"Actor: Van Heflin"

• Greatest Westerns Collection - 3:10 To Yuma/The Man From Laramie/High Plains Drifter/Shenandoah/Fort Apache | DVD | (02/06/2008) from £33.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (18.56%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Greatest Westerns features the biggest stars of the western genre - from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood and James Stewart this box set brings together clasic movies such as the original version of 3:10 To Yuma Stagecoach and High Plains Drifter amongst others. This Box Set Includes: 3:10 To Yuma (Dir. Delmer Daves) (1957): After a hold-up and a murder outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) and his gang are captured. Wade's men break out of jail and wait for a chance to rescue him. The authorities suspect that a daring escape plan is underway so they look for a guard to escort Wade by train to Yuma to stand trial. The marshal offers a bounty and Dan Evans (Van Heflin) a poor rancher hit hard by a crippling drought takes the job. His wife pleads with him to save his own life by letting Wade go free but for Evans it's a matter of principle as well as money. He takes Wade and begins the dangerous trek to the station. The Man From Laramie (Dir. Anthony Mann) (1955): Will Lockhart comes to a small town to find the man who sold rifles to the Apaches and caused the death of his brother a cavalry officer. Beaten and nearly killed by cohorts of the arms dealer he also becomes embroiled with a ranch baron and his overwrought son. Father and son are plotted against by their treacherous foreman who wants the ranch for himself. High Plains Drifter (Dir. Clint Eastwood) (1973): Eastwood portrays a mysterious stranger who emerges out of the heat waves of the desert and rides into the guilt-ridden town of Lago. After committing three murders and one rape in the first 20 minutes The Stranger is hired by the town to protect it from three gunmen just out of jail. The Stranger then paints the entire town bright red renames it ""Hell "" and supplies Divine retribution in a fiery climax. Shenandoah (Dir. Andrew McLaglen) (1965): With the integrity and depth of an epic Shenandoah tells the dramatic story of a man caught in a dilemma. James Stewart stars as a Virginia farmer during the Civil War. He refuses to support the Confederacy because he is opposed to slavery yet he will not support the Union because he is deeply opposed to war. When his son is taken prisoner Stewart goes to search for the boy. Seeing first-hand the horrors of war he is at last forced to take his stand. Stagecoach (Dir. John Ford) (1939): The film is set against the impressive backdrop of Monument Valley in Utah and tells the story of a mixed group of travellers who are making their way across country to Arizona. They are endangered by an Indian War Party and this along with their various characters results in difficulties for the party... Fort Apache (Dir. John Ford) (1948): Henry Fonda plays the stubborn Colonel Thursday whose Textbook methods of warfare appear as pure as suicide to everyone but him. John Wayne stars as Captain York a soldier experienced in Apache warfare from whom Thursday will tak

• Black Widow | DVD | (22/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Bigshot Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin) meets Nancy (Peggy Ann Garner) at a glamorous show business party. Nancy is an ambitious young writer - and Peter offers her the use of his apartment while his wife Iris (Gene Tierney) is out of town. Iris returns to find a dead body in the apartment and her husband the prime suspect. With Detective Lt. Bruce (George Raft) hot on his trail and his celebrity neighbours (Ginger Rogers and Reginald Gardiner) spreading poisonous rumours, Peter must prove his innocence - by uncovering the real murderer...

• Battle Cry | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £15.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The most interesting--and entertaining--aspect of Battle Cry, a long, episodic World War II drama, is that it marked the debut of one Justus E McQueen, who subsequently took the name of the good ol' Arkansas boy he played in the movie: LQ Jones. He's only one of eight or nine marine recruits who divide the screen time with commanding officer Van Heflin and James Whitmore as a lifer sergeant named Mac, "just Mac", who ramrods their squad and also delivers the movie's overbearing narration. Unfortunately, the narration is necessary to maintain continuity as the CinemaScope production galumphs its way from rounding up the melting-pot cast to seeing them through basic training and sundry, mostly amatory misadventures in San Diego, to further training in New Zealand and finally to baptism of fire on Guadalcanal. Trouble is, among the recruits only McQueen/Jones (whose job is mostly comic relief) and Aldo Ray (as a brawling lumberjack who's never known family life) have any charisma or acting chops--and that's not forgetting Tab Hunter, whose matinee-idol status at the time does not speak well for the 50s. Battle Cry is also a cardinal example of Hollywood's penchant for buying big, lusty, profane bestsellers (by Leon Uris, in this case) and then bowdlerising all the lustiness and profanity to appease the censors. Raoul Walsh, the poet laureate of lowdown gusto, does what he can in the circumstances, and as one of the first guys ever to direct a widescreen movie (1930's The Big Trail), he makes the battle scenes roar. --Richard T. Jameson

• Santa Fe Trail | Blu Ray | (14/09/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

• Joan Crawford Signature Collection - Mildred Pierce/Grand Hotel/Humoresque/Possessed/The Damned Don't Cry | DVD | (25/06/2007) from £49.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Mildred Pierce:Joan Crawford delivers a critically acclaimed performance as Mildred Pierce a woman clawing her way to success to provide her daughter with everything she lacks. No sacrifice is too much - ending her middle class marriage climbing to the top of a male-dominated business world and marrying a man she doesn't love - but is murder a step too far? Grand Hotel:Oscar-winning drama with an all-star cast exploring the interwoven relationships of the residents of a plush Berlin hotel... Humoresque:Glamorous socialite Helen Wright (Joan Crawford) takes what she wants clothes alcohol men uses them up and tosses them aside. Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield). But this is one toy she can't break. Instead her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point. In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire Crawford makes Helen a rich layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius. Possessed:She loves him when he goes away for months. She loves him when he refuses to marry her. But when callow David Sutton chooses to marry someone else Louise Howell's love for him takes a darker turn. Give her a gun and she'll love him to death. Joan Crawford reteams with producer Jerry Wald of her Academy Award winning 'Mildred Pierce' and claims a 1947 Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of tempestuous mentally unstable Louise. The Damned Don't Cry:It's a man's world. And Ethel Whitehead learns there's only one way for a woman to survive in it: be as tempting as a cupcake and as tough as a 75-cent steak. In the first of three collaborations with director Vincent Sherman Joan Crawford brings hard-boiled glamour and simmering passion to the role of Ethel who moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion to high society one man at a time. Some of those men love her. Some use her. And one a high-rolling racketeer abuses her. When the racketeer murders his rival in Ethel's swanky living room she flees a sure murder rap right back to the poverty she thought she had escaped. And this time there may not be a man to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

• Till The Clouds Roll By | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £4.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  A fascinating and colourful screen biography of Jerome Kern (Robert Walker). It starts with the opening night of his smash hit Showboat and flashes back to his beginnings as an almost penniless songwriter. The film follows his friendship with James I. Hessler and journeys to England where the best songwriters are reputed to be and where he finds his early successes - and the future Mrs Kern (Dorothy Patrick). After some difficult times in the USA he collaborates with Oscar Hammerstein; the result being the classic adaptation of Edna Ferber's Showboat. The picture's grand finale features Frank Sinatra singing Ol' Man River. This is one huge and lavish theatrical feast; great entertainment!

• The Joan Crawford Collection (4 Disc Box Set) | DVD | (17/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Humoresque (Dir. Jean Negulesco 1946): Helen Wright a neurotic society woman sets her sights on ambitious young violinist Paul Boray who returns her love but is undeterred from his music. She becomes his patroness helping him to great success but cannot abide being of secondary importance (""second fiddle?"") in his life. Tragedy ensues. Possessed (Dir. Jean Negukesco 1947): A dazed woman walks the streets of Los Angeles looking for a man named David. After collapsing in a diner she's taken to the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. Flashbacks reveal her obsession for David as a result of borderline personality disorder which ultimately leads to murder. The Damned Don't Cry (Dir. Vincent Sherman 1950): The murder of gangster Nick Prenta touches off an investigation of mysterious socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes who seems to have no past and has now disappeared. In flashback we see the woman's anonymous roots; her poor working-class marriage which ends in tragedy and her determination to find ""better things."" Soon finding that sex appeal is her only salable commodity she climbs from man to man toward the center of a nationwide crime syndicate...a very perilous position. Grand Hotel (Dir. Edmund Goulding 1932): Berlin's plushest most expensive hotel is the setting where in the words of Dr. Otternschlag ""People come people go. Nothing ever happens."". The doctor is usually drunk so he missed the fact that Baron von Geigern is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya's pearls. He ends up stealing her heart instead. Powerful German businessman Preysing brow beats Kringelein one of his company's lowly bookkeepers but it is the terminally ill Kringelein who holds all the cards in the end. Meanwhile the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing's mistress Flaemmchen but she doesn't end up with either one of them in the end...

• Santa Fe Trail | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £10.23   |  Saving you £-6.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  History and Hollywood have always made strange bedfellows. And there's no better example of that than Santa Fe Trail (1940) from director Michael Curtiz. Historical accuracy is never allowed to interfere with setting up a great action sequence. Errol Flynn is Jeb Stuart. Ronald Reagan is George Armstrong Custer (a part Flynn would play in 'They Died With Their Boots On'). Raymond Massey makes a flamboyant John Brown. And rounding out the cast are Oliveia de Haviland Alan Hale Van

• Shane - Paramount Originals (includes Limited Edition reproduction film poster) | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Director George Stevens' legendary rendition of the archetypal Western myth earned six Academy Award nominations and made Shane one of the timeless classics of American cinema. Based on Jack Schaefer's novel the story brings Alan Ladd a drifter and retired gunfighter to the assistance of a homestead family terrorised by an ageing cattleman and his hired gun. In fighting a last decisive battle Shane sees the end of his own way of life. Mysterious moody and atmospheric th

• Santa Fe Trail | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-0.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Errol Flynn is Jeb Stuart. Ronald Reagan is George Armstrong Custer (a part Flynn would play in 'They Died With Their Boots On'). Raymond Massey makes a flamboyant John Brown. And rounding out the cast are Oliveia de Haviland Alan Hale Van Heflin and Ward Bond. With a talent roster that includes cinematographer Sol Polito ('Sergeant York') and composer Max Steiner ('Gone With The Wind') 'Sante Fe Trail' is lousy history but great Hollywood!

• Battle Cry / Objective Burma / Operation Pacific | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £30.99

  Battle Cry: A tight-knit group of marines have adventures in both love and war as they progress from boot camp training to a New Zealand ops base and on to the hard-fought invasion of Saipan. Operation Pacific: 'Duke' Gifford an ultra devoted commander feeling guilty about the death of his former commanding officer and the failure of his marriage leads his submarine crew up into uncharted waters in the battle for the Pacific... Objective Burma: A crack squad of paratroopers parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. When an ambush cuts off their only escape route his troop are forced into the swamp-infested hell of the Burmese jungle. The harrowing fight for survival begins in a realistic account of the grim hardships facing brave men in battle...

• Santa Fe Trail | DVD | (30/12/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Hollywood journeyman par excellence Michael Curtiz directs this historical Western which tells the stories of confederate soldier Jeb Stuart (Errol Flynn) and General George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan) as they fight abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey).

• Till The Clouds Roll By | DVD | (28/01/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The biographical material in Till The Clouds Roll By is almost completely unmemorable as Jerome Kern led a relatively calm life and even his death was marked by restraint - the composer simply died while out walking on the street in 1945. What is memorable from the triumphant opening night of Showboat to Frank Sinatra finishing up with 'Ol' Man River' is a remarkable filmed legacy of one of the worlds greatest and most beloved composers of all time.

• The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers | DVD | (06/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  This dark melodrama based on the John Patrick story 'Love Lies Bleeding' stars Barbara Stanwyck as the wonderfully wicked Martha Ivers a wealthy and domineering woman who controls a small town after inheriting a large family fortune. She lives with her weakling husband a district attorney running for mayor played by Kirk Douglas in his feature film debut - a role that's an unusual departure from his later work. What no one in the town knows however is that Stanwyck and Dougl

• Strange Love of Martha Ivers/Kirk Douglas on Film - A Biography | DVD | (26/06/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.38

• The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Strange Love Of Martha IVers