"Actor: Ron House"

• Breaking Bad: The Complete Series | DVD | (09/10/2017) from £43.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The incredible saga of high-school-chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-kingpin Walter White is here in its entirety: all 62 uncut, uncensored episodes! Emmy(r) winner Bryan Cranston portrays Walter White, a family man who turns to crime after a lung cancer diagnosis unravels his simple life. Recruiting former student and small-time dealer Jesse Pinkman (Emmy(r) winner Aaron Paul) to be his partner in crime, Walt rises to the top of the meth trade, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. But he can't keep his dogged DEA agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) off his trail forever. Will Walt get away with it all, or die trying? With riveting performances by Emmy(r) winner Anna Gunn, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Bob Odenkirk, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte and more, re-live every moment of this ground-breaking original series. Executive produced by Vince Gilligan, Mark Johnson and Michelle MacLaren, the complete box set is loaded with special features. Features: Contains all 62 episodes on 21 discs.

• Breaking Bad: The Complete Series | DVD | (26/10/2015) from £21.98   |  Saving you £16.19 (80.99%)   |  RRP £36.18

  Breaking Bad follows protagonist Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher who lives in New Mexico with his wife (Anna Gunn) and teenage son (RJ Mitte) who has cerebral palsy. White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of two years left to live. With a new sense of fearlessness based on his medical prognosis, and a desire to secure his family's financial security, White chooses to enter a dangerous world of drugs and crime and ascends to power in this world. The series explores how a fatal diagnosis such as White's releases a typical man from the daily concerns and constraints of normal society and follows his transformation from mild family man to a kingpin of the drug trade.

• Breaking Bad: The Complete Series | Blu Ray | (30/10/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  The incredible saga of high-school-chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-kingpin Walter White is here in its entirety: all 62 uncut, uncensored episodes! Emmy(r) winner Bryan Cranston portrays Walter White, a family man who turns to crime after a lung cancer diagnosis unravels his simple life. Recruiting former student and small-time dealer Jesse Pinkman (Emmy(r) winner Aaron Paul) to be his partner in crime, Walt rises to the top of the meth trade, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. But he can't keep his dogged DEA agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) off his trail forever. Will Walt get away with it all, or die trying? With riveting performances by Emmy(r) winner Anna Gunn, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Bob Odenkirk, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte and more, re-live every moment of this ground-breaking original series. Executive produced by Vince Gilligan, Mark Johnson and Michelle MacLaren, the complete box set is loaded with special features. Features: Contains all 62 episodes on 16 discs.

• Bullshot | DVD | (08/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Before there was Bond there was BULLSHOT! The dashing Captain Hugh Bullshot Crummond - WWI ace fighter pilot Olympic athlete racing driver part-time sleuth and all round spiffing chap - must save the world from the dastardly Count Otto van Bruno his wartime adversary. And of course win the heart of a jolly nice young lady. ...a terribly British comedy

• The Safety Of Objects | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.75   |  Saving you £13.24 (196.15%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A series of overlapping stories about four suburban American families experiencing momentous days in their lives.

• World in Action - Volume 3 | DVD | (01/07/2013) from £13.16   |  Saving you £11.83 (89.89%)   |  RRP £24.99

  World in Action was, undoubtedly, ITV's flagship current affairs show. Over four decades (from the '60s to the '90s) this multiple BAFTA winner was fearless, hard-hitting and trailblazing, choosing subjects that other programmes would not dare touch, getting into trouble with ITV regulators and - at times - the Government. A cornerstone of the British viewing schedule, the WIA team investigated stories at no small personal risk to themselves and often courted controversy whilst reporting on organisations such as the National Front. This report is included here, along with editions that cover everything from euthanasia to Scientology, from the Miners' Strike to extended coverage of the underhanded practices of the CIA in the 1970s.

• Tough And Deadly | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £-0.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  When bounty hunter Elmo Freech saves a badly injured man from an assassins bullet as he lies in a hospital bed it's the start of a breakneck chain of brutal combat and furious action. Struck with amnesia the man Freech rescues can remember only one thing - his CIA codename 'Quicksilver'. Coupled with his lightening fast martial arts skills Freech realises that this guy is trouble especially after a crack hit-squad from a ruthless Milan Mafia family strike with orders to kill Quicksilver. Soon Freech and Quicksilver are taking on the CIA assassins and Mafia muscle as they try to expose an unholy alliance between the two. Freech and Quicksilver - back in action and tough and deadly...

• The Stranger | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Stranger | Blu Ray | (15/10/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Verdi: Falstaff -- Royal Opera House | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £30.24   |  Saving you £-5.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This Graham Vicks production of Falstaff opened the new Covent Garden Royal Opera House, but was not to everybody's taste; the garish primary colours of the costumes, especially Falstaff's unusually hideous get-ups, go several steps beyond the Breughelian effect Vicks intended. The staging is effective--the complicated counterpoint of the ensembles is reflected in unobtrusive blocking that keeps the vocal lines clear and separate, especially in the final fugue. Bryn Terfel's Falstaff is a memorable creation, self-mocking and self-aggrandising at the same time--so much so, in fact, that he almost does not need the vast prosthetic body he has to wear for the part. Desiree Rancatore is an admirably sweet-toned Nanetta; Bernadette Manca di Nissa an appropriately sardonic Mistress Quickly; Roberto Frontali as Ford, in his Act 2 scena, perfectly distils and parodies every jealousy aria ever written, including Verdi's own. Haitink's conducting is exemplary in the lyrical passages, and gets almost everything out of the fast and furious comic sections. --Roz KaveneyOn the DVD: The disc comes with act introductions by James Naughtie, interviews with Haitink, Terfel and Graham Vicks and a documentary about the reaction of the stage-hands to the new building. It has scene selection and subtitles in English. --Roz Kaveney

• Bullshot | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Before there was Bond there was BULLSHOT! The dashing Captain Hugh ""Bullshot"" Crummond - WWI ace fighter pilot Olympic athlete racing driver part-time sleuth and all round spiffing chap - must save the world from the dastardly Count Otto van Bruno his wartime adversary. And of course win the heart of a jolly nice young lady. ...a terribly British comedy

• She Lives By Night | DVD | (13/09/2002) from £8.99   |  Saving you £-6.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Angeal can't remember her name. Killing is something she can't forget... Having been struck down by a car vampire Angela is suffering from amnesia. The driver takes her back to his place to recuperate butalready the thirst is beginning to gnaw away at Angela...

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Edward G. Robinson - Scarlet Street / The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture". But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as the Nazi Franz Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clocktower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: sparse pickings. Both films have a full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne which adds the occasional insight, but is repetitive and not always reliable. The box claims both print have been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles' The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to Edward G. Robinson, who is marvellous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles, the director, is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of the film is a well designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. --Sean Axmaker

• The Stranger | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp