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Review Eureka Entertainment / Toni - Masters of Cinema series
Actors & Directors
  • Jean Renoir
  • Jenny Hélia
  • Édouard Delmont
  • Max Dalban
  • Celia Montalván
  • Charles Blavette
Release date: 2006-04-17
Run time: 109 min.
Creator: Jacques Levert
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.29

Review Toni - Masters of Cinema series / Eureka Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / Thunderbirds: Volume 5 [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Shane Rimmer
  • Peter Dyneley
  • David Graham
  • Christine Finn
  • Ray Barrett
Release date: 2004-07-19
Run time: 197 min.
Creator: Gerry Anderson
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.84

Review Thunderbirds: Volume 5 [1965] / ITV DVD:

"Filmed in VIDECOLOR [explosions, drum roll, music builds to a climax] and SUPERMARIONATION"! The opening sequence of Thunderbirds is itself a masterclass in Gerry Anderson's marionette hyperbole: who else would dare to make a virtue out of the fact that (a) the show is in colour and (b) it's got puppets in it? But everything about this series really is epic: Thunderbirds is action on the grandest scale, pre-dating such high-concept Hollywood vehicles as Armaggedon by 30 years and more (the acting is better, too), and fetishising gadgets in a way that even the most excessive Bond movies could never hope to rival. Unsurprisingly, it transpires that the visual effects are by Derek Meddings, whose later contributions to Bond movies like The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker echo his pioneering model work here. As to the characters, the clean-cut Tracey boys take second place in the audiences' affections to their cool machines-the real stars of the show-while comic relief is to be found in the charming company of Lady Penelope and her pink Rolls (number plate FAB1), driven by lugubrious chauffeur Parker, whose "Yes, milady" catch phrase resonated around school playgrounds for decades. (Spare a thought for poor old John Tracey, stuck up in space on Thunderbird 5 with only the radio for company. ) The puppet stunt-work is breathtakingly audacious, and every week's death-defying escapade is nail-bitingly choreographed in the very best tradition of disaster movies. First shown in 1964 and now digitally remastered, Thunderbirds is children's TV that still looks and sounds like big-budget Hollywood. On this DVD: The four episodes are: "The Man from MI5", "Cry Wolf", "Danger at Ocean Deep" and "Move and You're Dead".

Review ITV DVD / Life And Death of Colonel Blimp, The / A Matter Of Life And Death [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • Bob Roberts
  • Anton Walbrook
  • Michael Powell
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Kathleen Byron
  • Joan Maude
  • Abraham Sofaer
Release date: 2003-03-17
Run time: 285 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £10.68

Review Life And Death of Colonel Blimp, The / A Matter Of Life And Death [1943] / ITV DVD:

Two masterpieces of British cinema are paired here-Powell and Pressburger's first Technicolor triumph, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and their even more ambitious A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Both pictures are transcendent examples of the filmmakers' craft, and remain models of great cinema long after their original wartime propaganda brief has expired. Based on a famously satirical cartoon strip that mocked outmoded attitudes of fair play at a time of "total war", Blimp subsequently became notorious as the film Churchill tried to have banned. Because the War Office objected to the screenplay, they refused to allow P&P's first choice for the role, Laurence Olivier, and the duo cast unknown stage actor Roger Livesey in his place. It is Livesey's sympathetic performance that transforms Clive "Sugar" Candy from an object of satire to one of warm affection, effectively reversing the film's intended message about old-fashioned decency versus wartime pragmatism. Anton Walbrook is a profound presence in a role that mirrored the actor's own plight as a German in Britain, while Deborah Kerr is a living leitmotif in the film, playing no fewer than three distinct but deliberately related roles. Briefed by the Ministry of Information to make a film that would foster Anglo-American relations in the post-war period, the duo, known as "the Archers", came up with A Matter of Life and Death, an extravagant and extraordinary fantasy in which David Niven's downed pilot must justify his continuing existence to a heavenly panel because he has made the mistake of falling in love with an American girl (Kim Hunter) when he really should have been dead. National stereotypes are lampooned as the angelic judges squabble over his fate. In a neat reversal of expectations, the heaven sequences are black and white, while earth is seen in Technicolor. Daring cinematography mixes monochrome and colour, incorporates time-lapse images, and even toys with background "time freezes" 50 years before The Matrix. [+]
Roger Livesey and Raymond Massey lead the fine supporting cast. On the DVD: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Matter of Life and Death are presented in reasonably sharp 4:3 ratio with good mono sound. Blimp comes with a 25-minute documentary feature that tells us nothing revelatory about making the film, but has good new interviews with cinematographer Jack Cardiff (then an apprentice) and eloquent admirer Stephen Fry. Text biographies and stills are also included. Life and Death has no extras. -Mark Walker.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / 101 Dalmatians/101 Dalmatians 2 - Patch's London Adventure [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Clyde Geronimi
  • Hamilton Luske
  • Jim Kammerud
  • Wolfgang Reitherman
  • Brian Smith
Release date: 2008-03-03
Run time: 147 min.
RRP: £26.99
Price: £11.99

Review 101 Dalmatians/101 Dalmatians 2 - Patch's London Adventure [1961] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Back in 1961, Walt Disney got a little hip with 101 Dalmatians, making use of that flat Saturday morning cartoon style that had become so popular. The result is a kitschy change in animation and story. Pongo and Perdita are two lonely Dalmatians who meet in a London park and arrange for their pet humans to marry so they can live together and raise a family. They become proud parents of 15 pups, who are stolen by the dastardly Cruella De Vil, who wants to make a fur coat out of them. Cruella has become the most popular villain in all of Disney-she is flamboyantly nasty and lots of fun. But it is the Dalmatians who shine in this endearing classic, particularly those precocious pups. Telling the story from the dogs' point of view is a clever conceit, a fundamental flaw of Disney's 1996 live-action remake. -Bill Desowitz Disney may throw around the word 'classic' with a little too much abandon when it comes to some of its animated releases, but its take on 101 Dalmatians is very much the real deal. With lively songs, a terrifically-realised story and one of its very best villains, it remains a towering achievement, over four decades since it first appeared. The story of 101 Dalmatians starts with the two heroes of the tale, Pongo and Perdita. [+]
But when their litter of dalamatian puppies is dognapped by the evil Cruella De Vil's cronies, the pair must spring into action to save their offspring before Cruella gets herself the new coat that she desires. But while Pongo and Perdita may be the pair you end up rooting for, the undoubted star of 101 Dalmatians is Cruella De Vil. A wonderfully twisted, genuinely nasty villainess, she's an astounding creation and adds a real menace to the film. That said, it's not a downbeat or scary tale: toe-tapping musical numbers, plenty of imagination and a good few chuckles make up the rest of the ingredients, and rarely have they all come together quite so well as they do here. Retold by Disney in live action form in 1996, it's nonetheless its animated take on 101 Dalmatians that remains the definitive filmed version. And now packed into a special collectors' DVD set, there's never been a better reason to treat your family to a copy. Unmissable, and a reminder of why Disney's reputation in this field is quite so towering. -Simon Brew.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora! [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Ken Annakin
  • Bernhard Wicki
  • John Wayne
  • Andrew Marton
  • Henry Fonda
  • Joseph Cotten
  • Richard Burton
  • Kinji Fukasaku
  • Richard Fleischer
  • Martin Balsam
Release date: 2005-06-06
Run time: 306 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.28

Review The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora! [1962] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / The Naked Spur [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony Mann
  • Robert Ryan
  • James Stewart
  • Janet Leigh
  • Millard Mitchell
  • Ralph Meeker
Release date: 2006-08-15
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: George White
Price: £9.52

Review The Naked Spur [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949]
Actors & Directors
  • Valerie Hobson
  • Alec Guinness
  • Joan Greenwood
  • Audrey Fildes
  • Dennis Price
  • Robert Hamer
Release date: 1998-07-06
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Roy Horniman
RRP: £9.99
Price: £1.20

Review Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949] / Warner Home Video:

Set in Victorian England, Robert Hamer's 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts and Coronets remains the most gracefully mordant of Ealing Comedies. Dennis Price plays Louis D'Ascoyne, the would-be Duke of Chalfont whose Mother was spurned by her noble family for marrying an Italian singer for love. Louis resolves to murder the several of his relatives ahead of him in line for the Dukedom, all of whom are played by Alec Guinness, in order to avenge his Mother-for, as Louis observes, " revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold". He gets away with it, only to be arraigned for the one murder of which he is innocent. Guinness' virtuoso performances have been justly celebrated, ranging as they do from a youthful D'Ascoyne concealing his enthusiasm for public houses from his priggish wife ("she has views on such places") to a brace of doomed uncles and one aunt, ranging from the doddery to the peppery. Miles Malleson is a splendid doggerel-spouting hangman, while Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood take advantage of unusually strong female roles. But the great joy of Kind Hearts and Coronets is the way in which its appallingly black subject matter (considered beyond the pale by many critics at the time) is conveyed in such elegantly ironic turns of phrase by Dennis Price's narrator/anti-hero. Serial murder has never been conducted with such exquisite manners and discreet charm. -David Stubbs.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / The Brady Bunch - Series 2 [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Lookinland
  • Maureen McCormick
  • Susan Olsen
  • Eve Plumb
  • Robert Reed
Release date: 2008-03-24
Run time: 576 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £13.73

Review The Brady Bunch - Series 2 [1969] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

The Brady Bunch never scored high ratings during its five year run, but this friendly family comedy has remained in reruns ever since, while bigger hits have slipped into oblivion. Pretty much everyone who grew up in the 1970s or '80s knows the show inside and out: a vision of suburban family life so utopian it's as fantastical as Neverland or Santa's workshop. And just like these imaginary realms, it casts a spell over every kid who wished all problems could be resolved with a few wise words, a good-natured shrug, or a winsome smile. The Brady Bunch: The Complete Second Season is indistinguishable from every other season but the reassuring formula is crucial to the show's appeal. Eldest brother Greg (Barry Williams) may decide he's all grown up and wants a groovy bachelor pad, or eldest sister Marcia (Maureen McCormick) may get all riled up about women's lib and decide to join the Frontier Scouts, or super-maid Alice (Ann B. Davis, whose persona is hilariously similar to Ellen DeGeneres) may fantasize about running off with an old flame but by the end of the show you know everything will return to a zen-like domestic harmony. It's all pretty bizarre when you realize that both halves of the family have suffered the death of a parent! The most angst to be found is the relentless identity crisis of middle sister Jan (Eve Plumb), who tries to remove her freckles with lemon juice and buys a curly brunette wig to forge a new self-image. Nowadays Jan would be a prime candidate for bulimia but in the Brady world such psychodrama is unthinkable. This even emotional keel could have been creepy and antiseptic but due to the charm of the kids and the smooth yet earthy presence of Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as parents Mike and Carol Brady, The Brady Bunch just seemed nice. You wanted that to be your family. [+]
If you watched the show in your childhood, watching The Brady Bunch: The Complete Second Season as an adult will lull you into a sweet, blissful dream. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Network / Saturday Morning Pictures - The Best Of The Children's Film Foundation - Vol. 3 [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Dennis Waterman
  • Pauline Challoner
  • Frazer Hines
  • Jimmy Capehorn
  • Jan Darnley-Smith
  • Melanie Garland
Release date: 2002-10-28
Run time: 123 min.
Creator: T.E.B. Clarke
RRP: £9.99
Price: £7.09

Review Saturday Morning Pictures - The Best Of The Children's Film Foundation - Vol. 3 [1963] / Network:


Review Fox Lorber / My Night At Maud's [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Louis Trintignant
  • Léonide Kogan
  • Marie-Christine Barrault
  • Antoine Vitez
  • Eric Rohmer
  • Françoise Fabian
Release date: 1998-01-14
Run time: 110 min.
Price: £6.51

Review My Night At Maud's [1969] / Fox Lorber:

French director Eric Rohmer, former critic and Cahiers du Cinema editor, created a very special romantic film series around the difficult choices men make when they fall in love with two women, called "Six Moral Tales. " My Night at Maud's was the third entry and it was so well received in 1969 that it gave Rohmer international prominence. To this day, it remains Rohmer's masterpiece, a brilliantly insightful and sublime meditation on adult indiscretions. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays a chaste engineer who thinks he has met his soul mate in church (Marie-Christine Barrault), yet winds up accidentally spending the night with the seductive Maud (Francoise Fabian), who is more his intellectual equal. Filmed in stark black and white by Nestor Almendros, this is one of those rare films in which questions about philosophy translate into unexpected answers about the heart. It's slow and methodical but well worth the experience. -Bill Desowitz.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Tight Spot [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Brian Keith
  • Ginger Rogers
  • Edward G. Robinson
Release date: 2006-09-18
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.46

Review Tight Spot [1955] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Columbia TriStar / Strait-Jacket [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • William Castle
  • Leif Erickson
  • Joan Crawford
  • Howard St. John
  • Diane Baker
  • John Anthony Hayes
Release date: 2002-03-12
Run time: 93 min.
Price: £6.66

Review Strait-Jacket [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:


Review Image / Fanny [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Raymond Bussières
  • Charles Boyer
  • Horst Buchholz
  • Georgette Anys
  • Salvatore Baccaloni
Release date: 2008-06-17
Run time: 134 min.
Creator: Harry Sukman
Price: £12.88

Review Fanny [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image:


Review Prism Leisure / Ring Of Bright Water [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Virginia McKenna
  • Jameson Clark
  • Peter Jeffrey
  • Bill Travers
  • Helena Gloag
  • Jack Couffer
Release date: 2002-04-08
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Gavin Maxwell
RRP: £5.99
Price: £19.99

Review Ring Of Bright Water [1969] / Prism Leisure:

Coincidence throws Mij the otter and Graham Merrill (Bill Travers) the computer worker together on a busy London street in Ring of Bright Water. What transpires from this chance meeting is an epiphany that leads to the complete upheaval of Graham's life. Evicted from his city flat thanks to the antics of his newly acquired, mischievous otter, Graham embarks on a train journey to the Scottish Highlands. Suffice it to say that trying to smuggle Mij onboard as a "diving terrier" is not successful. When the pair finally arrives in Scotland, they fall in love with the countryside and a dilapidated cottage by the sea. Fate introduces Graham to the town's animal-loving doctor (Virginia McKenna), and an enduring friendship and romance are forged. The photography of both the Scottish Highlands and the antics of Mij the otter in this 1969 movie are truly wonderful-it might just make you reconsider your current digs and friendships. The story (based on Gavin Maxwell's book of the same name) is somewhat formulaic and dated by its romanticism, but enjoyable nonetheless. Slip into an ideal world of simple happiness and celebrate the cyclical nature of life, if only for 106 minutes. -Tami Horiuchi, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Poor Little Rich Girl [1936]
Actors & Directors
  • Shirley Temple
  • Michael Whalen
  • Jack Haley
  • Irving Cummings
  • Alice Faye
  • Gloria Stuart
Release date: 2006-02-20
Run time: 76 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £6.71

Review Poor Little Rich Girl [1936] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Cinema Club / The Shooting [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Warren Oates
  • Monte Hellman
  • Jack Nicholson
Release date: 2007-07-02
Run time: 78 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.39

Review The Shooting [1966] / Cinema Club:


Review Image Entertainment / Plan 9 From Outer Space [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Patrick Carducci
  • Edward D. Wood Jr.
  • Carl Anthony
  • Mona McKinnon
  • Gregory Walcott
  • Duke Moore
  • Tom Keene
Release date: 2000-02-15
Run time: 78 min.
Creator: Lee Harris
Price: £4.64

Review Plan 9 From Outer Space [1956] / Image Entertainment:

Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can't quite live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you've heard. Plan 9 is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates ("Future events such as these will affect you in the future!") as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one-stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: the time shifts whimsically from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings. Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming but such a small hurdle could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have "NOT BELA LUGOSI" stamped on his forehead. Plan 9 is so sweetly well intentioned in both its message and its execution that it's impossible not to love it. And if you don't, well, as Eros says, "You people of Earth are idiots!" -Ali Davis.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / My Darling Clementine [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • John Ford
  • Henry Fonda
  • Walter Brennan
  • Linda Darnell
  • Victor Mature
  • Cathy Downs
Release date: 1998-03-23
Run time: 92 min.
Creator: Winston Miller
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.86

Review My Darling Clementine [1946] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Meet Me In St. Louis [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Leon Ames
  • Vincente Minnelli
  • Lucille Bremer
  • Margaret O'Brien
  • Judy Garland
  • Mary Astor
Release date: 2000-03-27
Run time: 110 min.
Creator: Sally Benson
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.99

Review Meet Me In St. Louis [1945] / Warner Home Video:

One of the finest American musicals, this 1944 film by Vincente Minnelli is an intentionally self-contained story set in 1903, in which a happy St Louis family is shaken to their roots by the prospect of moving to New York, where the father has a better job pending. Judy Garland heads the cast of Meet Me in St Louis in what amounts to a splendid, end-of-an-era story that nicely rhymes with the onset of the 20th century. The film is extraordinarily alive, the characters strong, and the musical numbers are so splendidly part of the storytelling that you don't feel the film has stopped for an interlude. -Tom Keogh.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / The Conquest Of Everest [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Leon Clore
Release date: 2007-07-09
Run time: 75 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.44

Review The Conquest Of Everest [1953] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Browse Classics:

Models & Brands:
Toni - Masters of Cinema series, Thunderbirds: Volume 5 [1965], Life And Death of Colonel Blimp, The / A Matter Of Life And Death [1943], 101 Dalmatians/101 Dalmatians 2 - Patch's London Adventure [1961], The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora! [1962], The Naked Spur [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949], The Brady Bunch - Series 2 [1969], Saturday Morning Pictures - The Best Of The Children's Film Foundation - Vol. 3 [1963], My Night At Maud's [1969], Tight Spot [1955], Strait-Jacket [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Fanny [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Ring Of Bright Water [1969], Poor Little Rich Girl [1936], The Shooting [1966], Plan 9 From Outer Space [1956], My Darling Clementine [1946], Meet Me In St. Louis [1945], The Conquest Of Everest [1953]

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