Joan and Eddie are in love but he is a career criminal. She uses her influence to get him out of prison and after their marriage he vows to go straight. However things don't go according to plan and they both go off the rails...
Horace Vendig shows himself to the world as a rich philanthropist. In fact, the history of his rise from his unhappy broken home shows this to be far from the case. After being taken in by richer neighbours he started to exhibit an obsessive and selfish urge to make more and more money, loving and leaving women at will to further this end.
Bedpan humour rules in Carry On Doctor, the vintage 1968 offering from the familiar gang, assisted by guest star Frankie Howerd as bogus faith healer Francis Bigger. Hospitals, of course, always provided the Carry On producers with plenty of material. Today, these comedies induce a twinge of serious nostalgia for the great days of the National Health Service when Matron (Hattie Jacques, naturally) ran the hospital as if it was a house of correction, medical professionals were idolised as if they were all Doctor Kildare and Accident and Emergency Departments were deserted oases of calm. But even if you aren't interested in a history lesson, Talbot Rothwell's script contains some immortal dialogue, particularly when Matron loosens her stays. "You may not realise it but I was once a weak man", says Kenneth Williams' terrified Doctor Tinkle to Hattie Jacques. "Once a week's enough for any man", she purrs back, undaunted. Other highlights include Joan Sims, excellent as Frankie Howerd's deaf, bespectacled sidekick, Charles Hawtrey suffering from a phantom pregnancy, 1960s singer Anita Harris in a rare film role, and Barbara Windsor at her most irrepressible as nurse Sandra May. This is one of the best. On the DVD: Presented in 1.77:1 format for a pseudo-widescreen effect, the picture quality is good and sharp, accompanied by a standard mono soundtrack. The same no-frills approach is taken with the packaging; a functional scene index and no extras. Yet again, a missed opportunity to use the DVD release to provide some context. At their best, the Carry On films are rightly seen as classic comedies of their type. They really deserve to be better celebrated. --Piers Ford
The title of Carry On Again Doctor (1969) says it all; almost the same cast playing similar characters to their previous year's outing in Carry On Doctor. This one rejoices in the alternative title "Bowels are Ringing". But the enduring popularity of these films owes almost everything to their basic formula and if this one occasionally seems a bit cobbled together, all the old favourites are still there, working away. This time, the setting moves from the National Health Service to the private sector and even stretches as far as the "Beatific Islands" when Jim Dale is exiled to a missionary clinic for his overzealous attention to the female patients, who include Barbara Windsor of course. There, orderly Sid James rules the roost of the clinic with his harem of local women. Trivia addicts can spot Mrs Michael Caine in a brief role as a token dusky maiden. The second half of the Talbot Rothwell script picks up nicely as the characters converge on the private hospital back in England where Dale rakes in the money with a bogus weight loss treatment. Hattie Jacques is in fine form as Matron, Kenneth Williams fascinates with his usual mass of mannerisms and Joan Sims is stately as the Lady Bountiful figure financing most of the shenanigans. It's a tribute to their professionalism that we can still lose ourselves in some of the creakiest old jokes around. On the DVD: Bog standard 4:3 picture format and mono soundtrack provide an adequate viewing experience, especially as today most people will be more familiar with these films from television transmissions than from their cinema release. However, the lack of extras is a shame. Apart from the scene index, there is nothing to distinguish the DVD from its video equivalent. At the very least, a cast list or star biographies would add a little value. --Piers Ford
Carnival Of Souls
Shot in the bright postal colours of a seaside postcard, Carry on Henry applies the usual Carry On sniggering to the married life of Henry VIII. Talbot Rothwell's script is standard bedroom farce and full of jokes about choppers, while the threat of beheading and the actuality of torture are constantly present but only as the terrible things that happen to cartoon characters who will be back next time. Sid James turns in one of his better performances as the endlessly lecherous and fickle Henry, married to Joan Sims and lusting after Barbara Windsor. There is a genuine sexual chemistry between James and Windsor which at times almost breaks open the farce formula. The usual regulars--Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell, Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey, Charles Hawtrey as Sir Roger--do their usual turns; Williams is more subdued than usual, while Hawtrey hugely enjoys playing the Queen's secret lover. This was not one of the high points of the series, but it has its own curious charm. On the DVD: The DVD has no extras whatever, but is a good clean print in 1.77:1 ratio with crisp mono sound. --Roz Kaveney
You'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger family film than this chaotic comedy starring Lucille Ball and Academy Award-winner Henry Fonda as the parents of eighteen (Yes eighteen!) children. Based on a true story and co-starring Van Johnson and Tom Bosley Yours Mine And Ours keeps the laughs coming thick and fast! This population explosion occurs when widowed Navy nurse Helen North (Ball) meets handsome Naval officer and widower Frank Beardsley (Fonda). They have much in commo
Possibly the best horror film ever made this brilliant adaptation of Ira Levin's best-selling novel is the story of a loving young New York city couple who are experiencing their first child. Like most first time mothers Rosemary experiences confusion and fear. Her husband an ambitious but unsuccessful actor makes a pact with the devil that promises to send his career skyward. Director Roman Polanski elicits uniformly extraordinary performances from the all-star cast. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for her performance as an oversolicitous next-door neighbour in this classic chiller.
Chaliapin - The Adventures Of Don Quixote (1933)
Carry On Don't Lose Your Head parodies the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with crinkly, cackling Sid James as master of disguise the Black Fingernail and Jim Dale as his assistant Lord Darcy. He must rescue preposterously effete aristo Charles Hawtrey from the clutches of Kenneth Williams' fiendish Citizen Camembert and his sidekick Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). The Black Fingernail is assisted in his efforts to thwart the birth of the burgeoning republic by the almost supernatural stupidity of his opponents, who fail to recognise the frankly undisguisable Sid James even when dressed as a flirty young woman. What with an executioner who is tricked into beheading himself in order to prove the efficacy of his own guillotine, it's all a little too easy. As usual, no groan-worthy pun is left unturned, nor unheralded by the soundtrack strains of a long whistle or wah-wah trumpet. This is pretty silly stuff even by Carry On standards, with most of the cast barely required to come out of first gear and an overlong climactic swordfight sequence hardly raising the dramatic stakes. Most of the humour here resides neither in the script nor the characterisation but in the endlessly watchable Williams' whooping, nasal delivery (occasionally lapsing into broad Cockney) and the jowl movements of the always-underrated Butterworth. On the DVD: There are no extra features except scene selection. The picture is 4:3 full screen ratio.--David Stubbs
While much of the world watched the early success of 'Mein Kampf' and the bombing of Pearl Harbour was ten years in the future few were aware of the existence of an oriental 'Hitler' ... Baron Giichi Tankara. But the war had already started in Japan for James Condon American journalist and editor of the Japanese Chronicle whose intuition has led him to believe that major trouble was brewing. The role of Condon man of hard words and harder fists is just the kind of tough guy that first brought James Cagney stardom and in this movie you will not be disappointed as he battles to stay alive long enough to warn the rest of the world against a Japanese militarist plot called the 'Tanaka Plan' that has world domination as its objective. This is one of the first American martial arts movies and features some gripping action with Cagney doing his own stunts for which he trained intensively with Ken Kuniyuki a fifth degree judo master before shooting. This is Cagney at his best.
A novice teacher faces a class of rowdy, undisciplined working-class teenagers in this classic film that reflected some of the problems and fears that existed among young people in the 1960's. Sidney Poitier gives one of his finest performances as Mark Thackeray, an out-of-work engineer who turns to teaching in London's tough East End.The graduating class, led by Denham (Christian Roberts), Pamela (Judy Geeson) and Barbara (Lulu, who also sings the hit title song), sets out to destroy Thakceray as they did his predecessor, by breaking his spirit. But Thackeray, no stranger to hostility, meets the challenge by treating the students as young adults who will soon enter a work force where they must stand or fall on their own. When offered an engineering job, Thackeray must decide if he wants to stay...
Episode 7 - THE BENGAL TIGER: Terry is sent in to mind Arthur's local newsagent who is being threatened. Episode 8 - COME IN T-64 YOUR TIME IS TICKING AWAY: Arthur's interest in Candy Cabs is being threatened so he sends Terry to find out what is going on. Episode 9 - MONDAY NIGHT FEVER: Arthur falls for a would-be singer and promises to make her a star. Terry has his doubts.
In 1928 Sunrise won Oscars for Janet Gaynor as Best Actress and cinematography as a "Unique and Artistic Picture". In 1967 it was declared "the single greatest masterwork in the history of cinema" by key French new wave magazine Cahiers du Cinema. Released with a synchronised score and effects soundtrack but no dialogue, it is a cinematic landmark from the transition period between silent cinema and the talkies. Beginning as a prototype film noir in which a farmer (George O' Brien) plans the murder of his wife (Gaynor) with his vacationing lover from the city (Margaret Livingstone), the film develops from tense thriller into a story of reawakened love and redemption. Anticipating Orson Welles's artistic freedom on Citizen Kane (1941), German expressionist director FW Murnau was given carte blanche following the huge American success of The Last Laugh (1924). The result was this poetic fable making inventive use of every technical device then available, including in-camera multiple exposures and superimpositions, long elegant tracking shots, forced perspectives, complex miniatures and synchronised sound, as well as the largest single-street-scene set ever built. The result is a film that influenced everything from Hitchcock suspense to Titanic (1997) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Murnau summons powerful performances from his principal players--Gaynor would later headline A Star Is Born (1937) and O'Brien would take important roles in several classic John Ford westerns--while the transcendent finale evokes and reworks the ending of the director's earlier classic, Nosferatu (1922). Though now inevitably dated Sunrise remains essential for anyone seriously interested in the development of cinematic art. On the DVD:Sunrise is presented on an immaculately produced two-disc special edition. Though restored to full length and presented in the original 1.2:1 ratio with the complete music and effects soundtrack, the film has been taken from a print made in 1936, the original camera negative having been destroyed in a fire. As a result this is the best possible modern presentation of Sunrise, though the print, while perfectly acceptable, is very grainy, lined and flickery by contemporary standards. The mono sound has been superbly restored and is remarkably effective for its vintage; an alternative stereo musical track recorded for recent reissue sounds excellent. The film also boasts a commentary by John Bailey: apart from talking a little too much about how beautiful the lighting is, Bailey offers seriously in-depth knowledge about the film and about Murnau that really puts everything into historical context and explains the constant technical ingenuity. The second disc presents the useful A Song of Two Humans, a 12-minute visual essay by film historian R Dixon Smith, and almost 10 minutes of outtakes with optional commentary by John Bailey, as well as a trailer, stills gallery and notes explaining the nature of the restoration. There is also an excellent 40-minute documentary Murnau's 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film, telling the story of the director's lost follow up to Sunrise. Microsoft Word and PDF files available via DVD-ROM present various incarnations of the screenplays for both Sunrise and 4 Devils. --Gary S. Dalkin
At a hospice facility nestled in the mountains of Southern California three very different families face the one thing they have in common: One member of each family is in the last stages of a terminal illness.
Nickelodeon recalls the early days of the motion picture industry and is based in part on Peter Bogdanovich's interviews with pioneering directors Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan. Lawyer-turned-movie-director Leo Harrigan (Ryan O'Neal) and Buck Greenaway (Burt Reynolds) an actor are both sent to California to shut down a renegade group of silent movie makers. Joining forces with cameraman Franklin Frank (John Ritter) leading lady Kathleen Cooke (Jane Hitchcock) and precocious prop-girl
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