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Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment  / Bewitched - Series 3 - Complete [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Elizabeth Montgomery
  • Agnes Moorehead
  • Dick York
Release date: 2006-07-24
Run time: 785 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £11.01

Review Bewitched - Series 3 - Complete [1966] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

The introduction of colour takes a bit of the magic out of Bewitched, but adorable toddler Tabitha brings her own special enchantment to this third season, which earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series. Also nominated were Elizabeth Montgomery as sophisticated, albeit domesticated, witch Samantha, Agnes Morehead as her disapproving mother Endora, and Marion Lorne as addled Aunt Clara, whose mis-spellings wreak havoc in the Stephens household, as when she unwittingly conjures up Ben Franklin in "My Friend Ben. " As the season begins, "typical average baby" Tabitha reveals her heretofore dormant supernatural powers. In the next episode, "The Moment of Truth," Darrin (Dick York) is distressed to find out about his daughter. "Remember 'normal'?" he wails to his wife. "We were going to have a normal married life" Though one laments that Serena is missing in action, the return of Bernard Fox as Dr. Bombay (in "There's Gold in Them Thar Pills") and Paul Lynde's practical joker Uncle Arthur are always welcome, even if Arthur's feud with Endora in "Endora Moves in for a Spell" never reaches the comic heights of season 2's "The Joker Is a Card" (the Yagazuzie Zim episode). Other venerable character actors cast their distinctive spells, including Estelle Winwood ("Hold Me, Touch Me" in the original The Producers) and Reta Shaw (Mary Poppins) as Endora's sisters in "Witches and Warlocks Are My Favorite Things; Marty Ingalls as a rival ad agency spy in "Dangerous Diaper Dan"; Norman "Mr. Roper" Fell as Sigmund Freud(!) in "I'd Rather Twitch Than Fight"; and, in a bizarre cameo, Willie Mays as one of Endora's Halloween party guests in "Twitch or Treat. " ("You mean he's a. [+]
," Darrin stammers. "The way he hits home runs?" Samantha replies, "What else?"). Sandra Gould, replacing Alice Pearce, joins the cast as busybody neighbor Gladys Kravitz. One of the season's most enjoyable episodes is "A Most Unusual Wood Nymph," which allowed York to break out of his confounded husband character to portray the lusty Darrin the Bold, a cursed 14th-century ancestor. And with the sight of the ravishing Montgomery in a castle-maid costume, who needs extras in this otherwise charmed four-disc set? -Donald Liebenson.

Review Warner Home Video  / Rio Bravo (2 Disc Special Edition) [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Angie Dickinson
  • Dean Martin
  • Howard Hawks
  • John Wayne
Release date: 2007-05-28
Run time: 135 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.67

Review Rio Bravo (2 Disc Special Edition) [1959] / Warner Home Video:


Review MGM Entertainment  / The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Terence Fisher
  • André Morell
  • Peter Cushing
  • David Oxley
  • Marla Landi
  • Christopher Lee
Release date: 2003-10-20
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.58

Review The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959] / MGM Entertainment:

Sherlock Holmes gets the Gothic treatment in Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, a typical mix of mystery and supernatural horror from the famous studio. Peter Cushing is perfectly cast as the great detective, the very embodiment of science and reason (which also made him a great Van Helsing in the Dracula series) in a case wound around a legacy of aristocratic cruelty and a devilish dog wandering the swampy moors. Christopher Lee is a less satisfying fit as the last of the Baskervilles, as he waffles between fear and apathetic disregard, but Andre Morell is a fine Dr Watson and a far cry from Nigel Bruce's sweet bumbler from the Hollywood incarnation of the 1940s. Director Terence Fisher was Hammer's top stylist and the film drips with the mood of the moors, mist hanging in the air, the dying vegetation itself threatening to come to life and trap the next unwary traveller. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment  / Oliver! [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Carol Reed
  • Shani Wallis
  • Ron Moody
  • Harry Secombe
  • Mark Lester
  • Oliver Reed
Release date: 2006-02-06
Run time: 144 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £19.90

Review Oliver! [1968] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Film buffs and critics can argue until their faces turn blue about whether this lavish Dickensian musical deserved the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1968, but the movie speaks for itself on grandly entertaining terms. Adapted from Dickens's classic novel, it's one of the most dramatically involving and artistically impressive musicals of the 1960s, directed by Carol Reed with a delightful enthusiasm that would surely have impressed Dickens himself. Mark Lester plays the waifish orphan Oliver Twist, who is befriended by the pickpocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and recruited into the gang of boy thieves led by Fagin (played to perfection by Ron Moody). The villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) casts his long shadow over Oliver and his friends, but the young orphan is still able to find loving care in the most desperate of circumstances. Full of memorable melodies and splendid lyrics, Oliver! is a timeless film, prompting even hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael to call it "a superb demonstration of intelligent craftsmanship", and to further observe that "it's as if the movie set out to be a tribute to Dickens and his melodramatic art as well as to tell the story of Oliver Twist. " -Jeff Shannon Film buffs and critics can argue until their faces turn blue about whether this lavish Dickensian musical deserved the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1968, but the movie speaks for itself on grandly entertaining terms. Adapted from Dickens's classic novel, it's one of the most dramatically involving and artistically impressive musicals of the 1960s, directed by Carol Reed with a delightful enthusiasm that would surely have impressed Dickens himself. Mark Lester plays the waifish orphan Oliver Twist, who is befriended by the pick-pocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and recruited into the gang of boy thieves led by Fagin (played to perfection by Ron Moody). The villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) casts his long shadow over Oliver and his friends, but the young orphan is still able to find loving care in the most desperate of circumstances. Full of memorable melodies and splendid lyrics, Oliver! is a timeless film, prompting even hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael to call it "a superb demonstration of intelligent craftsmanship," and to further observe that "it's as if the movie set out to be a tribute to Dickens and his melodramatic art as well as to tell the story of Oliver Twist". [+]
-Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video  / Full Metal Jacket [HD DVD] [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • Adam Baldwin
  • Matthew Modine
  • Vincent D'Onofrio
Release date: 2008-03-24
Run time: 116 min.
RRP: £25.99
Price: £3.75

Review Full Metal Jacket [HD DVD] [1987] / Warner Home Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video  / Doctor Who - Spearhead From Space [1970] Release date: 2001-01-29
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.87

Review Doctor Who - Spearhead From Space [1970] / 2 Entertain Video:

"Spearhead from Space" launched Doctor Who into the 1970s with not only a new Doctor, Jon Pertwee, but a new assistant, the scientist Liz Shaw (Caroline John) and a regular place in the show for UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). It also marked the debut of the programme in colour and saw the Doctor stranded on Earth after Patrick Troughton's last adventure, "The War Games" (1969). Not only that, but it proved the only serial in the show's history to be entirely shot both on film and location, giving it a uniquely cinematic feel. Regenerating in a country hospital, the Doctor finds himself helping the Brigadier investigate an unusual meteorite and its links with a sinister doll factory. The Autons are cybernetic killers-anticipating The Terminator by some 15 years-and the sequence in which they break through high-street shop windows to slaughter pedestrians remains a chilling highpoint of Doctor Who's entire history. Things do turn silly with a subplot involving a waxworks museum, while the ultimate battle with the Nestine consciousness is more likely to induce laughter than fear, but as vintage television nostalgia this is fast-moving splendidly characterised entertainment. -Gary S. DalkinOn the DVD: The remastered picture and sound are exceptional for a 1970 TV show. Obviously in 4:3 and mono, this DVD offers technical quality easily as good as many feature films. There is a very friendly, if not especially informative, commentary from Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John, and subtitles that offer background facts and figures. [+]
With an amusing five-minute recruiting film for UNIT, repeat trailers and a gallery including previously unpublished photos, this excellent DVD is a Doctor Who fan's dream come true. -Gary S. Dalkin.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment  / G.I. Blues [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Elvis Presley
  • Letícia Román
  • Norman Taurog
  • Juliet Prowse
  • James Douglas
  • Robert Ivers
Release date: 2002-03-18
Run time: 99 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.74

Review G.I. Blues [1960] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

After Elvis Presley got out of the army in 1960, he was instantly ushered into G. I. Blues, a Paramount movie about an Oklahoma singer who (surprise) gets out of the army and wants to open a club. Making a potentially lucrative bet that he can seduce a cabaret singer (Juliet Prowse), Elvis instead falls in love. Leaving behind his rockabilly roots for a slicker image better suited to early 60s pop, the Elvis of this movie is the one who made almost 30 more just like it. The songs include "G. I. Blues", "It's Not Good Enough for You," "Tonight Is So Right for Love" and "Wooden Heart". It's directed by Norman Taurog, a studio veteran who made his first film in 1928 and worked many times with Presley. -Tom Keogh.

Review MGM Entertainment  / Birdman Of Alcatraz [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Betty Field
  • Burt Lancaster
  • John Frankenheimer
  • Karl Malden
  • Neville Brand
  • Thelma Ritter
Release date: 2002-04-15
Run time: 142 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.69

Review Birdman Of Alcatraz [1962] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video  / Bonnie And Clyde [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Faye Dunaway
  • Warren Beatty
  • Gene Hackman
  • Arthur Penn
  • Estelle Parsons
  • Michael J. Pollard
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.15

Review Bonnie And Clyde [1967] / Warner Home Video:

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.

Review Network  / The Ipcress File [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Sidney J. Furie
  • Sue Lloyd
  • Nigel Green
  • Guy Doleman
  • Michael Caine
Release date: 2006-01-16
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.00

Review The Ipcress File [1965] / Network:


Review ITV DVD  / The Way Ahead [1944]
Actors & Directors
  • Carol Reed
  • James Donald
  • John Laurie
  • David Niven
  • Stanley Holloway
  • Leslie Dwyer
Release date: 2004-05-17
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.77

Review The Way Ahead [1944] / ITV DVD:


Review ITV DVD  / Carry On Up The Khyber [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Hawtrey
  • Kenneth Williams
  • Gerald Thomas
  • Roy Castle
  • Sid James
  • Joan Sims
Release date: 2003-05-12
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.00

Review Carry On Up The Khyber [1968] / ITV DVD:

Filmed in 1968 and set in British India in 1895, Carry On Up the Khyber is one of the team's most memorable efforts. Sid James plays Sid James as ever, though nominally his role is that of Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond, the unflappable British Governor who must deal with the snakelike, scheming Khasi of Khalabar, played by Kenneth Williams. A crisis occurs when the mystique of the "devils in skirts" of the 3rd Foot and Mouth regiment is exploded when one of their number, the sensitive-to-draughts Charles Hawtrey, is discovered by the natives to be wearing underpants. Revolt is in the offing, with Bernard Bresslaw once again playing a seething native warrior. Roy Castle neatly plays the sort of role normally assigned to Jim Dale, as the ineffectual young officer, Peter Butterworth is a splendid compromised evangelist, while Terry Scott puts his comedic all into the role of the gruff Sergeant. Most enduring, however, is the final dinner party sequence in which the British contingent, with the Burpas at the gates of the compound, and plaster falling all about them, demonstrate typical insouciance in the face of imminent peril. The "I'm Backing Britain" Union Jack hoist at the end, however, over-excitedly reveals the streak of reactionary patriotism that lurked beneath the bumbling double-entendres of most Carry On films. -David Stubbs.

Review Second Sight Films Ltd.  / Mozart's Don Giovanni / Raimondi, Opera de Paris, Maazel [Deluxe Edition] [1979]
Actors & Directors
  • José Van Dam
  • Joseph Losey
  • Kiri Te Kanawa
  • Edda Moser
  • Ruggero Raimondi
  • Teresa Berganza
Release date: 2008-02-18
Run time: 169 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £11.97

Review Mozart's Don Giovanni / Raimondi, Opera de Paris, Maazel [Deluxe Edition] [1979] / Second Sight Films Ltd.:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)  / Gallipoli - Collectors Edition (1982) Release date: 2006-04-03
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.15

Review Gallipoli - Collectors Edition (1982) / Paramount Home Entertainment (UK):


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment  / Inn Of The Sixth Happiness [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Curt Jurgens
  • Ingrid Bergman
  • Mark Robson
  • Robert Donat
Release date: 2005-04-18
Run time: 152 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.69

Review Inn Of The Sixth Happiness [1958] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

An epic and extraordinary true story-or, at least, an extraordinary story based on a novel (Alan Burgess's The Small Woman) based on a true story. Gladys Aylward (an improbably mesmerizing Ingrid Bergman) is a British would-be missionary with an obsession about China. As she has no experience, the Missionary Society won't let her go, but she goes anyway, alone, to a remote northern province. She is hated, then loved; finally she becomes both a significant political figure and the heroine of a miraculous escape in which she shepherds 100 children to safety across the mountains just ahead of a Japanese invasion. Curt Jurgens is suitably stony as Lin Nan, the half-Dutch, half-Chinese military officer who falls in love with her, and a visibly ailing Robert Donat (who died before this, his final film, was released) is the wily local mandarin who sees and makes use of her extraordinary abilities. Directed by Mark Robson, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a sweeping, stirring tearjerker, a big tale told in a big landscape with acres of orchestrated strings by Malcolm Arnold. A beautiful and beautifully made film that's a classic of the "everyone said I couldn't but I did it anyway" genre. -Richard Farr.

Review MGM Entertainment  / Billion Dollar Brain [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Ken Russell
  • Oscar Homolka
  • Michael Caine
  • Karl Malden
  • Ed Begley
  • Francoise Dorleac
Release date: 2004-09-06
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.70

Review Billion Dollar Brain [1967] / MGM Entertainment:


Review 2 Entertain Video  / Doctor Who - The Claws Of Axos [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Roger Delgado
  • Jon Pertwee
  • Richard Franklin
  • Michael Ferguson
  • Katy Manning
Release date: 2005-04-25
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.70

Review Doctor Who - The Claws Of Axos [1971] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video  / Doctor Who - The Aztecs [1964] [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Martin
  • Carole Ann Ford
  • William Hartnell
  • Jacqueline Hill
  • William Russell
Release date: 2002-10-21
Run time: 99 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.68

Review Doctor Who - The Aztecs [1964] [1963] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video  / Doctor Who - The Three Doctors [1972] [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Patrick Troughton
  • Katy Manning
  • Jon Pertwee
  • William Hartnell
Release date: 2003-11-24
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.67

Review Doctor Who - The Three Doctors [1972] [1963] / 2 Entertain Video:

Made to mark the series' tenth anniversary, Doctor Who: The Three Doctors finds Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor teaming-up with the Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell incarnations to battle a universe-threatening foe. Omega (played by an excellent Stephen Thorne) is the Timelord who gave his race the power necessary for time travel. Long presumed dead he is actually trapped in an anti-matter universe inside a black hole, and is scheming an epic revenge. Set in UNIT HQ, Omega's domain and a chalk pit, Bob Baker and David Martin's yarn is both nonsensical and more wildly ambitious than the BBC effects unit could possibly visualise. This is so much the case that the best moments come with the metaphysically chilling scene in which Omega is unmasked, and in the bickering rivalry between Pertwee and Troughton. Sadly Hartnell was seriously ill with arteriosclerosis, so his brief scenes were all taped in a day and played on a monitor in the TARDIS, the reason given that the First Doctor is trapped in a "time eddy". If hardly a classic this is still a meatier tale than The Two Doctors (1985), which starred Troughton and Colin Baker, and it features ever-dependable support from Katy Manning as Jo Grant and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier. On the DVD: Doctor Who: The Three Doctors is presented in the original 4:3 ratio with good mono sound. The introductory 16-mm film footage is very grainy and lined, but later exteriors are good and the interior video-shot material in fine. The commentary by Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney and producer Barry Letts is informative and funny. [+]
Extras include excerpts from a highly entertaining 1973 Pebble Mill at One with Patrick Troughton and BBC props designer Bernard Wilkie (20 min) and a 1973 retrospective on the show from Blue Peter featuring Pertwee with the then new Whomobile, all presented by ex-Who companion Peter Purves. There are highlights from a BSkyB Doctor Who weekend from 1990, with brief interviews with Courtney, David Martin, Bob Baker, Pertwee, producer John Nathan Turner and writer Terrance Dicks (10 min). Rather more exciting is the appearances of the warm and witty Pertwee, Manning, and a very late Courtney at the 1993 Panopticon SF convention (29 min). There are also two trailers, info text and a scored photo gallery. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review Warner Home Video  / Flags Of Our Fathers [HD DVD] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Patrick
  • Barry Pepper
  • Adam Beach
  • Clint Eastwood
  • Ryan Phillippe
  • Paul Walker
Release date: 2007-07-09
Run time: 127 min.
RRP: £25.99
Price: £16.00

Review Flags Of Our Fathers [HD DVD] [2006] / Warner Home Video:


Browse Classics:

Models & Brands:
Bewitched - Series 3 - Complete [1966], Rio Bravo (2 Disc Special Edition) [1959], The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959], Oliver! [1968], Full Metal Jacket [HD DVD] [1987], Doctor Who - Spearhead From Space [1970], G.I. Blues [1960], Birdman Of Alcatraz [1962], Bonnie And Clyde [1967], The Ipcress File [1965], The Way Ahead [1944], Carry On Up The Khyber [1968], Mozart's Don Giovanni / Raimondi, Opera de Paris, Maazel [Deluxe Edition] [1979], Gallipoli - Collectors Edition (1982), Inn Of The Sixth Happiness [1958], Billion Dollar Brain [1967], Doctor Who - The Claws Of Axos [1971], Doctor Who - The Aztecs [1964] [1963], Doctor Who - The Three Doctors [1972] [1963], Flags Of Our Fathers [HD DVD] [2006]

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