"Actor: Les Brown"

• The Stranger | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Scourge Of The Worlds - A Dungeons And Dragons Adventure | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure is not a film sequel to Dungeons and Dragons (2000), but the DVD equivalent of an interactive role-playing novel. There are over 900 short digitally animated sequences, leading every so often to a choice to be made with the remote control, resulting after about 90 minutes in one of four possible endings. Just as the original D&D was inspired by The Lord of the Rings, the scenarios here are Tolkien rehashed: a newly arisen darkness is seeking an ancient ultimate weapon, against which stand a human warrior, Regdar, a halfling, Lidda and an elven wizard, Mialee. The CGI is closer to Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles than the pseudo-realism of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the electronic score is tiresome and the contemporary American voice acting, using such expressions as "head's up" and "…or something", is laughable. What of the interactive element? Essentially it offers two equally uninteresting paths at the end of every major scene--uninteresting because it's impossible to care what happens to the marionette-like stereotypes no matter what they do. While the adventure does offer plenty of well-choreographed cartoon-style action, interacting with Scourge of Worlds is ultimately about as much fun as watching someone else play a computer game--and that's just the first time through. On the DVD: Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure fills the DVD with the 900-plus animated sequences, presumably leaving no room for extras. The only options are between stereo sound and far more involving Dolby Digital 5.1. The image appears to have been taken directly from a digital master and is flawless, the images only limited by the TV-standard computer rendering. --Gary S Dalkin

• Shaft Trilogy | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £30.99

  The original and hippest version of Shaft cruised onto cinema screens in 1971. John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is an African-American private eye who has a rocky relationship with cops, an even rockier one with Harlem gangsters, and a healthy sex life. The script finds Shaft tracking down the kidnapped daughter of a black mobster, but the pleasure of the film is the sum of its attitude, Roundtree's uncompromising performance, and the thrilling, Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes. Director Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree) seems fond of certain detective genre clichés (e.g., the hero walking into his low-rent office and finding a hood waiting to talk with him), but he and Roundtree make those moments their own. Shaft produced a couple of sequels, a follow-up television series, and a remake starring Samuel L. Jackson, but none had the impact this movie did. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com Shaft's Big Score is the first sequel to the super-hip 1971 original. When a pal of detective John Shaft is murdered in a bombing, New York's coolest private eye finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between black and white gangsters over the numbers racket in Queens. Directed by Gordon Parks (who does a brief cameo as a croupier in an illegal casino) and written by Ernest Tidyman (both of whom made the original Shaft), this film lacks the pacing of its progenitor. Roundtree is at his best when he's questioning a woman he's just met about a suspect while at the same time beguiling her into the sack (ah, those lazy, crazy days of the sexual revolution). The finale--a shootout in a cemetery, followed by a car-boat-helicopter chase through Queens and up the Harlem River--is preposterously drawn-out: Shaft, impervious to machine-gun fire, winds up tripping, spraining his ankle, and limping while running from the chopper; two shots later, he's sprinting like a halfback. Look for late Muhammad Ali trainer Drew Bundini Brown as a wise-cracking mobster. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.comShaft in Africa, the second sequel to the original hit, foreshadows itself early on when Shaft, asked to go undercover in Africa to halt a modern-day slave trade, claims that he's not James Bond but strictly Sam Spade. Bond, however, is the operative model here, with John Shaft masquerading as an Ethiopian to infiltrate the slave business and bring it down. Yet everyone he encounters seems to know who he is and wants to kill him--but the string of dead bodies he leaves in his wake across two continents proves that no one is able to stop everyone's favourite hip private eye. Written by Stirling Silliphant, the film is long on action set pieces that are filmed with more energy than the previous movie, Shaft's Big Score. Given contemporary practices involving smugglers of illegal Chinese and Mexican immigrants, the plot isn't all that far-fetched. Roundtree, as usual, is the picture of unflappable cool--but don't get him mad. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Dirty Oil | DVD | (04/10/2010) from £9.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Deep behind-the-scenes into the strip-mined world of Alberta Canada where the vast and toxic Tar Sands deposit supplies the U.S. with the majority of its oil. Through the eyes of scientists 'big oil' officials politicians doctors environmentalists and aboriginal citizens directly impacted by 'the largest industrial project on the planet today ' the filmmakers journey to both sides of the border to see the emotional and irreversible toll this 'black gold rush' fueled by America's addiction to oil is taking on our planet.

• Kennedy | DVD | (25/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

• Fist Of The North Star | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Experience a brand-new feature-packed presentation of the World's ONLY live-action adaptation of the Manga sensation Fist of the North Star. Made with the full cooperation of leading man Gary Daniels this 2-Disc Special Collectors' Edition features a host of special features that will appeal to action fans everywhere.

• Flubber | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £17.46   |  Saving you £2.53 (14.49%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Disney couldn't resist the temptation to remake 1961's popular comedy The Absent Minded Professor, so they cast Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard (a role vaguely related to the character originated by Fred MacMurray), and the result is a comedy that, frankly, doesn't fully deserve its modest success. It's admittedly clever to a point, and certainly the digitally flubberised special effects provide the kind of movie magic that's entertaining for children and adults alike. The professor can't even remember his own wedding day (much to the chagrin of his fiancée, played by Marcia Gay Harden), and now his academic rival (Christopher McDonald) is trying to steal his latest and purely accidental invention-flying rubber, or ... flubber. The green goo magnifies energy and can be used as an amazing source of power, but in the hands of screenwriter John Hughes it becomes just another excuse to recycle a lot of Home Alone-style slapstick humour involving a pair of bumbling would-be flubber thieves. There's also a floating robot named Weebo and some catchy music by Danny Elfman to accompany dancing globs of flubber, but the story's too thin to add up to anything special. Lightweight fun, but, given the title, it lacks a certain bounce. Of course, that didn't stop Disney's marketing wizards from turning it into a home video hit. --Jeff Shannon

• Flesh / Trash / Heat | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  This box set features three films all directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol using his 'factory' actors. The films loosely form a trilogy designed to encapsulate the 60's generation. Flesh (1968): Joe 'the hustler' earns money to pay for his girlfriend's abortion. Taking to the streets he meets an artist obsessed with body worship a couple of transvestites an ex-girlfriend working as a topless dancer and a friend whose arm-pits have been torched with a fla

• Rita Hayworth: The Collection (Box Set) | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  You Were Never Lovelier (1942) In this lavish Hollywood musical, the headstrong daughter (Hayworth) of a powerful Argentine hotelier has to contend with her father's attempts to get her to marry...; ; Cover Girl (1944) Rusty Parker (Hayworth), a red-headed leggy dancer at Danny McGuire's Night Club in Brooklyn, wants to be a successful Broadway star. She enters a contest to be a 'Cover Girl' as a stepping-stone in her career...; ; Gilda (1946) In the story of Gilda, Johnn...

• The Final Curtain | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £3.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (300.75%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Established TV host J.J. Curtis and up and coming TV star Dave Turner are embroiled in a race to discredit each other to win ratings...

• Jazz Legends-Big Bands V1 | DVD | (28/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The short films included in this compilation are known as Soundies. These musical films were shown in a jukebox machine called a Panoram. Over 2000 of these films were made between 1941 and 1947. The Big Bands Volume One is a sampling of the numerous bands who performed in front of the Soundies cameras. This edition includes many of the hits of the 1940's performed by some of the biggest stars of the era. Initially, Soundies were extremely popular but due to a shortage of production materials during the war the Panorams were in short supply, ultimately causing the demise of the Soundie in 1947. Nevertheless, Soundies captured on film many superb musicians at the peak of their powers, making an irreplaceable contribution to the history of American music. Using the best possible sources, Storyville Films has painstakingly located and restored the Soundies in this program to the best possible condition. In some cases the available prints were not up to our usual excellent standards. We have chosen to include those films because of their historic value.

• Tarzan The Fearless / Tarzan And The Trappers | DVD | (01/11/2000) from £15.18   |  Saving you £-11.19 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Two classic films 'Tarzan the Fearless' and 'Tarzan and the Trappers' both on one DVD. Starring Larry 'Buster' Crabbe and Gordon Scott as the Lord of the Jungle. 'Tarzan The Fearless': Based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs 'Tarzan The Fearless' features 1932 gold medal swimmer Larry 'Buster' Crabbe as the lord of the jungle. Producer Sol Lesser strung together four episodes of a 12-part serial and released them as a full length movie to rival Johnny Weissmuler's Tarzan. In t

• Nothing Sacred | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £15.62   |  Saving you £1.37 (8.77%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Nothing Sacred (1937) in which Carole Lombard co-stars with Frederic March is one of her most delightful movie outings and her only feature in colour. The hilarious screenplay by Ben Hecht and James H. Street has her cast as Hazel Flagg a small town girl who mistakenly believes that she is dying of radium poisoning. March plays a newspaper reporter who in the best tradition of yellow journalism talks his editor into bringing her to New York for one last fling. The faultless direc

• Heavy Gear - Series 1 | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  On the planet Terra Nova in a distant future war veterans have become the providers of entertainment battling each other in huge armour called 'Gears'... This double DVD contains 13 episodes from the incredible CGI animated TV series with 10 episodes edited into 2 explosive stories - 'The Dragon's Shadow' and 'Battle for the Badlands'.

• Moonlight Sonata | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £11.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  In this romantic tale Paderewski the famed pianist and two other plane crash survivors are guests of a Swedish baroness. Interwoven throughout this gentle and charming story are exquisite piano solos performed superbly by the elderly pianist Paderewski.

• Remote | Blu Ray | (11/02/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Barclay James Harvest Feat. Les Holroyd - on the Road | DVD | (24/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  This film was recorded during this band's first tour of Germany during the period from 15th October to 3rd November 2002.The audio was recorded at the Bad Godesburg Stadthalle on the 30th October 2002.

• Charlie Chaplin Marathon - Vol. 2 - A Dog's Life / The Kid / Behind The Screen | DVD | (09/02/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Featuring 'A Dogs Life' and 'The Kid' and 'Behind The Screen'.

• Demon Under Glass | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Who is the monster the undead creature of the night or the scientists experimenting on him? The pursuit of a serial killer leads to a deeper evil. When a creature of myth and legend a real vampire is captured he is imprisoned in a specially built medical unit and subjected to brutal medical experiments. With the project's original MD dead a rookie from the clinic downstairs is brought in as a replacement. As the procedures becomes more gruesome he is torn between sympathy

• The Astounding She Monster (Region 2) | DVD | (09/10/2009) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A