"Actor: Ronald Adam"

• The Haunting | Blu Ray | (04/05/2020) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  It was an evil house form the beginning , a house that was born bad. The place is the 90-year-old mansion called Hill House. No one lives in there. Or so it seems. But come in. Because even if you don't believe in ghosts, there's no denying the terror of The Haunting. Robert Wise, returned to psychological horror for this much admired, first screen adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Four people (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn) come to the house to study its supernatural phenomena. Or has the house drawn at least one of them to it? The answer will unnerve you in this elegantly sinister scare movie. It's good fun (Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies).

• The Haunting | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.79   |  Saving you £9.20 (192.07%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Certain to remain one of the greatest haunted-house movies ever made, Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) is antithetical to all the gory horror films of subsequent decades, because its considerable frights remain implicitly rooted in the viewer's sensitivity to abject fear. A classic spook-fest based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House (which also inspired the 1999 remake directed by Jan de Bont), the film begins with a prologue that concisely establishes the dark history of Hill House, a massive New England mansion (actually filmed in England) that will play host to four daring guests determined to investigate--and hopefully debunk--the legacy of death and ghostly possession that has given the mansion its terrifying reputation. Consumed by guilt and grief over her mother's recent death and driven to adventure by her belief in the supernatural, Eleanor Vance (Julie Harris) is the most unstable--and therefore the most vulnerable--visitor to Hill House. She's invited there by anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), along with the bohemian lesbian Theodora (Claire Bloom), who has acute extra-sensory abilities, and glib playboy Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn, from Wise's West Side Story), who will gladly inherit Hill House if it proves to be hospitable. Of course, the shadowy mansion is anything but welcoming to its unwanted intruders. Strange noises, from muffled wails to deafening pounding, set the stage for even scarier occurrences, including a door that appears to breathe (with a slowly turning doorknob that's almost unbearably suspenseful), unexplained writing on walls, and a delicate spiral staircase that seems to have a life of its own. The genius of The Haunting lies in the restraint of Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding, who elicit almost all of the film's mounting terror from the psychology of its characters--particularly Eleanor, whose grip on sanity grows increasingly tenuous. The presence of lurking spirits relies heavily on the power of suggestion (likewise the cautious handling of Theodora's attraction to Eleanor) and the film's use of sound is more terrifying than anything Wise could have shown with his camera. Like Jack Clayton's 1961 chiller, The Innocents, The Haunting knows the value of planting the seeds of terror in the mind, as opposed to letting them blossom graphically on the screen. What you don't see is infinitely more frightening than what you do, and with nary a severed head or bloody corpse in sight, The Haunting is guaranteed to chill you to the bone. --Jeff Shannon

• The Malta Story | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £6.19   |  Saving you £3.80 (61.39%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In 1942 Malta is of critical importance to the Allied forces for it keeps the vital shipping supply lines open. As Peter Ross (Guinness) lands on the island and is attached to the local regiment he discovers aerial photographs that indicate Italian units are preparing to invade. Ross is selected to trace and destroy the enemy convoy before it is too late...

• Scotland Yard - The Complete Series | DVD | (14/01/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Scotland Yard was perhaps the best-known series to emerge from Anglo-Amalgamated's output of crime drama. Shot as cinema support features at the company's Merton Park Studios in South Wimbledon, these half-hour thrillers - based on real-life cases from the vaults of London's Metropolitan Police headquarters - were a successful regular feature in cinemas over nearly a decade from the early 1950s onwards. Like sister series Scales of Justice, Scotland Yard is introduced by celebrated writer and criminologist Edgar Lustgarten and presents case after intriguing case, with many solved onscreen by the redoubtable Inspector Duggan (played by Australian-born Russell Napier). This set comprises all 39 films, also featuring appearances by Harry H. Corbett, Peter Bowles, John Le Mesurier, Peter Arne and Robert Raglan, among many others.

• The Lavender Hill Mob | DVD | (21/06/2004) from £7.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (112.64%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Directed by Charles Crichton, who would much later direct John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda (1988), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob is the most ruefully thrilling of the Ealing Comedies. Alec Guinness plays a bowler-hatted escort of bullion to the refineries. His seeming timidity, weak 'r's and punctiliousness mask a typically Guinness-like patient cunning. "I was aware I was widiculed but that was pwecisely the effect I was stwiving to achieve". He's actually plotting a heist. With more conventionally cockney villains Sid James and Alfie Bass in tow, as well as the respectable but ruined Stanley Holloway, Guinness' perfect criminal plan works in exquisite detail, then unravels just as exquisitely, culminating in a nail-biting police car chase in which you can't help rooting for the villains. The Lavender Hill Mob depicts a London still up to its knees in rubble from World War II, a world of new hope but continued austerity, a budding new order in which everything seems up for grabs; as such it could be regarded as a lighter hearted cinematic cousin to Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece The Third Man. The Lavender Hill Mob also sees the first, fleeting on-screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn in the opening sequence. --David Stubbs

• Ealing Comedy DVD Collection - The Ladykillers/Kind Hearts and Coronets/The Lavender Hill Mob/The Man in the White Suit | DVD | (02/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Four of the British film industry's best-loved comedies in one box set makes The Ealing Comedy Collection absolutely essential for anyone who has any passion at all for movies. The set contains Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955). Ealing's greatest comedies captured the essence of post-war Britain, both in their evocation of a land once blighted by war but now rising doggedly and optimistically again from the ashes, and in their mordant yet graceful humour. They portray a country with an antiquated class system whose crumbling conventions are being undermined by a new spirit of individual opportunism. In the delightfully wicked Kind Hearts and Coronets, a serial killer politely murders his way into the peerage; in The Lavender Hill Mob a put-upon bank clerk schemes to rob his employers; The Man in the White Suit is a harshly satirical depiction of idealism crushed by the status quo; while The Ladykillers mocks both the criminals and the authorities with its unlikely octogenarian heroine Mrs "lop-sided" Wilberforce. Many factors contribute to the success of these films--including fine music scores from composers such as Benjamin Frankel (Man in the White Suit) and Tristram Cary (The Ladykillers); positively symphonic sound effects (White Suit); marvellously evocative locations (the environs of King's Cross in Ladykillers, for example); and writing that always displays Ealing's unique perspective on British social mores ("All the exuberance of Chaucer without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities of his period")--yet arguably their greatest asset is Alec Guinness, whose multifaceted performances are the keystone upon which Ealing built its biting, often macabre, yet always elegant comedy. On the DVD: The Ealing Comedy Collection presents the four discs in a fold-out package with postcards of the original poster artwork for each. Aside from theatrical trailers on each disc there are no extra features, which is a pity given the importance of these films. The Ladykillers is in muted Technicolor and presented in 1.66:1 ratio, the three earlier films are all black and white 1.33:1. Sound is perfectly adequate mono throughout. --Mark Walker

• 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

• Green For Danger | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alastair Sim stars as the eccentric and irreverent Inspector Cockrill of the Kent County Police alongside Trevor Howard and Rosamund John in this truly classic and suspenseful murder mystery from the acclaimed film-making partnership of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. August 1944. German flying bombs are raining down on London. Directly under their flight path is a small cottage hospital. Inside the tension is almost unbearable for the dedicated team of surgeons and nurses - and no

• All Over The Town | DVD | (10/06/2013) from £6.09   |  Saving you £6.90 (113.30%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Late 1940s British comedy drama starring Norman Wooland as a Royal Air Force pilot who returns to work as a newspaper reporter. After fighting in the Second World War, Nat Hearn (Wooland) resumes his former position at the Tormouth Clarion and finds himself working with Sally Thorpe (Sarah Churchill), the woman who was given his job when he left and who he later becomes involved with. When Nat is promoted to editor of the paper, he decides to use his new status to make changes within the publ...

• Tomb Of Ligeia | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £14.90   |  Saving you £-1.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Cat or woman or a thing too evil to mention? Roger Corman and Vincent Price hook up for yet more horror in Edgar Allan Poe's most terrifying tale of passion possession and PURR-fect evil! When a dead wife sinks her claws into immortality - and comes back as a ferocious feline - she leads her husband's (Price) new bride on a deadly game of cat and mouse. And when the fur starts flying she soon learns that even in death... she can land on her feet!

• Two Letter Alibi | DVD | (14/09/2015) from £7.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Charles Hilary is in love with Kathy Forrester, a beautiful television personality, but is married to Louise, an alcoholic with as many lovers as whisky bottles. His pleas for a divorce are met with threats and abuse. You'll have to murder me first , Louise tells him and three hours later she is found dead, shot with her husband's pistol. When Charles is arrested, Kathy desperately sets to work to prove his innocence. This rare 1960s thriller features an early screenplay by Roger Marshall, the future co-creator of Public Eye whose credits would also include The Sweeney, The Gentle Touch and The Professionals. A taut, compelling drama, Two Letter Alibi is featured here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.

• Raquel Welch Collection | DVD | (04/09/2006) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-20.70 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.29

  Fathom: From exploding earrings to dances with bulls to leaps from a plane at 10 000 feet there isn't much Fathom can't handle in this wildly entertaining espionage spoof! Voluptuous dental hygienist-turned-skydiver Fathom Harvill (Raquel Welch) is recruited by a top-secret government agency to parachute into Spain in search of an elusive war defector (Tony Franciosa) and a missing H-bomb detonator he is believed to possess. But the super sexy spy may expose more than she bargained for as she unravels the truth behind her employer's motives - with hilarious results! (Dir. Leslie H. Martinson 1967) Fantastic Voyage: A Fantastic and spectacular voyage... Through the human body... Into the brain. Shrunk to microscopic size an elite scientific and medical team enters the bloodstream of an ailing scientist in a desperate effort to save his life. Battling the body's incredible defenses the crew must complete their mission before time runs out. The film was to win Oscars for Best Visual Effects (by Art Cruikschank) and Art Direction. The legacy of the film was to continue as 'Fantastic Voyage' later received an animated spin-off show. (Dir. Richard Fleischer 1966) Bandolero: It's a Wild West clash of personalities in Val Verde Texas for the warring Bishop brothers (Dean Martin and James Stewart) who must now join forces to escape a death sentence. Featuring an all-star cast including Raquel Welch and George Kennedy and exploding with action Bandolero! packs a smoking six-gun wallop from its first tense show-down to its last exciting shootout. (Dir. Andrew V. McLaglen 1968) Lady In Cement: The suave sleuth Tony Rome makes a shocking discovery while diving for treasure: a beautiful blonde woman anchored in a block of cement. When a local hood hires him to find his missing girlfriend his investigation begins with the mysterious ""Lady in Cement."" But everyone he talks to either is killed or trying to kill him... (Dir. Gordon Douglas 1968)

• Assignment redhead | DVD | (18/04/2011) from £10.95   |  Saving you £2.04 (15.70%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A Butchers 1956 production starring American leads Richard Denning and Carole Mathews. Was the idea to make the film more saleable in the USA? Or to make a British film more American? A bit of both I would think... It’s a story of murder, counterfeit money and international crime with a pinch of Nazis. Our brit Ronald Adam is the bad guy - funny how brits are the bad guys in American films these days!! Ronald Adam featured in 148 productions, his last in 1978, just a year before his death in 1979 . Quite a good little feature, with picture and sound of good quality, after some extensive restoration.

• Carlton-Browne Of The F.O. | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A perennial afternoon telly treat, Carlton-Browne of the F.O. is a little less tart and smart in its assault on British diplomacy than the earlier John and Roy Boulting satires. The much-loved Terry Thomas, is the idiot son of a great ambassador, given a sinecure in the Foreign Office that becomes a hot seat when crises rock the almost-forgotten former colony of Gaillardia. Clod-hopping "dance troupes" of every world power dig for cobalt, a line of partition is painted across the entire island, and the young King (Ian Bannen) is undermined by his wicked uncle (John le Mesurier) and unscrupulous Prime Minister Amphibulos (Peter Sellers). There's a touch of Royal romance as the King gets together with a rival princess (the winning Luciana Paoluzzi), but it's mostly mild laughs at the expense of British ineptitude, with Thorley Walters as the dim army officer who sends his men to put down a rebellion with orders that lead them to turn in a circle and capture his own command post, Miles Malleson as the gouty consul who should have come home in 1916, and a snarling Raymond Huntley as the minister appalled that the new monarch of a British ally was a member of the Labour Party at Oxford. The film finds Sellers' non-specific foreign accent unusually upstaged, with Terry Thomas walking off with most of the comedy scenes, blithely inspecting a line of shabby crack troops who keep passing out at his feet. It fumbles a bit with obvious targets, especially in comparison with similar films like Passport to Pimlico and The Mouse That Roared, but you can't argue with a cast like this. Down in the ranks are: John Van Eyssen, Irene Handl, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Griffith, Sam Kydd and Kynaston Reeves. On the DVD: Carlton-Browne of the F.O. comes to disc in fullscreen, with a decent-ish quality print. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection.--Kim Newman

• Green For Danger | DVD | (01/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alastair Sim stars as the eccentric and irreverent Inspector Cockrill of the Kent County Police alongside Trevor Howard and Rosamund John in this truly classic and suspenseful murder mystery from the acclaimed film-making partnership of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. August 1944. German flying bombs are raining down on London. Directly under their flight path is a small cottage hospital. Inside the tension is almost unbearable for the dedicated team of surgeons and nurses - and not just because of the 'doodlebugs' and near misses. Their close-knit community is torn apart by jealousy emotional turmoil the horrors of war.and terrible secrets. When the local postman is brought in delirious but trying to impart an urgent message - the murders begin. Inspector Cockrill is called in to investigate a truly baffling case where everyone has secrets - but no-one appears to have a motive. Alastair Sim is at his very best in this thrilling whodunit that will keep you guessing until the very last chilling moments of the film.

• The Sherlock Holmes Catalogue - The Hound Of The Baskervilles | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (-100.20%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This near two-hour Granada Television production of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Conan Doyle's most popular Sherlock Holmes tale, stars series regular Jeremy Brett as the Baker Street detective and Edward Hardwicke as his close ally, Dr John Watson. A thrilling blend of detective yarn and Gothic horror, the tale concerns the apparent return of an old curse upon the Baskerville family in the terrifying form of a gigantic killer hound. Fans of Hardwicke get an opportunity to see his Watson on a solo mission for part of this story, though Brett--easily the best of all screen actors to play the sleuth--is never far from the narrative. The supporting cast is very good, and the beast itself, revealed in a famously terrifying finale, is indeed a spooky revelation. --Tom Keogh

• Flannelfoot | DVD | (28/02/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Directed by the ever present Maclean Rodgers. Flannelfoot was a 1953 E.J. Fancey production. Crime news hack Mitchell (Jack Watling) is out to discover the identity of notorious jewel thief known as 'Flannelfoot'. Mitchell's 'grass' Ginger (Graham Stark) is murdered in the pursuit of Flannelfoot. Also stars Ronald Howard son of Leslie Howard and Diana Couplands with her debut screen performance.

• Omega Cop | DVD | (19/05/2003) from £11.36   |  Saving you £-7.37 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The year is 1999... John Travis is the toughest cop alive... The only cop alive. He and his elite force stand between murderous mutants and the remains of humanity...