"Actor: Kenneth Collins"

• The White Princess | DVD | (11/12/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Sink the Bismarck / The Enemy Below (Double Pack) | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £14.35   |  Saving you £0.64 (4.46%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Enemy Below and Sink the Bismarck! form a double feature of semi-classic CinemaScope-era WWII naval dramas sailing from the Fox vault onto DVD for the first time. In The Enemy Below Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens are respectively captains of a US destroyer and a German U-boat whose vessels come into conflict in the South Atlantic. Both are good men with a job to do, the script noting Jurgens' distaste for Hitler and the Nazis and engaging our sympathy with the German sailors almost as much as the Americans. Made at the height of the Cold War of the 1950s, the film delivers a liberal message of cooperation wrapped inside some spectacular action scenes and a story that builds to a tense and exciting, moving finale. Sink the Bismarck! is a British film dating from three years later and adopts a more documentary style in recounting the race against time to track and destroy what was in 1941 the most powerful battleship then built, the Bismarck. Shot in gleaming black and white so as to make use of genuine WWII archive footage, the film is held together by the introduction of a fictional naval officer in overall command of the operation, played excellently by Kenneth More. To add some human warmth he is given a tentative romantic subplot with a WREN played by the luminous Dana Wynter. Though initially slow to gather steam, Sink the Bismarck! finally delivers an epic, thoroughly horrifying conclusion. On the DVD: The Enemy Below and Sink the Bismarck! come as a two-disc set with multiple language and subtitle options, including English for Hard of Hearing, but no extras other than the original trailers. These are presented at 16:9 and 2.35:1. Both are rather faded, but are fine examples of an era when watching the previews didn't guarantee a migraine. Both films are anamorphically enhanced in their original 2.35:1 CinemaScope, and, bar a little grain in some shots and the inevitably inferior archive footage, the picture quality is excellent. The Enemy Below boasts sturdy three-channel sound (left, front, right) while Sink the Bismarck! is in very well mixed stereo. --Gary S Dalkin

• Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide | DVD | (03/06/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  From the Queen of Crime Agatha Christie comes a tale of money manipulation and murder. Self-made multi-millionaire George Barton is a man of influence and power - but even he doesn't have the power to save his beautiful young wife when she collapses poisoned at a dinner party. Who amongst his friends and those who 'love' him most might have done such a deed? And what was the motive? The fact that one of the guests is a leading government minister who was having an affair with the victim leads to concern at the highest levels - and the highest levels call on Colonel Geoffrey Reece and Dr. Catherine Kendall to step in and sort it all out. But what they discover buried in the world of championship footballers fitness fanatics loose-living gamblers friends and family will lead to even more murderous acts before the killer is finally caught out. Special Features: Agatha Christie Biography and Bibliography Photo Gallery Cast Filmographies Subtitles

• Verdi: Il Trovatore -- Opera Australia | DVD | (05/06/2002) from £22.89   |  Saving you £2.10 (9.17%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Il Trovatore, Verdi's 1853 maelstrom of passion, infanticide, double-crossing and revenge, would be a mightily gamy affair if it didn't contain some of his finest arias, a cracker of a tenor's role and one of opera's most powerfully-written characters in the old gypsy woman, Azucena. Although Joan Sutherland, who plays the self-sacrificing lady-in-waiting Leonora in this 1983 Australia Opera production at Sydney Opera House, is the headline star, in truth the supreme assets of this recording are mezzo-soprano Lauris Elms' Azucena, a beautifully sung performance of haunted, wild-eyed sadness; and Sydney Nolan's wonderfully infernal sets, all purple and burnt ochre with suggestions of distorted faces. Sutherland came late to a part which allowed her to sing up a storm without taxing her rather stolid acting style. Her husband and musical director Richard Bonynge gives her the space to unleash some of Verdi's most fluidly opulent melodies--"D'amor sull'ali rosee" is a case in point--whose beauty is often at odds with the underlying horrors of the tale, based on a rather dodgy Spanish melodrama by Gutierrez. Sutherland has strong support from tenor Kenneth Collins as the doomed Manrico and Jonathan Summers as the vengeful Count. On the DVD: Il Trovatore on disc offers the inevitable shortcomings of a filmed for television performance: to the detriment of Nolan's designs (and the hard-pressed make-up team), the lighting doesn't translate well to video. Presented in 4:3 picture format, the quality is frequently murky. The PCM Stereo soundtrack also has its flat and fuzzy moments, particularly during chorus scenes ("Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie") when the orchestra drowns out the singing. But on the whole Sutherland et al sound great.--Piers Ford

• Hideaway | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Based on the best selling novel by Dean R Koontz and directed by Brett Leonard Hideaway is a terrifying journey from the unconscious mind to the heart of evil. Following a miraculous escape from death after a near fatal car crash Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) has suffered terrifying visions of horrific murders murders which he inexplicably feels that that he himself has committed. Tortured by these images Hatch starts to suspect that he has not returned from death alone and that

• Replacement Killers | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This didn't turn out to be quite the deserving American vehicle for Hong Kong action superstar Chow Yun-fat that it should have been. But it is an entertaining potboiler about a hired gun (Chow) who fails to carry out an assignment to kill a cop (which would leave the fellow's son without a father), and becomes a target himself when the contract is handed over to other assassins. Mira Sorvino plays a document forger who is drawn into the fray, pairing up with the hero as they fight their way out of bad spots. The whole enterprise is a little too routine, but the action is sharp and the battles are imaginative and crisp. Director Antoine Fuqua has a by-the-numbers feeling for the influence of Hong Kong on contemporary thrillers (this film was also produced by John Woo), and that's enough to make The Replacement Killers purely enjoyable if not exactly a revelation. --Tom Keogh

• A Matter of Choice/Jungle Street | DVD | (29/09/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jungle Street: The voluptuous Jill Ireland stars as Sue a striptease artist in this tough British crime drama that sees her playing opposite to her real-life husband of the time David McCallum. Jungle Street has McCallum playing Terry Collins a small time thug constantly at war with his family employers and the world. Whilst his friend Johnny (Kenneth Cope) is in prison taking the rap for a robbery they both committed Terry tries to muscle in on his girlfriend Sue. But when Johnny is released and comes looking for Terry and the money from the robbery the two men are on a collision course that can only end in murder... A Matter of Choice: Five people are soon to find their lives inextricably entwined for the worse. Two youths (Malcolm Gerard and Michael Davis) have been searching for girls and end up in a fight with a policeman. The policeman falls and is hit by a car driven by Lisa (Jeanne Moody) and her secret lover John (Anthony Steel). When Lisa's husband Charles finds the police waiting to interview his wife the tangle of lies and deceit that the night started with begins to slowly unravel.

• Turandot - Puccini | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £18.84   |  Saving you £-3.85 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In the Imperial Palace of Peking the Emperor announces that any prince seeking to marry his daughter Turandot must first answer three riddles. Prince Calaf falls immediately in love with Turandot and successfully answers all three. However before the Prince marries Turandot he asks her a riddle of his own.

• U.S. Seals | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £8.20   |  Saving you £-2.22 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  When death stalks the high seas...There's only one combat force for the job... Modern-day pirates have taken to the seas crippling the world shipping trade and making the ocean a very dangerous place to be. The U.S. president has no choice but to call on the immediate intervention of the world's most lethal daring combat force: the Navy SEALs. From an oil rig in the icy North Atlantic to the luxurious playground of the French Riviera the SEALs engage the pirates at every turn leading to the fiery climax at the pirate's base in remote Kazahkstan. What stars as an important mission for the SEALs becomes a personal grudge match and finally a life-and-death struggle for control of the seas. In the tradition of Under Siege and Delta Force U.S. Seals is searing white-hot high-caliber action you'll watch again and again.