"Actor: Sydney"

• 3 Classic Horrors Of The Silver Screen - Vol. 4 - Carnival Of Souls / The Ape Man / Mesa Of Lost Women | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £9.74   |  Saving you £-4.75 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Carnival Of Souls: Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) apparently survives a serious car accident. Shortly after she heads for Utah and a new job as a church organist but is pursued by a cadaverous phantom figure... The Ape Man: Mad scientist Dr. Brewster long thought dead is working away in his basement laboratory on a serum derived from gorilla spinal fluid. Experimenting on himself Dr. Brewster is dismayed to discover that the injections have given him a bushy beard a

• Z Nation Season 4 | Blu Ray | (22/01/2018) from £16.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 13 Episodes from the Season Four of the Zombie Apocalypse! Over a vast apocalyptic landscape looms a BLACK RAINBOW that stretches from horizon to horizon. A soft black rain is falling, but when the rain falls on Zombies and humans alike, it melts the flesh from their bones. Warren is there, screaming as the skin melts away from her skull then she wakes. Season four begins 2 years in the future, just as Warren is waking from a coma to find that she, and a cured, flesh-toned, seemingly 100% human Murphy, have survived. The rest of the Team was scattered after the events of the season three finally. As Warren and Murphy find the others, they discover they may have lost one of their own; worse, one of Our Heroes may have delivered the deathblow. Physically and psychologically changed, Warren is haunted by the prophetic dream of a Black Rainbow and a powerful compulsion to travel east. Unwilling to lose her, the Team follows, and with the help of new parents, Kaya and Citizen Z, Our Heroes discover the hidden meaning of Warren's dream, Zona's plan to cleanse the earth for their own use, and the nearly impossible tasks Our Heroes will have to complete to save all that's left of non-billionaire life on earth. As if all that wasn't hard enough, the Zombie Virus has evolved again, the parasite spreading from the brain into all the remaining flesh, so that killing the brain no longer kills the Zombie; Mad-Zs must be totally obliterated, or they just keep coming. There's no gas, hardly any bullets, and damn few people that aren't bug nuts crazy. Just a dream and a mission and a sliver of hope, as Warren leads the Team back across the American Apocalypse, uniting our core characters again, new evolutions of their old selves, on a single mission of hope.

• Brief Encounter | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £14.91   |  Saving you £1.08 (7.24%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Noel Coward's timeless movie of a couple who meet in a railway station and must make a decision that will change their lives forever.

• Make Mine Mink | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £8.35   |  Saving you £1.64 (19.64%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Make Mine Mink (1960) was adapted from a West End stage farce, Breath of Spring. In a mansion block in Knightsbridge, a gang of middle-aged biddies decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life" by staging a series of robberies on furriers, then donating the proceeds to charitable concerns. Terry Thomas as a retired army officer leads the gang, which includes Athene Seyler and Hattie Jacques, on a series of capers that nearly go awry when their maid, Billie Whitelaw, an ex-con and also a resident of the block, falls for a police officer. Among many funny scenes is a particular gem between Seyler and Kenneth Williams, her nephew to whom she hopes to palm off a stolen mink, and another where Terry Thomas enters a low-down dive to the accompaniment of the "Harry Lime theme". The playing of the whole cast is second to none under the direction of Robert Asher, who with his cameraman disguises the stage origins of the piece very adeptly. On the DVD: Make Mine Mink comes to DVD in 4:3 ratio with a mono soundtrack. The theatrical trailer is introduced by Terry Thomas, who presents us to his gang of fur thieves as the voice on the soundtrack announces him as "fur, fur funnier than you've seen him before". More TT tomfoolery can be found in the three-disc Terry Thomas Collection. --Adrian Edwards

• Eyes Wide Shut | DVD | (10/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Visually beautiful, Kubrick's last completed film Eyes Wide Shut blends the sinister, the sensual and the clinical in a combination that is rather too personal and idiosyncratic to be entirely successful as the final statement about gender and sexuality he intended it to be. Adapted by Frederick Raphael from the Dream Story of Freud's friend Schnitzler, it shows a young successful couple confront the dangers that lurk beyond monogamy; Nicole Kidman's Alice does little more than fantasise, flirt and dream, but even this causes guilt and pain. Doctor Bill (Tom Cruise) does rather more--he visits a whore, crashes an orgy and continues to ask questions when warned off; if no disaster ensues, and it is possible that two people die as a result, it is only luck that averts it. Much of the best of what is here is to be found in the occasional moments of stillness--Cruise walking through a morgue--or wild comedy--Cruise's attempt to hire a costume in the middle of the night interrupts major shenanigans at the fancy-dress shop. Cruise and Kidman do what they can with material that never means as much as it aspires to and the stand-out performance is Sydney Pollack's, as a worldly wise client. On the DVD: The DVD is presented in a lavish Dolby Sound that makes the most of the obsessive Ligeti piano piece and Shostakovich waltz that dominate the score and in the 1.33:1 ratio that was Kubrick's considered choice. It has subtitles in English, Arabic, Bulgarian and Rumanian, two TV spots and informative interviews with Kidman and Cruise, as well as with Stephen Spielberg to whom Kubrick had talked at length about his artistic intentions. --Roz Kaveney

• Twilight Zone - Season Two | Blu Ray | (20/06/2011) from £26.98   |  Saving you £23.01 (85.29%)   |  RRP £49.99

  All 29 episodes of the second season of Rod Serling's classic, groundbreaking series, now presented in pristine high-definition for the first time ever, along with hours of new and exclusive bonus features not available anywhere else! Episodes Comprise:King Nine Will Not ReturnThe Man in the BottleNervous Man in a Four Dollar RoomA Thing About MachinesThe Howling ManEye of the BeholderNick of TimeThe Lateness of the HourThe Trouble With TempletonA Most Unusual CameraThe Night of the MeekDustBack ThereThe Whole TruthThe InvadersA Penny For Your ThoughtsTwenty TwoThe Odyssey of Flight 33Mr. Dingle, The StrongStaticThe Prime MoverLong Distance CallA Hundred Yards Over the RimThe Rip Van Winkle CaperThe SilenceShadow PlayThe Mind and the MatterWill the Real Martian Please Stand Up?The Obsolete Man

• Limelight - Dual Format Edition | Blu Ray | (28/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Limelight tells the story of a fading music hall comedian's efforts to help a despondent ballet dancer learn both to walk and feel confident about life again. The highlight of this moving Academy Award-winning film is the classic duet with Chaplin's only real artistic film comedy rival Buster Keaton. This Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray and DVD) features the film restored in HD

• War Box Set 1 | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £8.74   |  Saving you £11.25 (128.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Films comprise: 1. The Colditz Story (Dir. Guy Hamilton 1955) 2. The Cruel Sea (Dir. Charles Frend 1953) 3. The Dam Busters (Dir. Michael Anderson 1954)

• Around The World In 80 Days | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £11.28   |  Saving you £1.71 (15.16%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Along with a glittering star-studded cast follow Phileas Fogg on his journey around the world. Phileas wagers that he can circumnavigate the world in a mere 80 days - and vows to leave that very night taking only some necessary cash in a carpet bag and his newly hired manservant Jean Passepartout. Adding to the excitement an English detective relentlessly pursues them throughout the journey that takes our hero to the World's most exotic locations by land sea and air.

• The Player | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £24.99   |  Saving you £-12.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Robert Altman's a biting satire on the Hollywood industry, The Player, has always been acknowledged by insiders as too close to the truth for comfort. Opening with a self-referential nine-minute tracking shot around the studio lot where producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) works, the story's intrigue begins with the first of several postcard death threats from a writer he's angered. After accidentally killing the wrong man, Mill moves from one star-studded lunch table to another. All the while he's hounded by the real writer and an obsession with "Ice Queen" artist June Gudmundsdotter (Greta Scacchi) who'd been the deceased's girlfriend. Altman's tradition of improvised dialogue makes each of the dozens of cameos a fascinating treat for movie fans. Blink and you'll miss Angelica Houston, John Cusack, Rod Steiger, or Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts who appear in the hilarious movie-within-a-movie finale. There's an endless list of terrific support from the likes of dry-witted Fred Ward, fly-swatting Lyle Lovett, or tampon-twirling Whoopi Goldberg. Aside from the star-spotting and a script that crackles with sharp dialogue, this also warrants acknowledgement for being the movie to set off an explosion of independent film in the Nineties. On the DVD: there's a commentary track (which leaves the film's soundtrack playing a little too loud) from director Altman who talks at length about the poor state of today's industry, and writer Michael Tolkin who contributes about ten minutes of veiled displeasure about the treatment of a writer's work. There are five grainy deleted scenes featuring lost cameos from Tim Curry, Jeff Daniels, and Patrick Swayze. Then in a 16-minute featurette a lot of the deleted footage is repeated around an interview with Altman. A trailer rounds out the package. --Paul Tonks

• Assassin for Hire | DVD | (02/03/2015) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A taut, noir-ish crime thriller produced by Primetime Emmy nominee and future Avengers lynchpin Julian Wintle, Assassin for Hire stars Sydney Tafler as a hitman who nurtures his younger brother's musical talent with blood money; Ronald Howard is the Scotland Yard inspector who doggedly pursues him using any means at his disposal. This early-fifties 'B'-movie gem is featured here in a brandnew transfer from the original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.Antonio Riccardi, a rare stamp dealer who is secretly a hired killer, pays for the violin lessons of his gifted brother Giuseppe. To meet the expenses of Giuseppe's concert debut he accepts a further job, but his decision to do so provides Detective Inspector Carson, who has long hoped to ensnare Tony, with an opportunity hat might now enable him to bring about his downfall...SPECIAL FEATURE:Original Press Release PDF

• The Counterfeit Plan | DVD | (15/02/2016) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A classic high-tension thriller directed by Montgomery Tully, this rarely seen gem features an exceptional transatlantic cast including Zachary Scott (on magnificently sinister form as a brutal master-criminal), Mervyn Johns, noir heroine Peggie Castle, fan favourite Lee Patterson and British screen spiv Sydney Tafler. The Counterfeit Plan is featured here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements, in its original theatrical aspect ratio.With the aid of his accomplices, convicted murderer Max Brandt escapes whilst being escorted to a French prison and flees across the Channel. Arriving in England he seeks out a wartime acquaintance, Louie. An expert forger, Louie has now turned his back on his criminal career but Brandt is determined to blackmail him into putting his formidable skills to use once more...SPECIAL FEATURES:Alternative Titles (mute)Original Theatrical TrailersImage GalleryOriginal Synopsis PDF

• Night Patrol | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £22.47   |  Saving you £-16.48 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Melvin has a problem. As a rookie cop he ranks among the best... of the worst. Inept hapless and shy his daily routine takes him from misadventure to misadventure. but by night the normally bungling bobby transforms into ;The Unknown Comic'. Disguised only with a paper bag over his head Melvin has audiences eating out of his hand if only the same were true of the voluptuous lady in the front row. A loony psychiatrist a police captain who is a pathalogical liar a playboy partner

• Wolfblood Series 4 (BBC) | DVD | (20/06/2016) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  All 12 episodes from the fourth series of the teenage fantasy drama. The programme follows a group of young wolfbloods as they come to terms with their transformation and try their utmost to protect the woldblood secret. In this series, former wild wolfblood Jana has moved to Newcastle where she works for Segolia. There, she rescues oprhaned wolfblood siblings Matei and Emilia Jack Brett Anderson and and forms a new pack. The episodes are: 'Captivity', 'A Long Way from Home', 'Wolfblood Ultimatum', 'Morwal', 'The Quiet Hero', 'She-Wolf', 'Sheep's Clothing', 'Where Wolf', 'Into the Wild', 'The Wild at Heart', 'Viral' and 'Protocol 5'.

• Stanley Kubrick | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £99.99

  This superb nine-disc Stanley Kubrick Box Set contains all the late director's work from 1962's Lolita to Kubrick's final film, the highly controversial Eyes Wide Shut (1999). There's also the excellent and highly informative two-hour documentary: Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, narrated (a little drably) by Tom Cruise. It isn't exactly a warts-and-all portrait of Stan the Man, which is not surprising, really, given that it's directed and produced by Kubrick's brother-in-law Jan Harlan, and that Kubrick's widow Christine was closely involved in the making of it. But it does give a detailed and revealing portrait of a brilliant, demanding and often infuriating man, airing rare footage that goes right back to his earliest years as a brash youngster in the Bronx, already playing to camera with a frightening degree of self-awareness. Six of the eight movies (all but Dr Strangelove and Eyes Wide Shut) have been digitally restored and remastered, and almost all (barring Strangelove again and Lolita) now boast Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo sound remixes. For some bizarre reason, Kubrick insisted on mono sound for the 1999 set, which he approved shortly before his death. Visually the improvement over the often grainy, scratchy prints previously on offer--The Shining (1980) was notoriously messy--is immense. All the features are presented in their original ratios, which in the case of Strangelove means the changing ratios in which it was originally shot, and for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) the full glorious 2.21:1 expanse of the Cinerama screen.So what don't you get? Essentially, the early Kubrick--the work of the young, hungry director before he moved to England and started to gather all the controlling strings into his own hand: most notably the tough, taut thriller The Killing (1956) and the icily furious war film Paths of Glory (1957). Too bad Warners couldn't have negotiated the rights for those too. But what we have here is the culminating phase of Kubrick's filmmaking career--the final 27 years of one of the great masters of cinema. On the DVDs: Besides the visual and sonic improvements mentioned above, each of the eight features includes the original theatrical trailer and multiple-language subtitles. The DVD of Dr Strangelove also gives us filmographies of the principal players, plus theatrical posters and a photo gallery, while Eyes Wide Shut includes interviews (taped after Kubrick's death) with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Steven Spielberg, plus a couple of 30-second TV spots. And with The Shining we get a fascinating 34-minute documentary made by Kubrick's then 17-year-old daughter Vivian, plus--just to add a further layer--Vivian's present-day voice-over commentary on her film. --Philip Kemp

• The Snow Queen | DVD | (05/12/2005) from £4.52   |  Saving you £0.47 (10.40%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The dark and complex tale of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen is brought to life in this stunning and magical mix of music and song animation and 'live' drama. The tale of how innocence and love in the shape of the heroine Gerda can overcome the evil power of their nemesis The Snow Queen takes us on a journey through the Enchanted Flower Garden on a flight through the Northern Lights and into the palace of the Snow Queen herself - a figure po

• The Sea Shall Not Have Them (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (15/05/2017) from £10.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A stirring British war film depicting the boat crews whose job it was to rescue downed RAF pilots. After the Normandy D-Day landings, a dangerous attempt is made to rescue the survivors of a WWII British Hudson bomber, crashed at sea. On board is an Air Commodore who has secret plans that could stop enemy air raids on London. Produced by Daniel M. Angel. Written by Lewis Gilbert and Vernon Harris from the novel by John Harris.

• Verdi: Il Trovatore -- Opera Australia | DVD | (05/06/2002) from £22.89   |  Saving you £2.10 (9.17%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Il Trovatore, Verdi's 1853 maelstrom of passion, infanticide, double-crossing and revenge, would be a mightily gamy affair if it didn't contain some of his finest arias, a cracker of a tenor's role and one of opera's most powerfully-written characters in the old gypsy woman, Azucena. Although Joan Sutherland, who plays the self-sacrificing lady-in-waiting Leonora in this 1983 Australia Opera production at Sydney Opera House, is the headline star, in truth the supreme assets of this recording are mezzo-soprano Lauris Elms' Azucena, a beautifully sung performance of haunted, wild-eyed sadness; and Sydney Nolan's wonderfully infernal sets, all purple and burnt ochre with suggestions of distorted faces. Sutherland came late to a part which allowed her to sing up a storm without taxing her rather stolid acting style. Her husband and musical director Richard Bonynge gives her the space to unleash some of Verdi's most fluidly opulent melodies--"D'amor sull'ali rosee" is a case in point--whose beauty is often at odds with the underlying horrors of the tale, based on a rather dodgy Spanish melodrama by Gutierrez. Sutherland has strong support from tenor Kenneth Collins as the doomed Manrico and Jonathan Summers as the vengeful Count. On the DVD: Il Trovatore on disc offers the inevitable shortcomings of a filmed for television performance: to the detriment of Nolan's designs (and the hard-pressed make-up team), the lighting doesn't translate well to video. Presented in 4:3 picture format, the quality is frequently murky. The PCM Stereo soundtrack also has its flat and fuzzy moments, particularly during chorus scenes ("Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie") when the orchestra drowns out the singing. But on the whole Sutherland et al sound great.--Piers Ford

• The Three Worlds Of Gulliver | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The 1960 children's feature The Three Worlds of Gulliver brings to life the first two sections of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels in a version which, while sanitised for youngsters, retains some of the satire and intelligence of the original. It also boasts excellent-for-the-time special effects by Ray Harryhausen, though the effects wizard keeps his trademark stop-motion animation to a minimum, featuring it only when Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews from 1958's The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad), has problems with an outsized crocodile and a foraging squirrel. Instead, Harryhausen concentrates on portraying the miniature Lilliputians and the giant Brobdingnagians, and the results still impress over 40 years on. This is a colourful, witty, charming film, though it is also heavily Americanised, the dialogue anachronistic and some of the accents decidedly trans-Atlantic. Mathews is a little stiff in the role of a British doctor, but English actress June Thorburn makes a spirited and beautiful Elizabeth, Gulliver's fiancée who in this version comes along for the journey. While the 1996 TV mini-series Gulliver's Travels comes much closer to Swift's intentions Harryhausen's version will delight younger viewers and has the advantage of a beguiling score from the great Bernard Herrmann. Some viewers may be startled to learn that in the 17th century there were Spanish mountains just outside London, and that Wapping was just a minute's walk from the beach. On the DVD: The Three Worlds of Gulliver on disc has good mono sound while the picture, which is anamorphically enhanced and presented at 1.77:1, is of variable quality. There are very distracting fleck marks where the emulsion has been damaged on the print in many shots featuring Gulliver against a bright blue sky. These really should have been restored before transfer to DVD. Although the packaging refers to "The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles" featurette, this is actually the same superb 57-minute TV documentary which has appeared on other Harryhausen titles. Everyone should have it in their collection once. "This is Dynamation" is a three-minute special effects promo for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Also included is a five-minute original "making of" featurette and trailers for The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1.70:1 letterboxed), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (4:3) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1.77:1 anamorphic), as well as basic filmographies of Jack Sher, Arthur Ross, Ray Harryhausen and Kerwin Mathews. --Gary S Dalkin

• Carry On Regardless | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £6.66   |  Saving you £-0.67 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It's non stop romps as the Carry On team deliver the goods in one of the rudest and funniest of the Carry On films. The cast are all on top form as a bunch of no-hoppers who join an agency in the search for a job. The anarchy mounts as they do a series of odd jobs including a chimps tea party trying to stay sober at a wine tasting and demolishing a house.