"Actor: Rafael Bertrand"

• The Professionals | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £19.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Director Richard Brooks' marvellous ode to friendship, loyalty and disillusionment The Professionals may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of Sam Peckinpah's more famous The Wild Bunch, but Brooks' storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is that Brooks is a lot more optimistic. Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster are buddies who have drifted into oblivion after fighting together in the Mexican Revolution. Marvin, the principled loyalist and munitions expert, lost his wife and his heart. Lancaster, the dynamite expert and unprincipled adventurer, keeps losing his pants. They team up with wrangler Robert Ryan and archer Woody Strode to rescue the beguiling Claudia Cardinale, who has been kidnapped by their old revolutionary buddie Jack Palance. So it's back into bloody Mexico they go on a "mission of mercy" for railroad tycoon Ralph Bellamy, who's paying handsomely for the return of his wife. But nothing is what it seems in this exciting, existential adventure, which was beautifully shot by Conrad Hall. Sarcastic quips, philosophical musings and heart-rending reversals underlie Brooks' humanistic sentiments. These are tired, world-weary men who somehow find the strength and the will to pull together for the sake of love and commitment. Through it all, Brooks seems to be lamenting a decline in professionalism much deeper than his story. He's decrying Hollywood and the society at large, anticipating Peckinpah's later strategy. --Bill Desowitz

• Mexico Macabre: Four Sinister Tales from the Alameda Films Vault, 1959–1963 (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (12/06/2023) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  These four macabre titles from the vaults of one of Mexico's best-known film companies offer uniquely Mexican takes on the ghosts, witches, and monsters familiar to fans of horror cinema and fiction. Fernando Méndez's Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de ultratumba) sees a doctor make a pact with his dying colleague in order to learn the secrets of the afterlife. In Chano Urueta's The Witch's Mirror (El espejo de la bruja), a murderer is tormented by the ghost of his dead wife, whilst in Urueta's The Brainiac (El barón del terror), a nobleman executed for necromancy returns in diabolical form to eradicate the lineage of his killers... by sucking out their brains! Finally, in Rafael Baledón's The Curse of the Crying Woman (La maldición de la Llorona), a young bride visits her aunt's Gothic mansion, where she finds that she is the descendent of one of Mexican folklore's most terrifying figures. With their star-studded casts, beautiful photography, eerie production design, and bone-chilling atmosphere, these films have terrified audiences for decades, and are now available in this strictly limited, individually numbered Blu-ray box set, which includes an array of new extra features - including four new audio commentaries, and rare English-language dub tracks as well as a set of art cards and a fully illustrated 100-page book. Product Features High Definition remasters for Black Pit for Dr. M, The Witch's Mirror, The Brainiac, and The Curse of the Crying Woman Original Spanish mono audio Optional English mono audio dub tracks for The Witch's Mirror, The Brainiac and The Curse of the Crying Woman Audio commentary with Abraham Castillo Flores, film programmer and curator specialising in the preservation of Mexican horror cinema, on Black Pit of Dr. M (2023) Audio commentary with David Wilt, film historian and Mexican-cinema specialist, on The Witch's Mirror (2023) Audio commentary and brain nibbling with Keith J Rainville, publisher of From Parts Unknown and screenwriter of Los campeones de la lucha libre, on The Brainiac (2023) Audio commentary with Morena de Fuego, doctor in film studies and LatAm horror specialist, on The Curse of the Crying Woman (2023) Daniel Ripstein on the history of Alameda Films and his grandfather, producer Alfredo Ripstein Jr (2023) Author Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro on director Fernando Méndez (2023) Author Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro on director Chano Urueta (2023) Author Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro on director Rafael Balédon (2023) Memories of a Villain (2018): TV UNAM special on actor Carlos López Moctezuma Mondo Macabro: ˜Mexican Horror Movies' (2002): episode of Pete Tombs and Andy Starke's fondly remembered British television series, providing an overview of Mexican genre cinema from the 1950s to the 1970s Original theatrical trailers Image galleries: promotional and publicity material New and improved English translation subtitles Limited Edition exclusive 100-page book with new essays by José Luis Ortega Torres, David Wilt and Abraham Castillo Flores, archival articles, and full film credits Limited Edition exclusive art cards World premieres on Blu-ray Limited edition box set of 6,000 numbered units for the UK and US All extras subject to change