"Actor: June Cunningham"

• Horrors Of The Black Museum (Cult Classics) | Blu Ray | (15/01/2024) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A new restoration of this 1959 horror film starring Michael Gough and directed by Arthur Crabtree. HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM marked the first film in the Sadian Trilogy followed by Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom.A series of grisly, macabre murders sweep London and leave Scotland Yard completely baffled. Bancroft, an evil crime journalist is hypnotising his assistant to commit murders for his own crime stories and delighting in the Yard's embarrassment.Product FeaturesNEW Interview with novelist and critic Kim NewmanNEW Audio Commentary with Kim Newman and writer/editor Steve JonesHypnovista IntroductionOriginal TrailerB&W Lobby Cards Gallery

• Horrors of the Black Museum | DVD | (24/06/2013) from £6.25   |  Saving you £3.74 (59.84%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Michael Gough gives a gloriously overwrought performance in this notorious 1959 horror feature. A box-office triumph, it was shot at Merton Park Studios in the relatively new CinemaScope format and presented with the additional gimmick of 'HypnoVista'. Horrors of the Black Museum was the first in what has been dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated's 'Sadian trilogy' (with Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom), in which the keynote is sensationalistic, sexually charged violence. It is featured here in a brand...

• The Smallest Show On Earth | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £20.37   |  Saving you £-7.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An amiable knock-off of the Ealing comedy style, The Smallest Show on Earth starts with aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his "nice gel" wife Virginia McKenna inheriting a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discovering that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, which specialises in those "smash 'em in the face, knock 'em over the waterfront" pictures, but the decrepit Bijou, known locally as "the fleapit". The initial plan, set up by lawyer Leslie Phillips, is to sell off the cinema to the owner of the Grand so he can knock it down to make a car park, but our heroes are put off by the arrogant bullying of the rival manager (Francis De Wolff) and succumb to the inept charms of the crazed, aged staff--drunken projectionist Peter Sellers, doddery commissionaire Bernard Miles and dotty ticket lady Margaret Rutherford (who joined the team as a piano accompanist). In the 1950s, there was a run of gentle British comedies in which outmoded and broken-down local institutions (steam trains, tugboats, vintage cars) were saved by collections of committed eccentrics who despised the new-fangled bus services or soulless council bureaucracies and were willing to resort to a little larceny (in this case, arson). The Smallest Show slots in perfectly with the cycle, getting laughs from the Bijou's already outmoded programme of scratchy Westerns and desert dramas (which increase ice cream sales) and sentiment over the staff's midnight screenings of silent movies that remind them of better days. It's likeable rather than hilarious, with Sellers and Miles buried under crepe hair and fake wrinkles competing to out-dodder each other and losing the picture to the inimitable Rutherford, who doesn't have to fake her eccentricity. Pin-up, June Cunningham, is the glamorous usherette and Sid James plays her annoyed Dad. On the DVD: The Smallest Show on Earth is presented in a decent print, but with no extras. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection. --Kim Newman

• Thumbelina (1994) | DVD | (24/01/2000) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ranking just behind the best of animator Don Bluth's films (Anastasia and The Secret of NIMH), Thumbelina is a bubble-light version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. The finger-sized heroine goes about the old-fashioned trials of trying to find a good man, but the film is clever enough to make it endearing for the 3-6 set and more than passable for adult viewers. Barry Manilow provides much of the song score, which helps immensely. The ballad "Let Me Be Your Wings" is as good as Disney's best. Carol Channing and Charo have a good ol' time with their songs too. The voice of Thumbelina is none other than Jodi Benson, who gave voice to Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

• Peter Sellers - Hoffman / The Smallest Show On Earth / Carlton-Browne Of The F.O./ Two Way Stretch | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Featuring the films: 'Hoffman' 'The Smallest Show On Earth' 'Carlton-Browne Of The F.O.' and 'Two Way Stretch'. Hoffman *(WS 1.85:1 Anamorphic 1970 1 hour and 47 Minutes Colour): Peter Sellers is Hoffman a middle aged misfit who blackmails his young attractive secretary into spending a week with him. Although he behaves like a creep throughout the weekend he actually emerges as a sympathetic character in the end. Two Way Stretch *(FS 1960 1 hour and 23 minutes B&W):

• Horrors Of The Black Museum | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A murder writer gains a valuable insight into his craft by practising for real!

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