"Director: Preston Sturges"

• The Lady Eve | DVD | (20/06/2005) from £5.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (99.80%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In 1941 Barbara Stanwyck was offered two screwball roles equally suited to her tart intelligence deft comic timing and undeniable sex appeal and it's a photo finish as to which was funnier; showgirl-on-the-lam Sugarpuss O'Shea the title character in Howard Hawks's 'Ball of Fire' or con artist Jean Harrington a.k.a. Lady Eve Sidwich the delirious fulcrum for this classic Preston Sturges comedy. Under Sturges's typically antic microscope the collision between the gold-digging

• Sullivan's Travels | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This masterpiece by Preston Sturges is perhaps the finest movie-about-a-movie ever made. Hollywood director Joel McCrea tired of churning out lightweight comedies decides to make O Brother Where Art Thou-a serious socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship he hits the road as a hobo. He finds the lovely Veronica Lake; and more trouble than he ever dreamed of!

• PALM BEACH STORY, THE (1942) (CRITERION COLLECTION) | Blu Ray | (11/11/2019) from £21.65   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This wild tale of wacky wedlock from Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve) takes off like a rocket and never lets up. Joel McCrea (Sullivan's Travels) and Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night) play Tom and Gerry, a married New York couple on the skids, financially and romantically. With Tom hot on her trail, Gerry takes off for Florida on a mission to solve the pair's money troubles, which she accomplishes in a highly unorthodox manner. A mix of the witty and the utterly absurd, The Palm Beach Story is a high watermark of Sturges's brand of physical comedy and verbal repartee, featuring sparkling performances from its leads as well as hilarious supporting turns from Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor as a brother and a sister ensnared in Tom and Gerry's high jinks. Blu-Ray Special Edition Features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack New interview with writer and film historian James Harvey about director Preston Sturges New interview with actor and com

• Unfaithfully Yours | DVD | (23/04/2018) from £8.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Comedy starring Rex Harrison as orchestra conductor Alfred De Carter who believes his wife Daphne (Linda Darnell) has been having an affair. While carrying out his conducting duties Alfred plans various forms of revenge, each played out with the greatest of precision and skill. When it comes to putting his plan into action however, things run a little less smoothly.

• Sullivan's Travels | Blu Ray | (26/05/2014) from £14.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (66.71%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line. The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks. Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face--albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art. --Sam Sutherland

• The Palm Beach Story | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The captivating Claudette Colbert stars as the frustrated wife of struggling engineer Joel McCrea. In a seemingly amicable agreement Colbert hops a train to Palm Beach where divorces come easy. Desperate to escape a group of obnoxious millionaires on the train to Florida Colbert hides out in a sleeping car where she meets unbeknownst to her one of the world's richest men (Rudy Vallee) who is relentless in his attempt to romance her. Upon their arrival in Palm Beach Colbert is met by her husband who has come to claim her back only to find that Vallee's man-crazy sister (Mary Astor) is after him! The foursome's story unfolds through intensely humorous dialogue flirtatious situations and a splendid soundtrack.

• The Great McGinty | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £29.95   |  Saving you £-19.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Dan McGinty has great success in his chosen field of crooked politics. But endangers it all in one crazy moment of honesty...

• Barbara Stanwyck | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A bumper box set of classic films featuring 'The Queen' Barbara Stanwyck! Double Indemnity (Dir. Billy Wilder 1944): Director Billy Wilder and writer Raymond Chandler ('The Big Sleep') adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But of cou

• Unfaithfully Yours | DVD | (12/05/2014) from £14.83   |  Saving you £-1.84 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Unfaithfully Yours

• Hail The Conquering Hero | DVD | (30/01/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith is discharged from the Marines due to a hayfever condition he is reluctant to return home. However on the advice of some fellow marines Woodrow fabricates a story which elevates him to the status of war hero...

• The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Harold Diddlebock is a bank cashier with 22 years of service behind him and only thinks ahead to a time when he can marry the cashier further down the aisle. When he gets fired his dream appears to be over, but a winning streak at betting finds him the new owner of a circus. Then the fun really beings!

• Christmas In July | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Christmas In July

• Unfaithfully Yours | DVD | (21/06/2004) from £13.50   |  Saving you £6.49 (32.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Haughty conductor Sir Alfred De Carter (Harrison) is madly in love with his wife Daphne but is driven to a murderous fit of jealousy when he reads a private detective's report of her activities during his absence. Convinced she is having an affair with his handsome young secretary De Carter contemplates various methods of murdering them but when he attempts to execute his plans his efforts degenerate into farce!

• The Great Moment | DVD | (05/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The story of Dr. W.T Morgan the 19th century dentist who discovered anesthesia.

• Icons: Barbra Stanwyck - Double Indemnity (1944)/The Lady Eve/The Bitter Tea Of General Yen/The Golden Boy (1939)/The Miracle Woman/All I Desire | DVD | (27/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  A bumper box set of classic films featuring 'The Queen' Barbara Stanwyck! Double Indemnity (Dir. Billy Wilder 1944): Director Billy Wilder and writer Raymond Chandler ('The Big Sleep') adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But of course in these plots things never quite go as planned and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily insurance investigator who has a feeling that not all is as it seems... The Lady Eve (Dir. Preston Sturges 1941): In 1941 Barbara Stanwyck was offered two screwball roles equally suited to her tart intelligence deft comic timing and undeniable sex appeal and it's a photo finish as to which was funnier; showgirl-on-the-lam Sugarpuss O'Shea the title character in Howard Hawks's 'Ball of Fire' or con artist Jean Harrington a.k.a. Lady Eve Sidwich the delirious fulcrum for this classic Preston Sturges comedy. Under Sturges's typically antic microscope the collision between the gold-digging Harrington and the very rich very hapless brewery-heir-turned-herpetologist Charles Pike (a wonderfully callow guileless Henry Fonda) yields ample opportunity for the writer-director to skewer issues of class and sex; as always Sturges is bold in pushing the censors' envelope capturing a palpable erotic heat between the canny Jean and the literally feverish Charlie who after a year up the Amazon is instantly smitten by the mere sight of her shapely ankles (in hindsight a precursor to her subsequent effect in 'Double Indemnity'). The Bitter Tea Of General Yen (Dir. Frank Capra 1933): Caught in a Chinese rebellion newly-arrived American Megan Davis (Stanwyck) is rescued by a cultured bandit General Yen. When she realises she is being held captive she sets about undermining her captor. In time however she finds that it is not her confinement she must fight against - rather it is her growing attraction to the man... The Golden Boy (Dir. Rouben Mamoulian 1939): The tale of Joe Bonaparte; a boy encouraged by his father to pursue his dream of playing the violin who turns to boxing when poverty sets in. What he witnesses is the tough and uncompromising world of major league boxing; the widespread corruption; and the alluring qualities of one hot dame! The Miracle Woman (Dir. Frank Capra 1931): Barbara Stanwyck stars as Sister Faith Fallon the charismatic leader of a Pentecostal sect. David Manners plays John Carson the blind man whose life is changed by her powerful sermon. Little does he know that Faith works alongside a con-man performing hoax miracles to boost the coiffeurs. Will John's love for Faith finally steer her back onto the right path? All I Desire (Dir. Douglas Sirk 1953): Barbara Stanwyck stars as Naomi Murdock a wayward mother and struggling actress who yearns for her old life before she walked out on her family. Returning to town she finds herself the subject of hearsay and loose speculation from the locals. More importantly her husband is striking up a relationship with a local school teacher and her oldest daughter remains hostile to the mother who abandoned her. Will Naomi be able to repair the damage done and rest her demons?