Classic Films

• Dracula Prince Of Darkness | DVD | (29/10/2001) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-14.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  As the third in what became a series of eight, Prince of Darkness was distinguished among the Hammer Dracula movies for several reasons. It was the third and last directed by Terence Fisher and his familiarity with the mythos and studio practices meant the rushed production still came out looking spectacular in places. Moving into the tail end of the 1960s, Hammer looked for ways of cost cutting: the film's dramatic finale on a frozen river takes place on a two-for-one set being used simultaneously for another shoot. This was also the series entry that included a substitute for the Renfield character missing from the first movie. Thorley Walters as Ludwig is a colourful cameo and that's also all that can be said of Christopher Lee. Despite top billing, the mute monster occupies but a fraction of the overall on-screen time. The real frights come from gaunt butler Klove who scares the life (literally) out of hapless travellers Alan, Charles, Helen and Diana. Surely their fate would ensure no-one else took the mountain pass to Carlsbad? But only two years later, audiences discovered Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. On the DVD: apart from scene access there's nothing making use of the DVD format here. The 2.55:1 presentation is certainly welcome, and the mono audio somehow feels appropriate. --Paul Tonks

• Time Without Pity | DVD | (21/04/2008) from £10.44   |  Saving you £2.55 (24.43%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Following his blacklisting in the McCarthy witch hunts the American director Joseph Losey worked in England and fashioned this gritty noir thriller about David Graham (Michael Redgrave) an alcoholic father who has 24 hours to prove that his son is not guilty of murder and save him from the gallows. Robert Stanford (Leo McKern) is a car dealer who knows the truth but continues to keep Graham on the defensive. As the clock ticks mercilessly Graham fights a battle against both Stanford as he tries to save his sons life. Time Without Pity was Losey's first film under his own name and retains the director's striking blend of drama and social commentary. The film was also photographed by the legendary Freddie Francis of Elephant Man fame.

• Shadow Of A Doubt | Blu Ray | (23/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A favourite uncle comes to visit his sister's family in a small Californian town. He is actually on the run from the police who know him as the Merry Widow murderer. The niece suspects something and almost loses her life. Special Features: Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock's Favorite Film Production Drawings by Art Director Robert Boyle Production Photographs Shadow of a Doubt Theatrical Trailer Centennial Trailer

• On The Buses - Series 1 - Episodes 1 To 3 | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £6.97   |  Saving you £3.02 (43.33%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Set around a London bus depot, On the Buses starred Reg Varney as Stan, an ageing bachelor and driver of the No.11 bus who still lives with his Mum (Cicely Courtneidge), his plain sister Olive (Anna Karen) and disgruntled brother-in-law Arthur (Michael Robbins). At work, he fraternises with the laddish and lecherous Jack (Bob Grant), with whom he pursues innumerable (and improbable) giggly, mini-skirted "clippies" (conductors) and cheeks the beady-eyed and punctilious bus inspector, Blakey (Steven Lewis) This first series was broadcast in black and white in 1969. Much of the comedy derives from gender role reversal--Stan and Arthur forced to do the household chores when Olive and Mum fall ill ("Family Flu"); "The Canteen", in which the busmen decide to run the canteen themselves; or "The Darts Match", in which Stan and Jack are bested at darts by--imagine--a pair of dollybird clippies. Despite its immense popularity, On the Buses hasn't dated well. Like the buses themselves, the jokes don't arrive very often and when they do, they're visible a long way off. The studio audience whoops cathartically at anything remotely alluding to sex, making you wonder at the repressed nature of British society in 1969. In later decades it would come to be treasured as somewhat creaky kitsch by audiences nostalgic for an age of politically incorrect innocence. On the DVD: On the Buses has no extra features here. The original black and white versions have scrubbed up reasonably well, although defects such as fading sound and poor dubbing have proven beyond amendment. --David Stubbs

• In Old Chicago | DVD | (02/07/2012) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

• LE BEAU SERGE | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• Sparrows Can't Sing | DVD | (17/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Sparrows Can't Sing

• The Story Of A Love Affair | DVD | (19/11/2007) from £6.98   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Groundlessly jealous of his wife's romantic past Enrico Fontana hires a private detective to finally determine whether she is faithful or not. Ironically his suspicious attitude unconsciously brings his wife Paola (Lucia Bose) together with Guido (Massimo Girotti) a man with whom she had once been in love. Paola and Guido's past was clouded in tragedy. Guido had been involved with Paola's close female friend's death. Their passion rekindled once again the lovers even get to the point where they are thinking about murdering Enrico....

• Jack and the Beanstalk | DVD | (15/09/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Rashomon | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Rashomon's most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory points of view, suggesting the nature of truth is something less than absolute. The cast, headed by Kurosawa's favourite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is superb. --Tom Keogh

• A Town Like Alice | DVD | (11/10/1999) from £21.24   |  Saving you £-11.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One of the all-time great wartime love stories shot on location in Malaya.

• Fire Over England | DVD | (08/02/2010) from £23.30   |  Saving you £-10.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The back reads: Flora Robson, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh star in this swashbuckling story set in an Elizabethan England under threat from Spain and the Inquisition. 1587. The court of Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) is alive with intrigue, espionage and danger. With Spain poised to launch its mighty Armada against England, traitors plot to kill or kidnap the Queen and destroy all opposition to the invasion force. Michael (Laurence Olivier) has just made a daring escape from Spain. Now, the Queen bids him to return once more as her spy to discover the names of those who plot against her. His love, the Lady Cynthia (Vivien Leigh) is desperate for him not to go, as his mission will take him into the Escurial itself King Philips palace. But duty calls and time is running out before the Armada is ready to sail . . . This fast paced, stirring and lavish British film production from 1936 was produced partly to celebrate the royal coronation year and also to act as a rallying cry against the forces of evil gathering in Nazi Germany.

• Various Artists - the London Rock and Roll Show | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £6.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The London Rock And Roll Show was held on Saturday 5th August 1972 at Wembley Stadium. The headliners on that day - Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and Bill Haley are featured on this DVD, also on the bill were The Houserockers, Billy Fury, Heinz, Screaming Lord Sutch, Roy Wood, The Platters, Linda Gail Lewis, Gary Glitter and The Coasters. The Concert lasted for over eleven hours and was watched by a crowd of 87,000 and it was also the first music event to be held at...

• Bonnie & Clyde - 40th Anniversary Edition | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-3.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  One of the landmark films of the 1960s, Bonnie and Clyde changed the course of American cinema. Setting a milestone for screen violence that paved the way for Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this exercise in mythologized biography should not be labelled as a bloodbath; as critic Pauline Kael wrote in her rave review, "it's the absence of sadism that throws the audience off balance". The film is more of a poetic ode to the Great Depression, starring the dream team of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the titular antiheroes, who barrel across the South and Midwest robbing banks with Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck's frantic wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons) and their faithful accomplice C W Moss (the inimitable Michael J. Pollard). Bonnie and Clyde is an unforgettable classic that has lost none of its power since the 1967 release. --Jeff Shannon

• The Seagull | DVD | (14/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This quintessential Chekhov drama - his first success - is both comic and tragic. A group of friends and relations gather at a country estate to see the first performance of an experimental play written and staged by the young man of the house, Konstantin (Frank Langella), an aspiring writer who dreams of bringing new forms to the theatre. Among the audience are Konstantin's self-centred mother, the actress Arkadina, and her lover, the novelist Trigorin. Their glamorous presence not only disrupts the performance, but also soon takes on a more profound significance for the lives of all those present.

• Escape to Victory | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A group of P.O.W.s at a German prison camp agree to compete against Nazi soccer players in this World War II drama set in 1943 Occupied Europe. German Major Karl von Steiner, who played soccer professionally before the war, comes up with the idea. When his superior officers find out about the competition, they pit the Allies against Germany's best team--but they don't realize that the P.O.W.s plan to use the upcoming big game as a means of escaping. The Allied team includes John Colby, a British officer who also played soccer before the war, and Robert Hatch, an American soldier who cares far more about gaining his freedom than the game itself. When the P.O.W.s realize they have a good shot at beating the Nazi team in front of a huge crowd, they must decide what's more important: finishing the match or getting out alive.

• LE BEAU SERGE | Blu Ray | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• Bachelor Mother | DVD | (21/04/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This sparkling comedy was Oscar nominated. Polly (Ginger Rogers) a clerk at Merlin's Department Store is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a young child. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct David Merlin (David Niven) becomes determined to keep the single woman and 'her' baby together in this wonderful comedy of errors.

• Lady In Cement | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £7.68   |  Saving you £5.31 (69.14%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In this sequel to Tony Rome, Sinatra is back as the Miami private eye. This time around he's hired by a small time hood (Dan Blocker) to find his missing girlfriend. In finding out the fate of the girl, Rome runs across a variety of shady characters, including a Mafia chieftain and a beautiful alcoholic, Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) who instantly becomes the first suspect. The film takes a sharp twist when Rome is accused of murder himself!

• Down Argentine Way | DVD | (02/07/2012) from £4.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (234.11%)   |  RRP £9.99

  American girl (Grable) on vacation in Argentina falls for wealthy racehorse owner (Ameche).