluxe box set. A landmark in French Cinema Jean-Jacques Beineix's erotically charged and visually intoxicating film also heralded the arrival of a new screen icon Beatrice Dalle. Laid-back handyman Zorg spends his time doing odd jobs on beach-front chalets making chilli and harbouring dreams of becoming a writer. His life is turned upside down with the arrival of a beautiful but volatile Betty. They begin a romance fuelled by intense passion but as Betty turns increasingly violent and self-destructive Zorg tries desperately to halt her slide into insanity. Special Features: 'The Making of Betty Blue' - A Second Sight Produced Documentary Featuring new Interviews with Jean-Jacques Beineix Beatrice Dalle Jean Hughes Anglade Claudie Ossard Gabriel Yared Jean-Francois Robin Beatrice Dalle Screen Tests

• Carry On Abroad | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits heading for the "paradise island" of Elsbels. Kenneth Williams is the out-of-his-depth tour operator, reverting to the sort of effete types he played in the 1950s, Peter Butterworth a pre-Manuel-style manager of a half-built hotel. A series of disasters ensue, with the entire gang landing up in jail following a fracas in a brothel at one point, but everyone finds romantic and sexual fulfilment in a quaint disco finale. This includes a gay character who is "dissuaded" from his homosexuality in a typical example of the thoroughly reactionary subtext that constitutes the really naughty bit of most Carry On films. Nonetheless, this throwback to an imaginary time when the lewdest innuendo of a dirty old man was greeted by young females with a flirty "Ooh, saucy!" is enjoyable on condition that you enter into its seaside-postcard spirit. June Whitfield is fine as a sexually uptight wife, Kenneth Connor a model of red-faced frustration as her wimpish husband. On the DVD: Sadly, no extra features except scene selection. The picture is a 4:3 ratio full-screen presentation. --David Stubbs

• Carry On Matron | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £11.50   |  Saving you £1.48 (17.39%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Hattie Jacques finally got to the play the title role in 1972 when Carry On Matron immortalised the character she had developed during several previous outings, most notably in Carry On Doctor. And she seized it with gusto. This is no one-dimensional performance, but a very human portrait of a woman doing her best to retain her authority in the face of mounting chaos--a raid planned by Sid James to steal the hospital's supply of contraceptive pills. Certainly, she's obsessed with regular bowel movements--this wouldn't be a Carry On film otherwise--but she remains a majestic figure of dignity with a touch of human warmth. Occasionally, too, a real hint of irony peeks through the slapstick and the innuendo. Surely scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell had his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek when he gave Barbara Windsor--then married to Ronnie Knight--a the line, "I don't fancy being a gangster's moll!" Terry Scott makes a guest appearance and Sid James is at his most conniving and lecherous. Theatre impresario Bill Kenwright has a cameo role and there's an early appearance from Wendy Richard as a prototype Pauline Fowler. But it's the female stalwarts who shine. Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques truly were comic actresses of the highest order. On the DVD: Presented like most of the other Carry On DVD releases in 4:3 picture format and mono soundtrack, this release has all the comfy quality of a lazy Saturday afternoon in front of the television. But where are the extras? It's one thing to launch a highly popular series of films as classic entertainment, but they deserve more than the budget treatment. As always, a cast list, some sort of documentary extra and biographies of at least the key players would really do them justice. --Piers Ford

• Delicatessen | DVD | (15/04/2002) from £7.97   |  Saving you £15.01 (301.41%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Delicatessen presents a post-apocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for the new tenant (French comic actor Dominque Pinon) who's got the hots for the butcher's near-sighted daughter. Delicatessen is a feast (if you will) of hilarious vignettes, slapstick gags, and sweetly eccentric characters, including a man in a swampy room full of frogs, a woman doggedly determined to commit suicide (she never gets it right) and a pair of brothers who make toy sound boxes that "moo" like cows. It doesn't amount to much as a story, but that hardly matters; this is the kind of comedy that leaps from a unique wellspring of imagination and inspiration, and it's handled with such visual virtuosity that you can't help but be mesmerised. French co-directors of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro have wildly inventive imaginations that gravitate to the darker absurdities of human behaviour, and their visual extravagance is matched by impressive technical skill. There's some priceless comedy here, some of which is so inventive that you may feel the urge to stand up and cheer. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com On the DVD: the special features are pretty standard, with a trailer, "making of" featurette and footage of the rehearsal process. The audio commentary is supplied by Jeunet, which, although interesting, is in French and thus necessitates the use of subtitles which then obliterate the movie's own subtitles. Once the commentary is on it is virtually impossible to turn this option off without reloading the disc. However, the Dolby stereo works wonders for this film, which is rich in sound, and surprisingly the 1.85:1 letterbox ratio is perfect for a film that is grainy by design. --Nikki Disney

• Girl on the Bridge | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £7.30   |  Saving you £12.69 (173.84%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A modern fairytale shot in glittering black and white, The Girl on the Bridge is a wholly entertaining concoction.

• Betty Blue - Directors Cut | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £8.97   |  Saving you £11.02 (122.85%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Zorg is a handyman working in France maintaining and looking after a collection of beach bungalows. He lives a quiet and peaceful life working diligently and writing in his spare time. One day Betty walks into his life a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable. Suddenly Betty's wild manners start to get out of control. Zorg sees the woman he loves slowly going insane. When their relationship turns to the worst can his love prevail?

• Kenneth More Collection | DVD | (15/10/2007) from £15.89   |  Saving you £6.63 (41.72%)   |  RRP £22.52

  Affable bright and breezy Kenneth More epitomised the traditional English virtues of fortitude and fun. At the height of his fame in the 1950s he was Britain's most popular film star and had appeared in a string of box office hits including Genevieve (1953) Doctor in the House (1954) Reach for the Sky (1956) and A Night to Remember (1958). Like many British actors he commuted between film and theatre and steadily became of or Britain's most treasured actors. This 8 disc collection celebrates some of his greatest work. Films include: Chance of a Lifetime (1950): The workers in a small plough factory take over the firm but when a large order falls through the old management come back to help out. Genevieve (1953): Two friends race their vintage cars on the annual London to Brighton rally. But once they place a 'friendly' wager on who will win the race the competitive juices start flowing! Genevieve is the name of one of the cars which like her competitor runs into one problem after another. A Night to Remember (1958): Based on the best selling book by Walter Lord this is the true story of the R.M.S. Titanic which struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Europe to New York in 1912. The Galloping Major (1951): An elderly pet shop owner who sets up a scheme to buy ""Montana Mist "" a race horse who promises to finish in the money. When the animals are switched at an auction his lifelong dream comes crashing down - unless the old glue horse he has purchased turns out to be more than meets the eye. North West Frontier (1959): Captain Scott (More) is sent by the British Governor in India to rescue a five year old Hindu prince and his American governess (Bacall) when a rebellion breaks out among the tribesmen. Pursued by the abductors the trio commandeer a derelict steam train to take them 300 miles through the mountains to safety... Reach for the Sky (1956): A story of one man's indomitable courage and endurance. As a young sports-loving Pilot Officer Douglas Bader loses both legs in a flying accident. Not only does he overcome his devastating disability; he goes on to become a Battle of Britain ace. Eventually Bader is shot down and imprisoned in Germany. In 1945 when three hundred aircraft fly in triumph over London led by a solitary Spitfire the honour of leading the fly-past goes to Douglas Bader. This is the story of one of the few to whom so many owed so much.

• Unbearable Lightness Of Being - 2 Disc Special Edition | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £20.99

  Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them--and then return--has profound consequences on his life. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Several key sequences--such as Olin wearing a bowler hat and writhing most attractively--linger in the memory, while Kaufman's assured sense of the story inspires superb performances all around. --Tom Keogh

• Cyrano de Bergerac (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (24/02/2020) from £15.45   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Cyrano (Gerard Depardieu), a swashbuckling hero with a gift for verse and a prominent proboscis - is madly in love with the most beautiful woman in Paris. Deterred though by his feelings of physical inadequacy he instead uses poetic skills to support another hapless suitor. But will the object of their affection realise who she's really falling for? Humorous and touching in equal measure, Cyrano de Bergerac is a spectacular and vibrant adaptation of Edmond Rostand's classic novel. Depardieu has never been better than as the swaggering scribe, his performance enriched by the vigorous direction of Jean-Paul Rappeneau and lavish period design. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, this acclaimed world cinema classic is now available on Blu-ray in the UK for the very first time. Special Features: Presented in High Definition **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film Other extras TBC

• F1 1990-99 (10 DVD) Box Set | DVD | (17/12/2018) from £92.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• South of Algiers | DVD | (09/11/2015) from £6.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This grippingly dramatic adventure film stars Eric Portman as a scholar who encounters deception and danger as he crosses the Sahara in search of the fabled tomb of a Roman general. Co-starring Oscar-winning character actor Van Heflin, featuring lush cinematography from Oswald Morris and solid direction from Jack Lee best-known for A Town Like Alice and the genre-defining The Wooden Horse South of Algiers is featured here in a brand-new transfer from original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Dr Burnet, an eminent archaeologist, sets out for North Africa to search for the lost tomb of Marcus Manilius, said to contain the priceless golden mask of Moloch. But it soon becomes clear that two crooked fortune-hunters are also seeking the mask, and a desperate and deadly race across the desert begins SPECIAL FEATURES: Original theatrical trailer Image gallery Promotional material PDFs

• Ulysses 31 - Vol. 2 | DVD | (26/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This fantastic Japanese-French co-production was first broadcast in the 80's on Channel 4. The series is a modern retelling of Homer's 'The Odyssey' set in the 31st century. Fresh from the battle of Troy Ulysses journeys home to reunite with his wife Penelope. En route his son Telemechus is snatched by a mysterious vapour cloud and transported to the White Planet; there children are sacrificed by the natives to their lord The Cyclops. Whilst rescuing Telemachus the Cyclops is

• La Belle Et La Bete | DVD | (19/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  La Belle et La Bete is one of the all-time great movie fantasies, and one of the most gorgeous pictures ever made. It was the first feature film by French director Jean Cocteau, a writer, poet and painter with ties to the surrealists. (In fact, his first film, The Blood of a Poet, was delayed after the scandal caused by L'Age D'Or, made by his fellow surrealists Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.) The haunting, surreal visuals (candelabra made of human hands, for example) and a sensitive performance by Jean Marais as the Beast imbue the film with an indelible, mythical power. --Jim Emerson, Amazon.com

• Carry On Constable | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £7.20   |  Saving you £9.79 (135.97%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Made in 1960, Carry On Constable is one of the earliest Carry On comic romps, arriving before they'd carved out their bawdy niche in British cinema. In fact, this Gerald-Thomas-directed effort isn't dissimilar to most of the mainstream Brit-com of its era. A flu epidemic has forced a police station to take on a brace of callow recruits: Kenneth Connor, a superstitious bag of nerves; Leslie Phillips, playing his usual rapscallion self; the ludicrously effete Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. The "plot" is a sequence of thoroughly creaky gags at the expense of this bumbling quartet. The staple characters hadn't settled into their "classic" personae yet. Here, Sid James is an exasperated sergeant, not the sort of crinkly rogue he played in later years, Kenneth Williams is dry, detached and supercilious, while Hattie Jacques is no matron but a sympathetic sergeant, whose every walk-on is not yet accompanied by the portly strains of tubas and bassoons. The comedy here is, frankly, dismal--banana skins are slipped upon and officers' legs urinated upon bydogs, all to a rueful soundtrack of wah-wah trumpets. The main appeal of this movie is as a period slice of damp, pre-Beatles London in glorious black and white.On the DVD: Although picture and sound are adequate (though poorly dubbed in places), there are no extras at all, a shame for the hardcore Carry On aficionados to whom this release would surely, perhaps exclusively, appeal. --David Stubbs

• Public Enemy | DVD | (17/07/2017) from £8.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Chloé Muller, a federal police investigator, is sent to protect public enemy #1, Guy Beranger, the most dangerous child murderer in Belgium. His release on parole to the custody of Vielsart Abbey leads to public outcry throughout the country, particularly in this small village in the Ardennes. Lucas, a young idealistic monk, is entrusted with the task of evaluating the sincerity of the ex-convict's request to enter their order. When a young girl disappears in the outskirts of the abbey, the entire village is in an uproar. Confronted by a mob thirsty for their own renegade justice and a brotherhood prepared to preserve the reputation of their abbey at all costs, Lucas and Chloé will have to join forces in order to re-establish order and truth.

• Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (66.74%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Herbie the VW with a heart adds some international flair to his lovable personality! Upon entering a Paris-to-Monte Carlo road race Herbie falls hood over wheels in love when he encounters a sleek sporty light-blue Lancia. Also vying for Herbie's attention is a gang of jewel thieves - who've ingeniously hidden a stolen gem in Herbie's gas tank! Thus begins a madcap chase across the French countryside that only The Love Bug could create!

• Wpc 56: Series 1-3 | DVD | (30/11/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £36.99

  WPC 56 transports us back to the atmospheric world of the 1950's where from the war-torn past, a future full of energy and opportunity beckons. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Brinford police station where the new WPC Gina Dawson (Jennie Jaques) and her successor, Annie Taylor (Claudia Jessie), face the trials of being the first female officers to serve in their Midlands home town. Set against a heady background of Rock n'Roll juke joints and beauty pageants and an underworld of shady boxing clubs, brothels and nightclubs, WPC 56 follows the 2 young officers as they rise to take on serious crime and confront the prejudices of the age at every turn.

• Masters of Cinema - Judex/Nuits Rouges | DVD | (25/08/2008) from £39.79   |  Saving you £-14.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Judex (1963): The magical rarely seen Judex directed by the great Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face) was largely unappreciated at the time of its release in 1963. This lyrical and dreamlike picture a putative remake of Louis Feuillade's own 1916 Judex is as evocative of the silent master's own works as it is the later films of Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali. A French reviewer wrote in 1963: The whole of Judex reminds us that film is a privileged medium for the expression of poetic magic. Starring the magician Channing Pollock the divine Edith Scob and the mesmerising Francine Berg'' Judex concerns a wicked banker his helpless daughter and a mysterious avenger. It plays like a fairy tale one in which Franju creates a dazzling clash between good and evil eschewing interest in the psychological aspects of his characters for unexplained twists and turns in the action. The beautifully controlled imagery superbly rendered by Marcel Fradetal's black-against-white photography animates a natural world and the spirits of animals all at war with a host of diabolical forces. Franju's Judex and Nuits Rouges both paid overt homage to the surreal silent serial-works of Feuillade. Scripted in collaboration with Feuillade's grandson Jacques Champreux these films evince the same poetic magic that made the art of that earlier master a cause c''l''bre not only for the Surrealist movement but also for the world renowned Cin''math''que Fran''aise. It was the Cin''math''que (co-founded by the legendary Henri Langlois with Franju) that helped resurrect the reputation of Feuillade decades after he'd slipped out of the public consciousness. Nuits Rouges (1973): Nuits Rouges [Red Nights] released in the UK as Shadowman was the second Franju Champreux meditation upon the films of Feuillade. It aggressively escalates a pulp atmosphere steeped in shocking turns of events to an even more vertiginous level. Here the object of pursuit is the fabled treasure of the mythical order of the Knights Templar which the filmmakers use as the jump-off point for staging a series of fantastic set-pieces. As the Fant''mas-esque arch-criminal (known only as The Man Without a Face played by Jacques Champreux himself) violently pursues the treasure the action intensifies amongst a cadre of post '68 bohemians the Paris police bureau and a cult of cowled conspirators. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Georges Franju's two most mindbending films on DVD in the UK for the first time.

• The Green Berets | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.19   |  Saving you £6.80 (94.58%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Anyone who fought in Vietnam can tell you that the war bore little resemblance to this propagandistic action film starring and codirected by John Wayne. But Green Berets itself is not nearly as bad as its reputation would suggest; critics roasted its gung-ho politics while ignoring its merits as an exciting (if rather conventional and idealistic) war movie. Some notorious mistakes were made--in the final shot, the sun sets in the east!--and it's an awkward attempt to graft WWII heroics onto the Vietnam experience. But as the Duke's attempt to acknowledge the men who were fighting and dying overseas, it's a rousing film in which Wayne commands a regiment on a mission to kidnap a Viet Cong general. David Janssen plays a journalist who learns to understand Wayne's commitment to battling Communism, and Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad) plays an ill-fated soldier who adopts a Vietnamese orphan. --Jeff Shannon

• Carry On Abroad | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits heading for the "paradise island" of Elsbels. Kenneth Williams is the out-of-his-depth tour operator, reverting to the sort of effete types he played in the 1950s, Peter Butterworth a pre-Manuel-style manager of a half-built hotel. A series of disasters ensue, with the entire gang landing up in jail following a fracas in a brothel at one point, but everyone finds romantic and sexual fulfilment in a quaint disco finale. This includes a gay character who is "dissuaded" from his homosexuality in a typical example of the thoroughly reactionary subtext that constitutes the really naughty bit of most Carry On films. Nonetheless, this throwback to an imaginary time when the lewdest innuendo of a dirty old man was greeted by young females with a flirty "Ooh, saucy!" is enjoyable on condition that you enter into its seaside-postcard spirit. June Whitfield is fine as a sexually uptight wife, Kenneth Connor a model of red-faced frustration as her wimpish husband. On the DVD: Sadly, no extra features except scene selection. The picture is a 4:3 ratio full-screen presentation. --David Stubbs