"Actor: Lauren Farrow"

• Swimming Pool | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £11.56   |  Saving you £8.43 (72.92%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When a British writer visits her publisher's home in the South of France, her English reserve is jarred after the publisher's reckless daughter unexpectedly arrives and sets off an unsettling series of events.

• A Dandy In Aspic | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In this stylish spy thriller a Londoner working in British Intelligence Alexander Eberlin (Laurence Harvey) actually is a Russian counter-espionage agent named Krasnevin. Fraser (Harry Andrews) head of British Intelligence gives his men a special assignment--find and destroy Krasnevin! He discovers there is no one to whom he can turn and even doubts a swinging Londoner with whom he is having an affair.

• A Dandy in Aspic (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (21/03/2022) from £13.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The final film by the great Anthony Mann (Winchester '73, El Cid) A Dandy in Aspic is a stylish and complex cold-war thriller starring Laurence Harvey (Room at the Top, The Manchurian Candidate) as a Russian double-agent working for British Intelligence who is assigned to track down and kill an unusual target. Falling between the outlandish exploits of James Bond and the dour realism of John le Carré's ˜circus of spies', this paranoid thriller is a dark and refined affair, with a superb supporting cast headed by Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby, See No Evil) and Tom Courtenay (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Otley), wonderful cinematography by regular Powell and Pressburger cameraman Christopher Challis, and with a terrific score by Quincy Jones. Extras High Definition remaster Original mono audio Audio commentary with author and critic Samm Deighan The BEHP Interview with Christopher Challis (1988, 107 mins): archival audio recording, made as part of the British Entertainment History Project, featuring the cinematographer in conversation with Kevin Gough-Yates A Time to Die (2019, 10 mins): members of the crew recall aspects of the film's production Pulling Strings (2019, 22 mins): titles designer Michael Graham Smith and puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew discuss the distinctive opening credit sequence Inside Mann (2019, 12 mins): appreciation by critic and broadcaster Richard Combs London to Berlin (2019, 6 mins): exploration of A Dandy in Aspic's British and German locations Berlin: The Swinging City (1968, 5 mins): original promotional film produced by Columbia Pictures Isolated music & effects track Original theatrical trailer Image gallery: on-set and promotional photography New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Agatha Christie DVD Collection | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £24.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (60.02%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The four films in this Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Collection demonstrate exactly why Christie's reassuringly formulaic whodunits have been extraordinarily resilient source material. In each we find a corpse (or several), an assorted group of suspects gathered in a self-contained location, all with a motive to commit murder, and the coincidental presence of the totem detective (Poirot or Miss Marple). Between 1974 and 1981, producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin mined the Christie seam for some of its ripest riches. Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lumet, features a cavalcade of stars including Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud and Sean Connery; while Christie herself gave Albert Finney's Poirot her blessing. The Art Deco setting exudes glamour; the plot is preposterously diverting; the lighting, silvery and washed-out, giving the suspects an appropriately grim and ghoulish air. With a superior Anthony Shaffer screenplay Death on the Nile (1978) saw Peter Ustinov taking over as Poirot. The backdrop of ancient Egyptian monuments helps bring this adaptation a touch of class, complemented by composer Nino Rota's epic theme tune. The Mirror Crack'd (1980) features Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak as rival Hollywood legends descending on a quaint English village to make a film, with Rock Hudson as Taylor's husband and Angela Lansbury as a rather unconvincingly robust Miss Marple. Shaffer returned to the fray, adapting Evil Under the Sun (1981) and moving Poirot from the Cornish Riviera to an island off the coast of Albania. Ustinov reprises his role and Maggie Smith returns, camper than ever, as the hotel owner inconvenienced by murder. On the DVD: It's a pity that the sound quality hasn't been sharpened up, though: Murder on the Orient Express sometimes evokes memories of the muffled incoherence of an old fleapit. Apart from trailers, extras are few and far between. There are no cast lists or filmographies. But Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun both feature interesting short promotional "'making of"' documentaries in 4:3 format. --Piers Ford