Fred Astaire and Jane Powell play a brother and sister dance team who go to London during the Royal Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip and find their own romances. Notable for inspiring songs and Astaires incredible dancing on the ceiling and walls. A must for dancers of all ages and to see once again the greatest dancer of all time.
The Davros Collection contains the following: Doctor Who: Genesis Of The Daleks: This classic Doctor Who story was voted number one in a poll by Doctor Who Magazine. Starring fans' favourite Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor Genesis of the Daleks introduces the merciless villain Davros (Michael Wisher) and tells the terrifying story of how the Daleks came to be. Doctor Who: Destiny of The Daleks: The Doctor and Romana find themselves on Skaro and are forced to be military advisers to the Daleks' enemy Movellans while the Daleks revive Davros. Destiny of the Daleks stars the much loved Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor alongside Lalla Ward as a newly regenerated Romana and David Gooderson the most notorious villain Davros. Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks: Captured in a Time Corridor the Doctor (Peter Davison) and his companions are forced to land on 20th Century Earth after being diverted by the Daleks. It is here that the true purpose of the Time Corridor becomes apparent: after 90 years of imprisonment Davros is to be liberated to assist in the resurrection of his army. But not even the Daleks foresee the poisonous threat presented by their creator. Indeed who would suspect Davros of wanting to destroy his own Daleks - and why? Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks : Davros plans to create a whole new army of Daleks with which to take control of the Universe and it is up to the Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri (Nicola Bryant) to stop him... Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks Special Edition: The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) returns to London in 1963 to deal with some loose ends involving an ancient and powerful Time Lord device. Things however get messy very quickly when two competing factions of Daleks are also after the same thing. Davros Audio Stories: This special edition box set contains an exclusive compilation of all 7 Davros audio stories plus an exclusive brand new audio story - The Davros Mission written by Nicholas Briggs. In this new audio drama specially commissioned for this box set Davros is taken by the Daleks for trial and imminent execution. But even in his darkest hour he finds allies and an insatiable cunning to survive.
Jess is a happily married woman with a heart of gold whose husband Jacob the town's local handyman is Mr Dependable. They live in an idyllic house on the riverbank with Jacob's elderly mother May her sister Brenda as well as Nathan Jacob's elderly widowed cousin. Jess is kind and caring and enjoys taking care of them all. Into this content although unexciting life something is about to happen that will blow Jess's world apart. She is forced to question the entire meaning of her
The complete third series about an eccentric Old Bailey defence lawyer.
Based on real events, Soldier of Orange tells the story of Dutchman Erik Lanshof (a star-making performance by Rutger Hauer) and a small group of students as they struggle to survive the Nazi occupation to the end of the Second World War. The destinies of the characters range from joining the German army to making for England, the OSS and the Resistance. Across a canvas lasting almost three hours director Paul Verhoeven unfolds a saga of friendship, espionage and romance with almost documentary realism--though not as graphically violent as his later American films the torture scenes are intense--crafting a deeply affecting film widely regarded as the greatest ever made in Holland. Comparable recent films such as Enigma (2001) and Charlotte Gray (2002) do not come close. Hauer is brilliant at the heart of what is a detailed and thoughtful drama made with integrity and passion. Co-star Jeroen Krabbé has gone onto a notable career in Hollywood, while Edward Fox and Susan Penhaligon provide more familiar faces for British audiences. The film is shot in Dutch, German and English and subtitled as necessary. Twenty years later Verhoeven made Starship Troopers in 1997, a satirical science-fiction companion to this modern European classic.--Gary S Dalkin
Patrick McGoohan gives an outstanding performance as Henrik Ibsen's uncompromising and ultimately tortured priest in the original 1959 BBC World Theatre production. Highly powerful 'Brand' sometimes makes difficult viewing as the character forces those around him to accept the only true path to God...
A romantic comedy about a man who after being unceremoniously dumped by his fiance pens a ""how-to"" book on breaking up and becomes a best-selling author on the subject. Not wanting his male friends to suffer the same fate he gives them advice on dumping their mates. What ensues is a hilarious comedy of errors!
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 f
Peter Bowles stars as Neville Lytton editor of a Fleet street gossip column in the Daily News. This series navigates the wide variety of fields in which a diarist treads warily - Fleet street takeovers inter newspaper rivalries the aristocracy and crime revealing a world that is by turns funny intriguing and exciting.
Carry On Don't Lose Your Head parodies the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with crinkly, cackling Sid James as master of disguise the Black Fingernail and Jim Dale as his assistant Lord Darcy. He must rescue preposterously effete aristo Charles Hawtrey from the clutches of Kenneth Williams' fiendish Citizen Camembert and his sidekick Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). The Black Fingernail is assisted in his efforts to thwart the birth of the burgeoning republic by the almost supernatural stupidity of his opponents, who fail to recognise the frankly undisguisable Sid James even when dressed as a flirty young woman. What with an executioner who is tricked into beheading himself in order to prove the efficacy of his own guillotine, it's all a little too easy. As usual, no groan-worthy pun is left unturned, nor unheralded by the soundtrack strains of a long whistle or wah-wah trumpet. This is pretty silly stuff even by Carry On standards, with most of the cast barely required to come out of first gear and an overlong climactic swordfight sequence hardly raising the dramatic stakes. Most of the humour here resides neither in the script nor the characterisation but in the endlessly watchable Williams' whooping, nasal delivery (occasionally lapsing into broad Cockney) and the jowl movements of the always-underrated Butterworth. On the DVD: There are no extra features except scene selection. The picture is 4:3 full screen ratio.--David Stubbs
Famed raconteur and wit Sir Peter Ustinov is tempted out of retirement in his Swiss Vineyard for one last grand journey around the world. Following in the footsteps of Mark Twain, Sir Peter travels first to Fiji and the Kiribati Islands, before heading for Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, India and finally South Africa. Along the way, he meets and mingles with taxi drivers and presidents, exiles and evangelists, the descendants of kings and cannibals - and living gods and dying colonials. It is an unforgettable journey, full of incident and character, all observed with Sir Peter's typical insightful and thought-provoking wit and culminating in a meeting with Nelson Mandela himself aboard the QE2. A true cosmopolitan, Sir Peter reveals the struggles by people around the world to rediscover and reclaim their lost heritage and to find for themselves an enduring sense of belonging in a rapidly-changing world. All four episodes of this sophisticated, intelligent and challenging series are included here on DVD for the very first time.
The last film directed by John Cassavetes, Big Trouble reteamed some of the creators of the much funnier The In-laws. But despite another script by Andrew Bergman, and a cast that reunited Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, this comedy doesn't live up to its predecessor. A spoof of Double Indemnity, the film casts Arkin as a nervous insurance agent faced with huge college tuition bills for a trio of sons headed for Yale. To make extra money, he gets involved in a scheme with a woman (Beverly D'Angelo) trying to kill her husband (Falk). That the whole thing turns out to be an adventure in insurance fraud shouldn't come as a surprise. Despite an inconsistent script, the chemistry between Arkin and Falk can still produce the occasional laugh. --Marshall Fine
Made in 1978, Carry On Emmannuelle was really the last gasp of the most fondly regarded series of British comedy films. In most respects, it hardly does justice to the many truly funny and brilliantly played previous scripts. But it does feature a curiously vulnerable, even touching, performance from Kenneth Williams as a French diplomat with a wife of insatiable physical appetites. In theory, of course, it aims to be a pastiche of the hugely popular Emmanuelle, which had marked the transition of soft-core erotic cinema into the art house. But it's too crudely scripted and lacking in the belly laugh inducing innuendo of the best Carry On films to succeed on that level. "Are you hungry, Loins?" Emmannuelle asks the chauffeur. "I think I could manage a little nibble," he replies. You get the idea. In the title role, Suzanne Danielle, who would go on to be the best of the Princess Diana impersonators, isn't a good enough comic actress to raise such lines above the ordinary. And the few stalwarts who returned for this outing--Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor and Peter Butterworth--just about emerge with their dignity intact. This was a Carry On too far. But fans will want it for their collection because it shows Kenneth Williams at his most professionally committed--his diaries reveal his real thoughts on the matter--and to remind themselves of the high quality of so much of the work which had gone before.On the DVD: presented in 4:3 format and with a standard mono soundtrack, this release of Carry On Emmannuelle starts off with a print of such ropey quality that you seem to be watching through a dust storm. The sound quality is little better, although on both counts things improve as the film progresses. The lack of extras is disappointing, adding to the rather sad, low-budget feel of the film itself. --Piers Ford
Season 3, should you decide to accept it (and you definitely should), was Mission's most accomplished. It garnered six Emmy nominations, and an Emmy for Barbara Bain, her third consecutive win, probably for "The Exchange," one of her finest hours, in which, breaking series format, her character is captured and psychologically tortured to discover for whom she works. As always, the first five minutes of any Mission: Impossible episode are the coolest: the lit fuse signaling Lalo Schifrin's indelible theme song, the opening-credits montage teasing the action in the upcoming episode, and Jim Phelps (Peter Graves), in some nondescript location, receiving his covert mission (usually to some nonexistent, but real-sounding country as Povia or Costa Mateo), on that self-destructing tape. It always seemed a waste of time for Phelps to go through the dossiers of possible Impossible Missions Force agents for each mission (and he does that less this season) as he invariably chose the same ones: model beauty Cinnamon (Bain), master of disguise Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), electricians expert Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and strongman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). Mission: Impossible didn't delve into the team members' private lives: it was all about the mission, and together, the IMF foils any number of domestic and international villains. Some missions (foil a coup, rescue a dissident) have more at stake than others (restore boxing's good name), but there's that great moment in almost every episode when the team's target discovers that he or she has been royally IMF'd. "Don't you see?" the warden of a so-called escape-proof automated prison protests in "The Glass Cage," "they thought of everything!" He's not kidding. Not even "Q" on his best day would have come up with that faux briefcase that secretly dispenses exact replicas of the prison's towels. Mission: Impossible today does seem a little low-tech, especially when compared to the special effects-laden feature films. And for anyone who has seen Airplane, it may be difficult initially to keep a straight face whenever Peter "Do you like gladiator movies?" Graves is onscreen. But with its clever and complex stories, impeccable ensemble, and fun-to-spot guest stars (that's John "Dean Wormer" Vernon torturing Cinnamon in "The Exchange"), Mission is impossible to resist. --Donald Liebenson
Primarily aimed at fanatic completists, The Prisoner 35th Anniversary Companion gives us an alternative version of the opening episode "Arrival" recently rediscovered from Canadian archival material, along with the broadcast version for comparison. The collection also has text files on associative material like the score for the music, the novelisations and the Dinky model of the mini-moke, clips of the interval bumpers, alternative clips of the opening credits and a sequence in which the opening credits shot of a filing cabinet labelled "Resignations" is reshot in a variety of languages for foreign markets. The episode included reminds us, in both its versions, what an innovative and sinister show The Prisoner was--George Baker in particular is an impressive foil to Patrick McGoohan. There are also text files on the careers of McGoohan and his collaborator George Markstein, as well as an extended interview with Bernard Williams in which he talks frankly about the difficulties of producing a show whose scripts were being written by the star as it was being shot, and tells us of the last-minute improvisation of the sinister balloon, Rover. There is also a short documentary about the show, its fans and the memorabilia shop at Portmeirion, plus a Prisoner parody Renault ad. On the DVD: The Prisoner 35th Anniversary Companion is presented in standard 4:3 television visual ratio; the mono sound has not worn well, especially in the alternative version of "Arrival" where it is at times painfully scratchy. The interface is user-confusing; if you don't already know the shape of The Village it is not immediately obvious that the menu continues on two screens. The packaging includes a lavish booklet that includes a facsimile of the production notes for the show. --Roz Kaveney
John Thaw created one of Britain's most-loved TV detectives in this pilot episode that started the long-running Inspector Morse series, based on the novels by Colin Dexter. The brilliant, somewhat elitist police inspector who loves crosswords, classical music and the more-than-occasional pint of ale clumsily romances a woman (Gemma Jones) from his choir. When he finds her hanged in her apartment on the eve of their big recital, he suspects murder and muscles his way in on the investigation. The assigned investigators are convinced it's suicide except for the eager Sergeant Lewis (Kevin Whately), and they reluctantly team up to sort out a mystery tangled in blackmail, adultery, peeping neighbours (former Doctor Who Patrick Troughton) and mistaken identities. With his snooty temperament and lone-wolf lifestyle, the white-haired, Oxford-educated bachelor is a wonderful mismatch with the younger Lewis, a married man with a family and a rather less classical background (Whatley is a Geordie, though Lewis was a Brummie in the book). There's a quiet undercurrent of affection and respect almost from their first meeting that builds with each continuing Inspector Morse mystery, as well as an air of melancholia and loneliness beautifully developed in the script by future Oscar-winning writer/director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient). Morse's initial theories may be washouts (a series hallmark), but his relentless sleuthing, eye for clues and mind for puzzles dredges up the answer in the end, even as he loses the girl. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
A slick, smart vehicle for Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, Housesitter offers an acceptably daffy premise and enough inventive business to sustain it through to the, not unexpected, happy ending. Architect Martin builds a dream home for his childhood sweetheart (Dana Delaney) only to be rejected when he proposes marriage. After a one-night stand, Hawn--a daffy waitress with a gift for making up improbable but convincing lies--moves into Martin's house and tells his parents (Donald Moffatt, Julie Harris) and the whole community that she is his surprise new wife. When he sees how this impresses Delaney, Martin goes along with the charade, encouraging wilder and wilder fictions and doing his best to join in so that he can rush through to a divorce and move on to the woman he has always wanted. Hawn has to recruit a couple of winos to pose as her parents and impress Martin's boss into giving him a promotion, but we glimpse her real misery at his eventual intention to toss her out of the make-believe world she has created because her own real background is so grim. Its sit-com hi-jinx are manic enough not to be strangled by an inevitable dip in to sentiment towards the end, and Hawn, who always has to work hard, is better matched against the apparently effortless Martin than in their subsequent pairing in Out-of-Towners. Martin, often wasted in comparatively straight roles, has a few wild and crazy scenes as Hawn prompts him into joining her improvised fantasies. Director Frank Oz, a frequent Martin collaborator (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, Bowfinger), is the model of a proper, competent, professional craftsman when he sets out to put a comedy together--but the film misses streaks of lunacy or cruelty that might have made it funnier and more affecting. On the DVD: The disc offers a pristine widescreen non-anamorphic transfer, letterboxed to 1.85:1. There are no extra features to speak of, just text-based production notes, cast and director bios, plus a trailer and an assortment of language and subtitle options. --Kim Newman
Ten extraordinary true stories of human survival from around the world which focus on one of our most basic human instincts and leave the audience asking - Would I have survived in the same circumstances? Each film narrates a unique and exceptional feat of survival. We focus on the moral dilemmas crucial moments chance events and life-or-death decisions of our survivors. Some stories come from the world of the professional adventurer and extreme sports the men and women who deliberately push the envelope of danger. Compelling first person testimony is brought to life with the highest quality dramatic reconstructions filmed in extreme locations across the globe.
Boulting Brothers Collection: Run For The Sun
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