"Actor: Sam Wanamaker"

• Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years - Vol. 1: Down And Out / Politics Are Foul | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It’s easy to forget that before fronting the British war effort through most of World War II, Winston Churchill had spent the previous decade isolated in Parliament and in internal opposition to the Conservative party. Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years dramatises this period in which the growing menace of Nazism in Germany was met with indifference, even fear by governments of the day who were more concerned with their survival than in serving those who had elected them. Churchill is perceptively played by Robert Hardy, confirming the image without falling into caricature. Visionary and obstinate by turns, he galvanises his supporters and enrages his enemies with a passion borne of conviction. A seasoned British cast includes Peter Barkworth as the amiable but ineffectual Stanley Baldwin, Eric Porter as the truly "out of time" Neville Chamberlain, Edward Woodward as the scheming Samuel Hoare and Nigel Havers as the tragically flawed Randolph Churchill. Martin Gilbert has done a persuasive job transforming his novel into a TV script, the scenes in the House of Commons having a gritty reality that makes compulsive viewing. On the DVD: it’s a pity that the Southern Pictures production, first screened in 1981, has emerged so dimly in this incarnation. Has the master tape eroded so badly, or was it simply not available? However, it’s worth putting up with the technical defects to enjoy this historically informed and grippingly dramatic serial. --Richard Whitehouse

• Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years - Vol. 4: The Long Tide Of Surrender / What Price Churchill | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It’s easy to forget that before fronting the British war effort through most of World War II, Winston Churchill had spent the previous decade isolated in Parliament and in internal opposition to the Conservative party. Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years dramatises this period in which the growing menace of Nazism in Germany was met with indifference, even fear by governments of the day who were more concerned with their survival than in serving those who had elected them. Churchill is perceptively played by Robert Hardy, confirming the image without falling into caricature. Visionary and obstinate by turns, he galvanises his supporters and enrages his enemies with a passion borne of conviction. A seasoned British cast includes Peter Barkworth as the amiable but ineffectual Stanley Baldwin, Eric Porter as the truly "out of time" Neville Chamberlain, Edward Woodward as the scheming Samuel Hoare and Nigel Havers as the tragically flawed Randolph Churchill. Martin Gilbert has done a persuasive job transforming his novel into a TV script, the scenes in the House of Commons having a gritty reality that makes compulsive viewing. On the DVD: it’s a pity that the Southern Pictures production, first screened in 1981, has emerged so dimly in this incarnation. Has the master tape eroded so badly, or was it simply not available? However, it’s worth putting up with the technical defects to enjoy this historically informed and grippingly dramatic serial. --Richard Whitehouse

• Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years - Vol. 2: In High Places / A Menace In The House | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It’s easy to forget that before fronting the British war effort through most of World War II, Winston Churchill had spent the previous decade isolated in Parliament and in internal opposition to the Conservative party. Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years dramatises this period in which the growing menace of Nazism in Germany was met with indifference, even fear by governments of the day who were more concerned with their survival than in serving those who had elected them. Churchill is perceptively played by Robert Hardy, confirming the image without falling into caricature. Visionary and obstinate by turns, he galvanises his supporters and enrages his enemies with a passion borne of conviction. A seasoned British cast includes Peter Barkworth as the amiable but ineffectual Stanley Baldwin, Eric Porter as the truly "out of time" Neville Chamberlain, Edward Woodward as the scheming Samuel Hoare and Nigel Havers as the tragically flawed Randolph Churchill. Martin Gilbert has done a persuasive job transforming his novel into a TV script, the scenes in the House of Commons having a gritty reality that makes compulsive viewing. On the DVD: it’s a pity that the Southern Pictures production, first screened in 1981, has emerged so dimly in this incarnation. Has the master tape eroded so badly, or was it simply not available? However, it’s worth putting up with the technical defects to enjoy this historically informed and grippingly dramatic serial. --Richard Whitehouse

• Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years - Vol. 3: The Flying Peril / His Own Funeral | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It’s easy to forget that before fronting the British war effort through most of World War II, Winston Churchill had spent the previous decade isolated in Parliament and in internal opposition to the Conservative party. Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years dramatises this period in which the growing menace of Nazism in Germany was met with indifference, even fear by governments of the day who were more concerned with their survival than in serving those who had elected them. Churchill is perceptively played by Robert Hardy, confirming the image without falling into caricature. Visionary and obstinate by turns, he galvanises his supporters and enrages his enemies with a passion borne of conviction. A seasoned British cast includes Peter Barkworth as the amiable but ineffectual Stanley Baldwin, Eric Porter as the truly "out of time" Neville Chamberlain, Edward Woodward as the scheming Samuel Hoare and Nigel Havers as the tragically flawed Randolph Churchill. Martin Gilbert has done a persuasive job transforming his novel into a TV script, the scenes in the House of Commons having a gritty reality that makes compulsive viewing. On the DVD: it’s a pity that the Southern Pictures production, first screened in 1981, has emerged so dimly in this incarnation. Has the master tape eroded so badly, or was it simply not available? However, it’s worth putting up with the technical defects to enjoy this historically informed and grippingly dramatic serial. --Richard Whitehouse

• The Sell Out | DVD | (17/10/2011) from £8.07   |  Saving you £-3.08 (-61.70%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The KGB and CIA reach agreement to eliminate former agents who might prove embarrassing to their former employers. A former CIA agent avoids elimination and calls in a favour from his former mentor.

• Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  Christopher Reeve not only dons the hero's cape for the fourth time in Superman IV: The Quest For Peace but also helped develop the film's provocative theme: nuclear disarmament. For me it's the most personal of the entire series Reeve says. It directly reflects what Superman should be and should be doing. Superman does a lot this time around. To make the world safe for nuclear arms merchants archvillain Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) creates a new being to challenge the Man of Steel: the radiation-charged Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow). The two foes clash in an explosive extravaganza that sees Superman save the Statue of Liberty plug a volcanic eruption of Mount Etna and rebuild the demolished Great Wall of China. Your quest for superheroic excitement is over!

• From Hell To Victory | DVD | (04/10/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The various adventures of six friends that find their lives torn apart by the advent of the second world war. Starring George Peppard (The A-Team Banacek) and George Hamilton (Evel Knievel Zorro the Gay Blade) and directed by Umberto Lenzi (Eyeball Cannibal Ferox).