"Actor: Peter Ford"

• Down Among The Z Men | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £7.29   |  Saving you £8.70 (119.34%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Although they made their name in the medium of radio, the legendary Goons also made brief forays into the world of television and, with Down Among the Z Men, film. It captures the team at a very early stage in their career, with Michael Bentine still in the fold, and with their unique, anarchic brand of humour still in its infancy. Sadly, the style and feel of the film does little to suit their comedy style. While radio offered an opportunity for their imaginations to run riot, here the four find themselves tied to a few stock characters, most of whom would make a more animated appearances later in their career. The plot--with its tale of eccentric professors and evil spies--sees a series of musical numbers and a variety performance crow barred into the proceedings. Those who wish to add to an already existing Goons collection may want to consider this, but anyone wondering what all the fuss is about should head straight for the many radio collections available and hear the sound of true genius at work. On The DVD: Down Among the Z Men offers little to recommend, with the DVD lacking in any extras whatsoever. Being taken from an original fifties print, the black and white picture is of reasonable quality yet cannot help but look extremely dated. At best it is the sort of curio that would pass time on a Sunday afternoon but it is hard to consider this a particularly essential DVD release. –-Phil Udell

• The Power Game - Complete Collection | DVD | (07/07/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  ITV's famous boardroom drama from the 1960's starring Patrick Wymark Barbara Murray Clifford Evans Rosemary Leach Peter Barkworth Ian Holm and George Sewell. A spin-off from the earlier 'The Plane Makers' The Power Game made a star of Patrick Wymark as the now knighted Sir John Wilder the ruthless and power hungry executive who everybody loved to hate. The series captivated the viewing public in 1965 when first aired (one of the five most watched programme of 1966 when this first series ended) and again in 1985 when Channel 4 re-screened the saga at peak time on Saturday evenings. Episodes Comprise: 1. The New Boy 2. Lady for a Knight 3. Hagadan 4. The Politician 5. Point of Balance 6. Saturday's Women 7. The Switch 8. The Crunch 9. Late Via Rome 10. Persons and Papers 11. Trade Secrets 12. The Man With Two Hats 13. Confound Their Politics 14. Nothing's Free 15. Ambassador Status 16. Grounds for Decision 17. The Front Men 18. A Matter for Speculation 19. The Big View 20. The Dead Sea Fruit 21. The Chicken Run 22. Safe Conduct 23. The Side of the Angels 24. Tax Return 25. Where Do I Want to Go? 26. There's No Such Thing as a Dead Heat 27. One Via Zurich 28. The Big Nothing 29. The Outsider 30. The Goose Chase 31. Private Treaty 32. Without Prejudice 33. Cat is You. Bird is Me. 34. Standard Practice 35. The Heart Market 36. The New Minister 37. Drinks on Sunday 38. Triangles 39. Mergers

• Doctor Who - The Five Doctors | DVD | (01/11/1999) from £6.22   |  Saving you £13.77 (221.38%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Yes, The Five Doctors is the one that gathers together Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker and Davison, dumps them on some moorland and lets some of the Doctor's greatest enemies take potshots at them. Except, of course, that William Hartnell had sadly passed on by the time this series was made in 1983 (although his replacement Richard Hurndall does an excellent job) and Tom Baker was only featured as a patched-in cameo, apparently prevented from joining in by a temporal thingummy. However, this kind of creakiness comes with the territory and is soon forgotten. The assorted incarnations of the Doctor (together with a scattering of assistants) are drawn together through time and space to battle Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti--those weird androids which keep jumping into the air and disappearing--and many other old foes. They realise that they're on their home planet of Gallifrey and must eventually deal with the legacy of Rassilon, founder of the Time Lords. It's all great fun, of course, and the excellent chapter points on this DVD compensate for the rather self-indulgent lack of editing. --Roger Thomas

• The Kid Stays In The Picture | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Adapted from his own tell-all autobiography, this acclaimed documentary traces the meteoric rise, fall, and rise again of legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans, and takes the audience on an intimate journey into the mind of this Hollywood legend.

• Jagged Edge | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (93.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jagged Edge was one of a series of entertaining if porous thrillers crafted by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas before he wrote the ridiculous Showgirls. This 1985 movie is a taut mystery about an attorney (Glenn Close) who defends a newspaper publisher (Jeff Bridges) accused of murder. The fact that Close's character falls for him is more convenient than plausible, but it is a necessary emotional bridge for Eszterhas and director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) to build toward a powerful finale. Scary, fun as courtroom dramas go, the film is well serviced by the two lead stars and has impressive support from co-star Peter Coyote and especially from Robert Loggia, who plays Close's cop buddy. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• London's Burning - The Complete First Series | DVD | (23/05/2005) from £15.91   |  Saving you £12.07 (93.42%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Blackwall Fire Station's Blue Watch takes to the streets again in the highly-popular drama series of the 80s and early 90s. Viewers loved the quirky but human characters that put their lives on the line with every episode and this set features some of the most fondly remembered including female fire-fighter Josie Lawrence ""Bayleaf"" ""Sicknote"" and ""Charisma"". This set not only features the original pilot film (by celebrated and award-winning writer Jack Rosenthal) but all five ep

• Rapture (Dual Format) | Blu Ray | (28/07/2014) from £17.53   |  Saving you £0.46 (2.62%)   |  RRP £17.99

  An international co-production made on location along the Brittany coastline Rapture is one of the most remarkable coming of-age films ever made and with its vivid atmosphere and emotional acuity is one of the most striking and neglected studio projects of the 1960s. Three years after she shot to prominence in the classic Sundays and Cybele Patricia Gozzi gives an extraordinary performance as the young girl whose isolated existence under her overbearing father Melvyn Douglas (Ninotchka). Is turned on its head with the sudden arrival of a seductive fugitive from the law Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap). With a supporting cast including Gunnel Lindblom Sylvia Kay (Wake in Fright BBC TV's Just Good Friends) and Peter Sallis (Last of the Summer Wine) stunningly expressive black and white Cinemascope visuals and an exquisite score by Georges Delerue Rapture is an astonishing rediscovery presented for the first time on home video in the UK in a new high-definition restoration. Special Features: New exclusive commentary with film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redmon Booklet featuring an essay by critic Mike Sutton Vintage Stills

• Mr Jones | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-0.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Richard Gere is pretty convincing as a severe manic-depressive whose episodes of euphoria sometimes find him dancing on a two-by-four far above the street or climbing onstage during a symphony performance to "conduct" the orchestra. When the pendulum swings the other way, he is practically catatonic. As a character study, this film by Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) has its truly compelling moments, but Mr. Jones isn't just a character study. Inexplicably, the film ushers in a preposterous romance between this poor fellow and his psychiatrist (Lena Olin). Delroy Lindo has a nice part as a sympathetic construction worker who tries to help Gere's character. --Tom Keogh

• Yesspeak - Yes 35th Anniversary | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Shot during the group's 35th Anniversary European Tour, Yesspeak offers a 169-minute documentary about the classic progressive rock band Yes, together with an audio-only presentation of their 2003 set. The feature, narrated by Roger Daltrey, is a refreshingly straightforward affair, with a near three-hour running time allowing rather more depth than the usual rockumentary. Divided into 10 chapters the programme systematically covers the background, history and outlook of the group before an extended interview with each of the five members of the classic line-up: Jon Anderson (vocals), Steve Howe (guitar), Chris Squire (bass), Alan White (drums), and Rick Wakeman (keys). Finally there are more general sections on touring and the band's music. Archive material and glimpses of the 2003 tour are interwoven with the interviews, but this is very much a documentary, not a concert (to see Yes at their modern best watch Yes: Symphonic Live, 2002). The documentary puts a positive spin on a sometimes chequered past, and it's clearly aimed at long-term fans, but for those who have followed Yes through the decades this is satisfyingly comprehensive and thoroughly enjoyable; from Steve Howe's famous but still entertaining guitar/Concord story, to Rick Wakeman's tea break during a typically expansive prog-rock solo. On the DVD: Yesspeak comes as a two-disc set. Disc 1 offers the first five chapters and 89 minutes of the documentary, while the remaining 80 minutes are featured on Disc 2. The picture is an excellent amamorphically enhanced 16:9 widescreen presentation, though by necessity the archive material is of variable quality. Switches into black and white and slow motion are a typically unnecessary distraction of the rock documentary format, but the DVD handles them well. There are excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtracks and optional French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish subtitles. Disc 2 also showcases 126 minutes of concert audio. This is accompanied by concert photos but the sound is only Dolby Digital 5.1, without a DTS option. Although the sound is good it does not match the crystal clear quality of the same music as heard in fragments during the documentary itself. Presumably a DVD of the concerts will follow with much better sound, and the audio here will simply serve as a trailer for that release? --Gary S Dalkin

• Will Hay - Oh Mr Porter / Convict 99 | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £12.60   |  Saving you £0.39 (3.10%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Though he gets solo above-the-title billing, Will Hay was no more a solo comedian than Groucho Marx. Teamed with sidekicks Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt the trio formed one of British cinema's greatest comedy gangs. Oh, Mr Porter!, one of their finest vehicles, finds Hay as congenial William Porter, an inept railway worker who is shunted off to the dead-end job of stationmaster in Buggleskelly, Northern Ireland. The delight of the film is in the interplay between Hay and Marriott, the single-toothed dotty old-timer, and Moffatt, the chubby smart kid, as they fail the most basic requirements of their jobs but come up trumps when investigating the ghost of One-Eyed Joe and his haunted mill. --Kim Newman One of Will Hay's brisker comic efforts, 1936's Convict 99 sees Dr Benjamin Twist, Hay's clueless schoolmaster, caught in a case of mistaken identity and invited to head up a prison for especially hard-boiled criminals. It's a typical outtake from Hay's bizarrely lawless universe in which, for all his harrumphing and bluster, he's unable to exercise any sort of discipline whatsoever over the men in his charge. Hay plays exactly the same character from film to film, one so ill-equipped for any situation he's equally suited for all. Whereas Twist is an incompetent who somehow muddles through, Hay the comic actor is a master of timing and double-takes who knows precisely how to create the air of a shambles. --David Stubbs

• Royal Wedding | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Brother and sister dance act Tom and Ellen Bowen finish an engagement in New York and journey to London at around the same time as a Royal wedding. On board the cruise ship Ellen meets and falls in love with Lord John Brindale with the result she pays less attention to her dancing. Upon arrival in London Tom auditions for a new partner and meets Anne Ashmond but romance starts to threaten the act...

• Animal Farm | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  After the technical achievement of Babe, it was almost inevitable that "talking animal" effects would be applied to the serious themes of George Orwell's Animal Farm. A bitterly satirical indictment of Stalinist Russia and the failure of Communism, Orwell's 1945 novel is a time-honoured classic, so it's only fitting that this TNT production remains largely faithful to Orwell's potent narrative. A showcase for the impressive creations of Jim Henson's Creature Shop (where director John Stephenson was a veteran supervisor), the film employs animatronic creatures and computer animation to tell the story of uprising, unity, and tragic rebellion among the farm animals.The politics of "Animalism" are initially effective, ousting enemy humans according to rules ordained by Old Major, the barnyard pig whose death sets the stage for the corruptive influence of the pig Napoleon, who cites superior intelligence as his right to dominance. This tyrannical reign destroys the farm's stability, and the film--decidedly not for young children--preserves Orwell's dark, cynical view of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Particularly effective is a propaganda film shown to the barnyard collective, and certain scenes--while not as impressive as the Babe films--powerfully convey the force of Orwell's story through animal "performance". Animal Farm occasionally falters in its emotional impact (the fate of the horse Boxer should be heart-rending, and it isn't), but it's certainly blessed with an elite voice cast, including Peter Ustinov, Patrick Stewart, Pete Postlethwaite, Julia Ormond, Kelsey Grammer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Paul Scofield, and Ian Holm. Not the masterpiece it might've been, this is nevertheless a worthy representation of Orwell's novel. --Jeff Shannon

• Alice's Adventures In Wonderland | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £35.99   |  Saving you £-19.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A young Fiona Fullerton heads an all-star British cast in this double BAFTA-winning musical comedy; widely regarded as the most lavish and faithful adaptations of Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy novel. Filmed to mark the centenary of the completion of the Alice novels this extravagant British spectacle which brings to life Sir Tenniel's famous illustrations with a bewitching score from James Bond composer John Barry and BAFTA-winning cinematography by Geoffrey unsworth (2001: A Sp

• The Picture Of Dorian Gray | Blu Ray | (18/11/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Sherlock Holmes - The Hound Of The Baskervilles | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £8.50   |  Saving you £-2.51 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A remake of one of Conan Doyle's most famous and popular Sherlock Holmes stories. Is Sir Charles Baskerville's strange death the result of demonic forces and a family curse? Sherlock Holmes searches for a more earthly explanation when Sir Henry Baskerville receives a death threat upon his arrival from America. In this eerie mystery hounds are howling on the moors... a killer is on the loose... and Holmes is on the case.

• Dead End Drive In | Blu Ray | (20/09/2016) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The price of admission is the rest of your life From Ozploitation King Brian Trenchard-Smith (Turkey Shoot, Stuntrock) comes an Australian Grindhouse classic which pits the dregs of society against each other in a crazed battle featuring atomic punks, burnt out junkers and a totally corrupt police force. In an apocalyptic future where crimes rates have spiralled out of control and the economy has permanently collapsed, those in charge have found a perfect solution to the rise of lawlessness Lock away the undesirables, criminals and low down dirty scumbags in the old Drive-in movie theatres, now converted into violent concentration camps. Now, two kids who thought they were only coming along to see the show are trapped by circumstance in the chaos of Dead End Drive-In, can they escape before they too become resigned to the crazed life in this hellhole like everybody else? . There's a party every day, a movie every night, and all the junk food you can eat. What more can a kid want except to get out.

• I'm All Right Jack | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £14.21   |  Saving you £2.78 (16.40%)   |  RRP £16.99

  After a decade on radio in The Goons, 1959's I'm All Right Jack set Peter Sellers on the road to international stardom. Sellers played both Sir John Kennaway, and unforgettably, the Bolshy trade union leader Fred Kite (he would go on to take three roles in Dr Strangelove and featured endless disguises in The Pink Panther in 1963) series. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge, lampooning the then burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel's (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract, a scheme which involves manipulating his innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) into acting as the catalyst in an escalating labour dispute, from which the socialist Mr Kite is only too keen to make capital. Management and labour both have their self-serving hypocrisy dissected in this ingenious comedy, actually a sequel to the military comedy Private's Progress (1956), but which stands independent of the earlier film. Both films were made by the brothers John and Roy Boulting, director and producer of such British classics as Brighton Rock (1947), Seven Days to Noon (1950), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959) and Heaven's Above (1963). The superb cast of I'm All Right Jack also features Richard Attenborough, John Le Mesurier, Margaret Rutherford and Terry Thomas. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Cluny Brown (The Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (17/09/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Secret Policeman's Ball - The Complete Edition | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A collection of all The Secret Policeman's Ball concerts in aid of Amnesty International. A unique collection containing over 10 hours and spanning 3 decades of live comedy and music for Amnesty. Includes performances by Peter Cook Sting Dudley Moore Rowan Atkinson John Cleese Eric Clapton Michael Palin and many more... This 4 disc set includes the following shows: Pleasure At Her Majesty's (1976) Mermaid Frolics (1977) The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979) The Secret Poli

• 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):