"Actor: Samuel S. Hinds"

• You Can't Take It With You | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £9.14   |  Saving you £3.85 (42.12%)   |  RRP £12.99

  You Can't Take It With You, Frank Capra's 1938 populist spin on the George S Kaufman and Moss Hart play about a family of happy eccentrics, is a great deal of fun, though it significantly rewrites the original work and doesn't represent Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) at his best. Jean Arthur plays a member of the blissful Vanderhof househ old who falls in love with a rich man's son (James Stewart) and brings him into her nutty home. Lionel Barrymore, who played such a bad guy eight years later in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, is the wonderful Grandpa Vanderhof, who addresses God during the dinner prayer as "sir" and speaks plainly and beautifully of why it's good to be alive. Capra took this opportunity to rail against big business and champion the common man, but the overall tone of the film--typical for the director's comedies--is buoyant and snappy. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Raven | DVD | (27/05/2013) from £8.10   |  Saving you £3.15 (46.05%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi star in this macabre horror classic inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Dr. Richard Vollin (Lugosi) is a brilliant but unstable surgeon with a morbid obsession for instruments of torture. He saves the life of Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) a beautiful young socialite injured in an automobile accident and becomes increasingly attracted to her. But the girl is frightened by his advances and complains to her father Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds) who tells Vollin to leave the girl alone. When escaped killer Edmund Bateman (Karloff) approaches the surgeon for a new face Vollin agrees only after convincing Bateman to assist him in his sinister plan of revenge. The doctor ultimately becomes the victim of his own wicked schemes when Bateman realizes Vollin has no intention of remaking his disfigured countenance in this elaborately produced shocker.

• Seven Sinners (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £4.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (100.20%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Bijou is a beautiful man-eating cabaret singer in the South Seas who travels from one island saloon to another - usually wreaking havoc on the female-starved clientele. Then she falls in love with dashing and unsuspecting Naval officer Dan Brent. As their romance blossoms Dan proposes marriage to Bijou. The Navy brass knowing Bijou's disreputable past try to convince her to reconsider marrying Dan to save his promising career.

• Lady On A Train | DVD | (16/08/2004) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-0.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When Nikki Collins witnesses a murder the absence of a body undermines her credibility in the eyes of the police. Undeterred Nikki seeks the help of a popular crime fiction writer. Includes the famous songs: 'Silent Night Holy Night' 'Give Me A Little Kiss' and 'Night And Day'.

• Abbott And Costello In Buck Privates | Blu Ray | (26/02/2018) from £4.40   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Comedy legends Bud Abbott and Lou Costello cemented their place in film history with the hilarious wartime comedy classic Buck Privates. After spending years on stage in burlesque and on radio perfecting classic routines such as 'Who's on First?', the duo transitioned to motion pictures at Universal in 1940. In their first leading roles, Bud and Lou play con artists who accidentally enlist in the U.S. Army to avoid going to jail. Making matters worse, their no-nonsense drill sergeant turns out to be the cop who tried to arrest them! Featuring classic routines such as 'Drill', 'Dice Game' and 'You're Forty, She's Ten', the film also starred the popular singing group The Andrews Sisters performing the Academy Award nominated song 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy'. Following the success of Buck Privates, Bud and Lou made an astounding 26 more movies at Universal leaving a legacy of laughter that will be treasured forever.

• The Spoilers (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £5.35   |  Saving you £4.64 (86.73%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In Nome Alaska miner Roy Glennister and his partner Dextry financed by saloon entertainer Cherry Malotte fight to save their gold claim from crooked commissioner Alexander McNamara.

• Three Faces West & Shepherd of the Hills (John Wayne) | DVD | (26/06/2006) from £14.86   |  Saving you £-4.87 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Three Faces Of The West (Dir. Bernard Vorhaus 1940): A refugee physician and his daughter find themselves part of a group of townspeople who are trying to relocate out of the dust bowl region of the South Central U.S. John Wayne stars the group's tireless leader. Shepherd Of The Hills (Dir. Henry Hathaway 1941): When a stranger comes to an isolated mountain village and tempers the rough rage of its inhabitants one of the mountaineers (""The Duke"") is still suspicious of this mysterious interloper--and not incidentally still bitter over being deserted by his father as an infant.

• Marlene Dietrich - Small Goddess | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The Lady Is Willing (Dir. Mitchell Leisen 1942): Bold eccentric Broadway performer Lisa Madden befuddles her handlers by coming home with a baby she picked up on the street. She wants to keep the baby but has to find a husband to make adoption viable. Why not her new obstetrician Dr. McBain? She offers him help with his research on rabbits in exchange for marriage - and he accepts. The marriage of convenience turns into a marriage of real love but when Dr. McBain's ex-wife comes looking for money matters get complicated... Shanghai Express (Dir. Josef von Sternberg 1932): Many passengers on the Shanghai Express are more concerned that the notorious Shanghai Lil is on board than the fact that a civil war is going on that may make the trip take more than three days. The British Army doctor Donald Harvey knew Lil before she became a famous ""coaster."" A fellow passenger defines a coaster as ""a woman who lives by her wits along the China coast."" When Chinese guerillas stop the train Dr. Harvey is selected as the hostage. Lil saves him but can she make him believe that she really hasn't changed from the woman he loved five years before? Destry Rides Again (Dir. George Marshall 1939): Kent the unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game that gives Kent a stranglehold over the local cattle rangers. The mayor who is in cahoots with Kent appoints the town drunk Washington Dimsdale as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control. But what the mayor doesn't know is that Dimsdale was a deputy under famous lawman Tom Destry and is able to call upon the equally formidable Tom Destry Jr to be his deputy. Foreign Affair (Dir. Billy Wilder 1948): In occupied Berlin an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi cafe singer and the U.S. congresswoman investigating her. Blonde Venus (Dir. Josef von Sternberg): American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance of being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend. While Ned is away in Europe she continues with Nick but when Ned returns cured he discovers her infidelity. Now Ned despises Helen but she grabs son Johnny and lives on the run just one step ahead of the Missing Persons Bureau. When they do finally catch her she loses her son to Ned. Once again she returns to entertaining this time in Paris and her fame once again brings her and Townsend together. Helen and Nick return to America engaged but she is irresistibly drawn back to her son and Ned. In which life does she truly belong? Devil Is A Woman (Dir. Josef von Sternberg 1935): Told in flashbacks Devil Is A Woman is a tale of an older man's obsession for a woman who can belong to no-one but can frustrate everyone. The backdrop is Sternbergs surreal and fantastic Carnaval in Spain. In a cafe the older man details his encounters with the heartbreaker that his younger friend has only just met at the parade. Forewarned the young man swears he will avoid the fate of his friend but rushes all the same to his evening rendevous. A dreamlike story of frustrated lost romance spoken in the past tense never really resolved.

• Pardon My Sarong / Who Done It | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £15.20   |  Saving you £-5.21 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Pardon My Sarong: Bud and Lou play a couple of bus drivers who quickly get in trouble. Who Done It?: The stooges are private detectives looking for a missing millionaire. They wander around the millionaire's spooky mansion confronting various crooks and a dangerous dame. The stooges vanquish the crooks (Shemp uses his ""trusty shovel"") and find the missing man.

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £15.13   |  Saving you £-10.14 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £14.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (6.74%)   |  RRP £15.99

  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. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden clerk with a nagging, shrewish wife and unfilled ambitions as an artist, a man who murders in a jealous rage. Bennett is a mercenary vamp, none too bright, and Duryea brutal and heartless. 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. When it was made the film hit censorship problems, since at the time it was unacceptable to show a murder going unpunished. Lang went out of his way to show the killer plunged into the mental hell of his own guilt, but for some authorities this still wasn't enough, and the film was banned in New York State for being "immoral, indecent and corrupt". Not that this did its box-office returns any harm at all. On the DVD: sparse pickings. There's an interactive menu that zips past too fast to be of much use. The full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne adds the occasional insight, but it's repetitive and not always reliable. (He gets actors' names wrong, for a start.) The box claims the print's been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £11.80   |  Saving you £-6.81 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  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. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden clerk with a nagging, shrewish wife and unfilled ambitions as an artist, a man who murders in a jealous rage. Bennett is a mercenary vamp, none too bright, and Duryea brutal and heartless. 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. When it was made the film hit censorship problems, since at the time it was unacceptable to show a murder going unpunished. Lang went out of his way to show the killer plunged into the mental hell of his own guilt, but for some authorities this still wasn't enough, and the film was banned in New York State for being "immoral, indecent and corrupt". Not that this did its box-office returns any harm at all. On the DVD: sparse pickings. There's an interactive menu that zips past too fast to be of much use. The full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne adds the occasional insight, but it's repetitive and not always reliable. (He gets actors' names wrong, for a start.) The box claims the print's been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• The Spoilers | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In Nome Alaska miner Roy Glennister and his partner Dextry financed by saloon entertainer Cherry Malotte fight to save their gold claim from crooked commissioner Alexander McNamara.