"Director: Bryan Forbes"

• The Stepford Wives | DVD | (15/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Ira Levin's scary novel about forced conformity in a small Connecticut town made for this compelling 1975 thriller. Katharine Ross stars as a city woman who moves with her husband to Stepford and is startled by how perpetually happy many of the local women seem to be. Her search for an answer reveals a plot to replace troublesome real wives with more accommodating fake ones (not unlike the alien takeover in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she faces--not to mention the likelihood that the men in town intend to replace her as well. Screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and director Bryan Forbes (King Rat) made this a taut, tense semi-classic with a healthy dose of satiric wit. The DVD release presents the film in its original widescreen dimensions. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Seance On A Wet Afternoon | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An intensely claustrophobic nail-biter to rival prime Hitchcock, 1964's Séance on a Wet Afternoon is a classic British thriller written and directed by Bryan Forbes. Set largely in an imposing Gothic house in north London, the film stars Richard Attenborough as Bill Savage, a man struggling to maintain his marriage to his increasingly unbalanced wife, Myra, played in an Oscar-nominated performance by the little-known but brilliant Broadway actress Kim Stanley. Myra, who believes she is a medium, plans a scheme that will make her famous, involving kidnapping then "psychically" locating a little girl. Attenborough (who won a BAFTA) and Stanley are both superb in what is part riveting battle of wills, part nerve-wracking kidnap thriller with, just possibly, a touch of the supernatural. Gerry Turpin's precise b/w cinematography and John Barry's chilling score add significantly to the atmosphere of dread, and if the plot has one or two gaping holes, Forbes's direction covers them deftly. Forbes explored female delusion again in The Whispers (1967) and The Mad Woman of Chaillot (1969); the film also marked a major entry in his long-term collaboration with John Barry and with his wife, the actress Nanette Newman. Séance clearly had an influence on Attenborough's own directorial contribution to the genre, the highly unsettling Anthony Hopkins vehicle, Magic (1978). On the DVD: Séance on a Wet Afternoon is presented in an excellent 16:9 transfer, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions, that effectively captures the brooding look of Gerry Tupin's BAFTA-nominated cinematography. Unfortunately the print used, though generally very good, does show some damage, including some instances that appear to run through the best part of a reel. Though noticeable and sometimes distracting, they barely mar this gripping film. The mono soundtrack is fine, though there is the very occasional touch of distortion. The disc comes with optional English subtitles, the excellent original trailer and a new and first-rate 33-minute interview with Bryan Forbes in which he engagingly explains every aspect of the making of the film. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Wrong Box | DVD | (13/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Macabre comedy about the efforts of two brothers to obtain the family inheritance.

• Tiger Bay / Whistle Down The Wind / Moving Memories | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  3 Classic Mills FilmsTIGER BAYPolish actor Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz - The Magnificent Seven) is furious to discover his lover has left him for another man and shoots her. The crime is witnessed by 10-year-old Gillie (BAFTA-nominated Mills) who steals the gun. Investigating officer Graham (John Mills) is in pursuit when Korchinsky abducts Gillie.WHISTLE DOWN THE WINDHayley Mills (Bell's daughter and a recipient of one of the film's four BAFTA nominations) Diane Holgate and Alan Barnes live on their widowed father's farm in the north of England.Their lives are disrupted when they discover a wanted man (Alan Bates) hiding out in their father's barn. After a confrontation and misunderstanding they come to the conclusion he is Jesus Christ.SIR JOHN MILLS' LOVING MEMORIESDiscovered years later in an attic clear out and seen here for the first time this extraordinary footage which spans 25 years has a cast list which reads like a who's who of British cinema. Never before has there been such an intimate behind the scenes look at the life of an actor who without doubt is considered to be a legend in his own lifetime.