"Actor: Peter Miles"

• The Terry Thomas Movie Collection | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.89

  The three films in this Terry Thomas Collection--The Naked Truth, Too Many Crooks and Make Mine Mink--are each an unalloyed delight from beginning to end. Though produced on slim budgets they possess witty scripts by Michael Pertwee, deft direction in two instances by Mario Zampi, inventive music scores and marvellous casts featuring two generations of British actors, from Athene Seyler to a young Kenneth Williams. Individually and as an ensemble these players are a pleasure to watch. But of course Terry Thomas, the catalyst of the collection, runs the gamut with a plethora of facial expressions, body language and verbal repartee that contribute so much to the unbuttoned joy of each film. In the earliest of them, The Naked Truth (1957), TT plays a dodgy peer of the realm being blackmailed in the company of Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton by a gutter press journalist, Dennis Price ("Don't try to appeal to my better nature, because I haven't one"). The moments of slapstick are brought off to a tee as when the larger-than-life Peggy Mount attempts a suicide drop from her window to be saved by an awning on a shop front. Too Many Crooks (1959) has TT being blackmailed once again, this time for the hoards he's stashed away as a renowned tax dodger. Look out for the very funny court scene, where TT makes three appearances on separate charges, before a bemused magistrate, John Le Mesurier. Make Mine Mink (1960), the odd one out in this collection, was adapted from a West End stage farce, Breath of Spring. TT leads a gang of middle-aged biddies who decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life", by staging a series of robberies on furriers, then donating the proceeds to charitable concerns. The splendid cast includes Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams. On the DVD: The Terry Thomas Collection comes in an attractive box containing the three discs. All are 4:3 ratio and with mono sound. The only extras are a trailer for each film which, in the instance of Make Mine Mink, is introduced by Terry Thomas himself, who presents us to his gang of fur thieves as the voice on the soundtrack announces him as "fur, fur funnier than you've seen him before". --Adrian Edwards

• The Smallest Show on Earth | Blu Ray | (11/03/2019) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers star in Basil Dearden's heartwarming comedy The Smallest Show on Earth. This gently whimsical elegy to the golden age of cinema co-stars Bernard Miles, Leslie Phillips and Sid James and is presented here as a brand-new High Definition transfer from the original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio. Overjoyed to learn that they've inherited a cinema in the north of England, Matt and Jean Spenser are subsequently shattered to find it's less of a grand picture palace and more of a fleapit (with three equally decrepit employees). Can the couple make a go of it or will they be forced to sell up and watch the Bijou Kinema be redeveloped into a car park? Special Features: Image gallery PDF material

• Evil Under The Sun | Blu Ray | (23/10/2017) from £10.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A star-studded cast heads this Agatha Christie story of one man's efforts to fathom the mysterious death at a resort hotel in the Mediterranean. Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. Also stars Jane Birkin, Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith. EXTRAS: Making Of Interview with costume designer Anthony Powell Interview with writer Barry Sandler Interview with producer Richard Goodwin Behind the scenes stills gallery Costume designs stills gallery

• Evil Under The Sun | DVD | (23/10/2017) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A star-studded cast heads this Agatha Christie story of one man's efforts to fathom the mysterious death at a resort hotel in the Mediterranean. Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. Also stars Jane Birkin, Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith. EXTRAS: Making Of Interview with costume designer Anthony Powell Interview with writer Barry Sandler Interview with producer Richard Goodwin Behind the scenes stills gallery Costume designs stills gallery

• Kidnapped | DVD | (28/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Cheated out of his rightful inheritance after being kidnapped young David Balfour joins forces with daring adventurer Alan Breck Stewart and together they flee across the Highlands to evade the King's redcoat forces...

• I'm All Right Jack | DVD | (05/02/2007) from £8.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (44.49%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 'I'm Alright Jack' a man becomes the pawn of a corrupt management and a labour union.

• The Hound Of The Baskervilles | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £18.68   |  Saving you £-5.69 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Sherlock Holmes gets the Gothic treatment in Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, a typical mix of mystery and supernatural horror from the famous studio. Peter Cushing is perfectly cast as the great detective, the very embodiment of science and reason (which also made him a great Van Helsing in the Dracula series) in a case wound around a legacy of aristocratic cruelty and a devilish dog wandering the swampy moors. Christopher Lee is a less satisfying fit as the last of the Baskervilles, as he waffles between fear and apathetic disregard, but Andre Morell is a fine Dr Watson and a far cry from Nigel Bruce's sweet bumbler from the Hollywood incarnation of the 1940s. Director Terence Fisher was Hammer's top stylist and the film drips with the mood of the moors, mist hanging in the air, the dying vegetation itself threatening to come to life and trap the next unwary traveller. --Sean Axmaker

• The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season Three (8 disc box set) | DVD | (11/01/2016) from £27.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (42.87%)   |  RRP £39.99

  All 29 episodes from the third season of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller anthology series. The British film-maker returns with a spin-off to his TV show 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' with more murderous and suspenseful tales of mystery. The episodes are: 'The Return of Verge Likens', 'Change of Address', 'Water's Edge', 'The Life Work of Juan Diaz', 'See the Monkey Dance', 'Lonely Place', 'The McGregor Affair', 'Misadventure', 'Triumph', 'Memo from Purgatory', 'Consider Her Ways', 'The Crimson Witness', 'Where the Woodbine Twineth', 'The Final Performance', 'Thanatos Palace Hotel', 'One of the Family', 'An Unlocked Window', 'The Trap', 'Wally the Beard', 'Death Scene', 'The Photographer and the Undertaker', 'Thou Still Unravished Bride', 'Completely Foolproof', 'Power of Attorney', 'The World's Oldest Motive', 'The Monkey's Paw - A Retelling', 'The Second Wife', 'Night Fever' and 'Off Season'.

• The Smallest Show on Earth | DVD | (11/03/2019) from £11.59   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  NOTICE: Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk DOES NOT have English audio and subtitles.

• Crossing Delancey | DVD | (17/05/2016) from £20.46   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Private's Progress | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  With a remarkable cast headlined by Ian Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price and Terry Thomas, WWII army comedy Private's Progress was one of the major British hits of 1956. Carmichael is Stanley Windrush, a naïve young soldier who during training falls in with the streetwise Private Cox (Attenborough). Windrush's uncle is the even more ambitiously corrupt Colonel Tracepurcel (Price), who plans to divert the war effort to liberate art treasures already looted by the Germans. The first half of the film is quite pedestrian, though the pace picks up considerably once the heist gets underway, and the cheery tone masks a really rather dark and cynical heart. Carmichael's innocent abroad quickly wears thin, but Attenborough and Price steal the film, as well as the paintings, with typically excellent turns. With a nod in the direction of Ealing's The Ladykillers (1955) the film also anticipates the attitudes of both The League of Gentlemen (1959) and Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22 (1961), though lacks the latter's greater sophistication. The cast also contains such British stalwarts as William Hartnell, Peter Jones, Ian Bannen, John Le Mesurier, Christopher Lee and David Lodge, and was sufficiently popular to reunite all the major players for the superior sequel, I'm Alright Jack (1959). On the DVD: Private's Progress is presented in black and white at 4:3 Academy ratio, though the film appears to have been shot full frame and then unmasked for home viewing so there is more top and bottom to the images than at the cinema. The print used shows constant minor damage and is quite grainy, though no more than expected for a low-budget film of the time. The mono sound is average and unremarkable, and there are no special features. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Naked Truth | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £6.73   |  Saving you £3.26 (48.44%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In 1957's The Naked Truth Terry Thomas plays a dodgy peer of the realm being blackmailed in the company of Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton by a gutter press journalist, Dennis Price ("Don't try to appeal to my better nature, because I haven't one"). One fascinating element in this picture is the portrayal of those relationships that could be only suggested in a period of tighter censorship, such as Peter Sellers' TV personality and Kenneth Griffith as his dresser, whose gay relationship is only faintly etched in here. More overt is the characterisation of a masculine looking authoress, known only by her initials, but sporting Agatha Christie's hairdo. The moments of slapstick are brought off to a tee, as when the larger-than-life Peggy Mount attempts a suicide drop from her window to be saved by an awning on a shop front. On the DVD: The Naked Truth comes to DVD in 4:3 ratio and with a mono soundtrack. The only extra feature is a trailer. More TT tomfoolery can be found in the three-disc Terry Thomas Collection. --Adrian Edwards

• Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A star-studded cast heads this Agatha Christie story about the efforts of Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to fathom the mysterious death of a capricious star in a Mediterranean resort hotel...

• I'm Alright Jack *Digitally Restored | DVD | (19/01/2015) from £10.35   |  Saving you £7.64 (73.82%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Winning BAFTAs for Best British Screenplay and Best British Actor (Peter Sellers) I’M ALL RIGHT JACK is popularly considered to be the best of John and Roy Boulting’s social satires.Sellers plays both Sir John Kennaway and the tragic-comic trade union leader Fred Kite. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge lampooning the then-burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract a scheme that 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. Featuring a superb supporting cast including Terry-Thomas Richard Attenborough John Le Mesurier Irene Handl and Margaret Rutherford this is an ingenious comedy about the British workplace and self-serving hypocrisy. A sequel to 1956’s A Private’s Progress the film is bought roaringly to life by Sellers’ astonishing turn as the Stalinist unionist. Bonus Features: Brand new interview with Liz Fraser The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film Cinefile: Seller’s Best

• I'm Alright Jack *Digitally Restored | Blu Ray | (19/01/2015) from £11.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (91.74%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Winning BAFTAs for Best British Screenplay and Best British Actor (Peter Sellers) I’M ALL RIGHT JACK is popularly considered to be the best of John and Roy Boulting’s social satires.Sellers plays both Sir John Kennaway and the tragic-comic trade union leader Fred Kite. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge lampooning the then-burning issue of industrial relations. Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) plans to make a fortune from a missile contract a scheme that 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. Featuring a superb supporting cast including Terry-Thomas Richard Attenborough John Le Mesurier Irene Handl and Margaret Rutherford this is an ingenious comedy about the British workplace and self-serving hypocrisy. A sequel to 1956’s A Private’s Progress the ?lm is bought roaringly to life by Sellers’ astonishing turn as the Stalinist unionist. Bonus Features: Brand new interview with Liz Fraser The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film Cinefile: Seller’s Best

• 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

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

• Pastor Hall (UK Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (27/06/2022) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When the quiet German village of Altdorf is taken over by an SS platoon which proceeds to enforce Hitler's ideals upon its inhabitants, a kindly pastor questions the agenda of 'The New Order' while members of his parish turn a blind eye to the insidious indoctrination. Before long, he is punished for his vocal opposition and is sent to Dachau, where, despite the abuse and brutality which he suffers, he refuses to give in to the madness and inhumanity of National Socialism. Adapted from Ernst Toller's 1939 play of the same name, and based on the true story of Protestant minister Martin Niemöller, Pastor Hall is the impressive third feature from the Boulting brothers (Brighton Rock). Starring Wilfrid Lawson (Pygmalion) as the iconic pastor, and Nova Pilbeam (Young and Innocent) as his formidable daughter, the film was one of the first anti-Nazi dramas ever made and had its original production delayed by British censors who were not yet ready to be openly critical of Hitler's regime. A bold and stirring tribute to the universal power of faith, courage and personal conviction, Pastor Hall has been newly restored from 4K scans of the nitrate duplicate negative by Powerhouse Films and is finally available on Blu-ray for the first time in the world. Product Features New restoration from a 4K scan of the nitrate duplicate negative by Powerhouse Films Original mono audio Matthew D Hockenos on Martin Niemöller (2022): the author of Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemöller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis discusses the life and legacy of the German pastor Richard Falcon on 'Pastor Hall' (2022): the ex-BBFC examiner discusses the film's history with the British Board of Film Censors Newsreel footage (1946): extract from Welt in Film featuring Niemöller speaking about post-war German guilt The Dawn Guard (1941): short film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Pastor Hall actors Percy Walsh and Bernard Miles as members of the Home Guard Minefield! (1944): documentary short film produced by Roy Boulting for the Army Film Unit New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Fiona Kelly, archival articles, new writing on the short films, and film credits World premiere on Blu-ray Limited edition of 4,000 copies for the UK and US All extras subject to change

• 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

• 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):