"Actor: Ralph MEEKER"

• Paths of Glory (Blu-ray) (1957) (Masters of Cinema) | Blu Ray | (19/09/2016) from £13.35   |  Saving you £6.64 (49.74%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The pity of war has been a much-favoured film topic; the treachery of war much less so, though never more persuasively than in Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough feature from 1957. Kirk Douglas gives one of his finest screen performances as Colonel Dax, the idealistic First World War soldier appalled by the arbitrary court-marshal meted out to three of his men after an impossible attempt to storm German lines goes disastrously wrong. George Macready is an utterly believable Gerneral Mireau, obsessed with his own honour and standing, whom Adolphe Majou complements tellingly as the urbane and cynical General Bruler. Those who know Kubrick from his later sprawling epics will be surprised at the tautness and concision shown here, even though the screenplay--which he co-wrote--has a certain theatrical stiffness. On the DVD: Paths of Glory on disc reproduces well in full-screen format, and Gerald Fried's bitingly ironic score comes through powerfully. There are five dubbed and six subtitled languages. The original trailer is a masterpiece of gritty reportage, well worth reviving. Along with Dr Strangelove and 2001, this is Kubrick's most focussed and durable film. --Richard Whitehouse

• Kiss Me Deadly (1955) | Blu Ray | (05/08/2019) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane's novel, directed by Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Dirty Dozen), the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker (Paths of Glory, The Dirty Dozen) stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterpiece as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.

• Brannigan | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The story of Brannigan a tough unconventional Chicago cop who trails an international racketeer to London where he finds his methods contrast sharply with those of the stiff-upper-lipped British...

• Paths Of Glory | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £8.81   |  Saving you £7.18 (81.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The pity of war has been a much-favoured film topic; the treachery of war much less so, though never more persuasively than in Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough feature from 1957. Kirk Douglas gives one of his finest screen performances as Colonel Dax, the idealistic First World War soldier appalled by the arbitrary court-marshal meted out to three of his men after an impossible attempt to storm German lines goes disastrously wrong. George Macready is an utterly believable Gerneral Mireau, obsessed with his own honour and standing, whom Adolphe Majou complements tellingly as the urbane and cynical General Bruler. Those who know Kubrick from his later sprawling epics will be surprised at the tautness and concision shown here, even though the screenplay--which he co-wrote--has a certain theatrical stiffness. On the DVD: Paths of Glory on disc reproduces well in full-screen format, and Gerald Fried's bitingly ironic score comes through powerfully. There are five dubbed and six subtitled languages. The original trailer is a masterpiece of gritty reportage, well worth reviving. Along with Dr Strangelove and 2001, this is Kubrick's most focussed and durable film. --Richard Whitehouse

• The St Valentine's Day Massacre | DVD | (27/05/2013) from £6.46   |  Saving you £3.53 (54.64%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Roger Corman directs this gangster thriller, using docu-drama styles to depict the notorious gangland killings in 1929. Al Capone (Jason Robards) is consolidating his grip on Chicago's underworld, with only the Moran gang standing in his way. After Capone wipes them out in the St Valentine's Day shootings, the film goes on to explore how the murders affected the lives of those involved.

• Kiss Me Deadly | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A terrific film noir full of skewed camera angles and mysterious whose-shoes-are-those shots, Kiss Me Deadly is about as dark and exciting as noir gets. A young woman (Cloris Leachman) in bare feet and a trench coat throws herself into the traffic to flag down help and the car she stops belongs to detective Mike Hammer. Not even 15 minutes into the film and there's already been a murder, a mysterious letter, an attempt to kill Hammer and, of course, a warning to stay out of it. Hammer, tired of lowlife divorce cases, smells something big and can't let it go. Mike Hammer is a detective so cool he can win a fight with nothing more than a box of popcorn as a weapon; he knows his opera singers as well as his amateur prize-fighters and he makes the ladies swoon--but he's far from a conventional hero. In fact, he's emphatically not a nice guy; Hammer happily whores out his secretary-girlfriend Velma to cinch up those divorce cases and has a penchant for slamming other people's fingers in drawers. Even the bad guys know he's a sleazebag ("What's it worth to you to turn your considerable talents back to the gutter you crawled out of?"). Ralph Meeker plays Hammer's ambivalence brilliantly, swinging easily between sexy and just plain mean. --Ali Davis

• The Dirty Dozen | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.31   |  Saving you £6.68 (91.38%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller. Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialised soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds. Of course, there's a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin's band of badmen must agree to a suicide mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It's a hazardous path to glory, but the men have no other choice than to accept and regain their lost honor. What makes The Dirty Dozen special is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is the Oscar-nominated standout as one of Marvin's most rebellious yet heroic men, but it's the whole ensemble--combined with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich--that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser. The script by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller (from the novel by E.M. Nathanson) is strong enough to support the all-star lineup with ample humour and military grit, so if you're in need of a mainline jolt of testosterone, The Dirty Dozen is the movie for you. --Jeff Shannon

• PATHS OF GLORY (Masters of Cinema) Special Edition 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (26/02/2024) from £23.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Frank Sinatra | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-0.58 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.40

  Tony Rome: Tony Rome a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD. The Detective: A hard-boiled mystery starring Frank Sinatra as the tough-as-nails Detective Joe Leland 'The Detective' was based on a novel by Roderick Thorp. Called in to investigate the murder of Teddy Leikman the homosexual son of a well-conn

• The Outer Limits - The Original Series - Vol. 1 | DVD | (12/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission... Surrender yourself to the mysterious world of 'The Outer Limits' as one of the creepiest and most provocative series in television history comes to DVD. This fantastic box set comprises every episode from the first season and a glut of eery extras. Featuring 32 original episodes on 8 discs! Episodes comprise: 1. Galaxy Being 2. Hundred Days of

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season One | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £29.49   |  Saving you £5.50 (18.65%)   |  RRP £34.99

  ""Good evening. I'm Alfred Hitchcock and tonight Im presenting the first in a series of stories of suspense and mystery called oddly enough Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I shall not act in these stories but will only make appearances. Something in the nature of an accessory before and after the fact. To give the title to those of you who cant read and to tidy up afterwards for those who don't understand the endings."" Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an anthology seri

• The Food Of The Gods | Blu Ray | (30/10/2023) from £12.21   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Detective | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £6.23   |  Saving you £6.76 (108.51%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A hard-boiled mystery starring Frank Sinatra as the tough-as-nails Detective Joe Leland The Detective was based on a novel by Roderick Thorp. Called in to investigate the murder of Teddy Leikman the homosexual son of a well-connected department store mogul Leland executes an open-and-shut investigation. He quickly elicits a confession from Teddy's crazy roommate and the defendant is convicted and executed while Leland scores a promotion. But when the widow of an accountan

• The Anderson Tapes | DVD | (06/01/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An early example of the techno-thriller, The Anderson Tapes--sharply directed by Sidney Lumet from the novel by Lawrence Sanders--follows just-out-of-stir Duke Anderson (a balding Sean Connery) as he plots the heist of an entire New York apartment building, enlisting a crew that includes Martin Balsam as a vintage 1971 gay stereotype and a very young Christopher Walken in perhaps the first of his jittery crook roles. The gimmick is that Anderson has been out of circulation so long that he doesn't realise his mafia backers are only supporting him because they feel nostalgic for the days before they were boring businessmen and that the whole setup is monitored by a criss-crossing selection of government and private agencies who don't care enough to thwart the robbery, which instead becomes unglued thanks to a gutsy young radio ham. With a cool Quincy Jones score, very tight editing, a lot of spot-on cameo performances from the likes of Ralph Meeker as a patient cop, this hasn't dated a bit: it's wry without being jokey and suspenseful without undue contrivance. On the DVD The Anderson Tapes offers a nice anamorphic transfer, a few trailers and various foreign language options. --Kim Newman

• The Night Stalker | Blu Ray | (02/10/2018) from £27.24   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Dirty Dozen (2 Disc Special Edition) | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Train them! Excite them! Arm them!...Then turn them loose on the Nazis! Atten-hut! Twelve jailbirds will earn their freedom... if they survive a suicide mission against the Nazi brass. Tough-as-nails Lee Marvin leads a nothing-to-lose convict squad in this all-time action trendsetter. They don't make 'em like this anymore!

• Winter Kills | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  19 years after President Timothy Keegan was assassinated his brother Nick discovers a dying man claiming to have been the gunman. While trying to avoid his wealthy and domineering father's attempts to control his actions Nick follows the clues that have been handed to him. As he progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to discern the real trails from the dead ends and increasing dangerous as unknown parties try to stop Nick from uncovering the truth...

• Sinatra Collection - The Detective/Tony Rome/The Manchuria | DVD | (09/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Tony Rome (Dir. Gordon Douglas 1967): Tony Rome a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD. The Detective (Dir. Gordon Douglas 1968): A hard-boiled mystery starring Frank Sinatra as the tough-as-nails Detective Joe Leland 'The Detective' was based on a novel by Roderick Thorp. Called in to investigate the murder of Teddy Leikman the homosexual son of a well-connected department store mogul Leland executes an open-and-shut investigation. He quickly elicits a confession from Teddy's crazy roommate and the defendant is convicted and executed while Leland scores a promotion. But when the widow of an accountant seeks out the Detective to look into the circumstances of her husband's death Leland uncovers some startling evidence implicating a corrupt New York City political machine; an attempt on Leland's life further convinces him that the authorities have a stake in keeping this case closed. Lee Remick ('The Omen') plays Leland's estranged wife Karen. The Manchurian Candidate (Dir. John Frankenheimer 1962): One of the ""most poundingly suspenseful political thrillers ever made "" (People Magazine) and ""one of the best and brightest of modern American films"" (Roger Ebert). Ask Major Bennett Marco (Sinatra) and he'll say that Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is a hero worthy of the Medal of Honor. But despite what he says Marco suspects otherwise. A bizarre recurring nightmare gives him the uneasy feeling that Shaw is something far less heroic and far more insidious. Is it possible that Shaw is a traitor? Can Marco convince the Army of his suspicions? How does Shaw's powermad mother (Lansbury) figure into this all? So many questions. So little precious time...

• Paths of Glory | Blu Ray | (23/08/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Mind Snatchers | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Christopher 'Barking Mad' Walken in his first leading role. In this his first leading role Christopher Walken plays a misfit G.I. who finds himself as a guinea pig in a bizarre brain research experiment. A compelling tale of mind-numbing drugs boisterous soldiers and a sinister German scientist. Hailed as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets A Clockwork Orange The Mind Snatchers is adapted from the Broadway play The Happiness Cage and features a very young Walken showing his early talent for spontaneous menace giving a chilling performance as Private James Reese who has his mental stability stolen from him. It seems that Walken never really got it back as he went on to build an illustrious film career playing killers gangsters and plain barking mad psychos. Reese is a constant offender sociopathic bordering on schizophrenic. His wild behaviour means he has inadvertently caught the attention of the army shrinks who have sinister plans for him. A German scientist Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland) is working on a way to pacify overly aggressive soldiers by developing implants that directly stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain. Reese is 'volunteered' by his superiors for the secret medical experiment and finds himself in a military hospital. There are two other patients only one of whom Sgt. Boford Miles (Ronny Cox) can speak. Reese's attempts to discover the nature of the experiment are unsuccessful - he knows that Miles and the other patient have fatal diseases and that the work has been sanctioned by The Major (Ralph Meeker) but when enlightenment finally comes Reese wishes he had been kept from the truth after all. In 1970 Walken had screentested for the Ryan O'Neil part in Love Story. They didn't think he was right for the part but things could have been so very different if they had. Following a brief appearance in The Anderson Tapes as Sean Connery's sidekick Walken's mesmerisingly dark performance in The Mind Snatchers in 1972 meant that he was never going to play the romantic lead and instead went on to become our favourite screen weirdo. Daring Brilliant - NEW YORK TIMES