DVD Find the Perfect Gift    Send a Gift Certificate
Search 
Home › Classics
Review MGM Entertainment / Separate Tables [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Wendy Hiller
  • Rita Hayworth
  • David Niven
  • Delbert Mann
  • Deborah Kerr
  • Burt Lancaster
Release date: 2005-07-11
Run time: 96 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.98

Review Separate Tables [1958] / MGM Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / A Tale Of Two Cities [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Dorothy Tutin
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Marie Versini
  • Ian Bannen
  • Paul Guers
  • Ralph Thomas
Release date: 2002-02-18
Run time: 137 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.77

Review A Tale Of Two Cities [1958] / ITV DVD:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Breakfast At Tiffany's [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Martin Balsam
  • Patricia Neal
  • Blake Edwards
  • George Peppard
  • Buddy Ebsen
Release date: 2000-11-06
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.60

Review Breakfast At Tiffany's [1961] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

No film better utilises Audrey Hepburn's flighty charm and svelte beauty than this romantic adaptation of Truman Capote's novella. Hepburn's urban sophisticate Holly Golightly, an enchanting neurotic living off the gifts of gentlemen, is a bewitching figure in designer dresses and costume jewellery. George Peppard is her upstairs neighbour, a struggling writer and "kept" man financed by a steely older woman (Patricia Neal). His growing friendship with the lonely Holly soon turns to love and threatens the delicate balance of both of their compromised lives. Taking liberties with Capote's bittersweet story, director Blake Edwards and screenwriter George Axelrod turn New York into a city of lovers and create a poignant portrait of Holly, a frustrated romantic with a secret past and a hidden vulnerability. Composer Henry Mancini earned Oscars for the hit song "Moon River" and his tastefully romantic score. The only sour note in the whole film is Mickey Rooney's demeaning performance as the apartment's Japanese manager, an offensively overdone stereotype even in 1961. The rest of the film has weathered the decades well. Edwards's elegant yet light touch, Axelrod's generous screenplay and Hepburn's mix of knowing experience and naivety combine to create one of the great screen romances and a refined slice of high-society bohemian chic. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Opus Arte / Adam - Giselle (Cojocaru, Royal Ballet, Gruzin) [2006] (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Martin Harvey
  • Marianela Nuñez
  • Alina Cojocaru
  • Marius Petipa (Choreographer);Boris Gruzin (Conductor)
  • Johan Kobborg
Release date: 2008-09-01
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £18.96

Review Adam - Giselle (Cojocaru, Royal Ballet, Gruzin) [2006] (NTSC) / Opus Arte:


Review MGM Entertainment / The Killing [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Coleen Gray
  • Jay C. Flippen
  • Elisha Cook Jr.
  • Sterling Hayden
  • Vince Edwards
  • Stanley Kubrick
Release date: 2002-07-15
Run time: 80 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.97

Review The Killing [1956] / MGM Entertainment:

Among Stanley Kubrick's early film output The Killing stands out as the most lastingly influential: Quentin Tarantino credits the film as a huge inspiration for Reservoir Dogs and just about any movie or TV show that plays around with its own internal chronology owes the same debt. This sort of convoluted crime caper had really kicked off with John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. From then on, nouveau noir scripts kept trying to find new ways of telling very similar stories. Here the novel Clean Break is adapted for the screen in a jigsaw-puzzle structure that caught Kubrick's eye. With a dry narration we're introduced to the key players in a racetrack heist as it's being planned, but the story bounces back and forth between what happens to each of them during and before the big event. All of this keeps the audience guessing as to exactly how it will go wrong, while the downbeat telling, the unsympathetic characters and the excessively dramatic score clearly foretell that it will go wrong from the start. The denouement is comically daft no matter how many times you see it. On the DVD: The Killing is a no-frills DVD transfer, in 4:3 ratio and with its original mono soundtrack. Criminally, just one trailer is all that's been dug up as an extra. -Paul Tonks.

Review Network / A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Renee Houston
  • Jack Lee
  • Jean Anderson
  • Peter Finch
  • Virginia McKenna
  • Maureen Swanson
Release date: 2006-07-24
Run time: 111 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.62

Review A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956] / Network:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Scarface [1932]
Actors & Directors
  • George Raft
  • Howard Hawks
  • Paul Muni
  • Boris Karloff
  • Ann Dvorak
Release date: 2005-12-26
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.98

Review Scarface [1932] / Universal Pictures UK:

Howard Hawks's Scarface was one of the first "talkies" to reclaim the fluidity of the late-silent masterpieces, while also tapping into a feral new energy that came with talking smart and moving smarter on the motion picture screen. Outgunning such contemporaries as Little Caesar and The Public Enemy-in terms of both its ferocious death-dealing and dynamic style-the movie was interfered with by censors and kept out of circulation for decades thanks to its eccentric producer, Howard Hughes. It remains the gold standard among classic gangster pictures. Paul Muni's portrayal of Al Capone surrogate Tony Camonte etched a screen original: a merciless assassin who's not only reflexively criminal but pre-civilised, almost pre-evolutionary, a simian shadow ready to rub out the world if he can't have it for his own. This is still one of the greatest, darkest, most deeply exciting films American cinema has produced. Those demonically ubiquitous X's-starting with that titular scar gouged into Tony's cheek-rival "Rosebud" for resonance. -Richard T. Jameson.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Cat Ballou [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Nat 'King' Cole
  • Dwayne Hickman
  • Jane Fonda
  • Michael Callan
  • Elliot Silverstein
  • Lee Marvin
Release date: 2003-05-26
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.95

Review Cat Ballou [1965] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / We Dive At Dawn [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • John Mills
  • Jack Watling
  • Ronald Millar
  • Anthony Asquith
  • Louis Bradfield
  • Reginald Purdell
Release date: 1999-10-11
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £2.50

Review We Dive At Dawn [1943] / ITV DVD:

We Dive at Dawn (1943) tells of the encounter between a British submarine and a German warship in the Baltic Sea. John Mills gives a dependable performance as the submarine commander, with Eric Portman the pick of a strong supporting cast. Director Anthony Asquith finds the balance between action sequences and "in situ" dialogue, and there's an evocative score from Louis Levy. The film has long been underrated and deserves reappraisal. -Richard Whitehouse.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Spartacus [HD DVD] [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Ustinov
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Tony Curtis
  • Kirk Douglas
  • Jean Simmons
Release date: 2007-11-05
Run time: 186 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.91

Review Spartacus [HD DVD] [1960] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Bfi Video / Georg W. Pabst - The Threepenny Opera [1931]
Actors & Directors
  • Lucy de Matha
  • Gaston Modot
  • Margo Lion
  • Florelle
  • Albert Préjean
  • Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Release date: 2004-12-06
Run time: 203 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.98

Review Georg W. Pabst - The Threepenny Opera [1931] / Bfi Video:


Review Walt Disney Home Video / The Sword In The Stone [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Wolfgang Reitherman
  • Junius Matthews
  • Rickie Sorensen
  • Karl Swenson
  • Ginny Tyler
  • Sebastian Cabot
Release date: 2002-06-03
Run time: 76 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £7.86

Review The Sword In The Stone [1963] / Walt Disney Home Video:

As far as Disney is concerned, The Sword in the Stone was a portent of things to come, with slapstick upstaging storytelling, and cultural in-jokes substituting for wonder. Based on TH White's beloved novel The Once and Future King, this Disney version chronicles King Arthur's boyish adventures. There's much to enjoy here as coach Merlin the magician shows the young Arthur, nicknamed Wart, the skills that will help him become the future ruler of the Britons. The transformation sequences, where the boy is turned into a fish, a bird and a squirrel are vintage Disney. The oft-repeated scene of Merlin battling it out with mean old Madame Mim still is worth a few chuckles, but it underlines the problem with most of the film-most of its scenes are only played for laughs. References by Merlin to television and other items of modern life also mar the generally innocuous landscape. Younger children will like it, while older kids will find it slower compared with recent Disney films. -Keith Simanton, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Postman Always Rings Twice [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Hume Cronyn
  • Tay Garnett
  • Leon Ames
  • Cecil Kellaway
  • Lana Turner
  • John Garfield
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 108 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.97

Review The Postman Always Rings Twice [1946] / Warner Home Video:

Even under the heavy censorship of 1946 Hollywood, Lana Turner and John Garfield's libidinous desires burn up the screen in Tay Garnett's adaptation of James M. Cain's torrid crime melodrama. Platinum blond Turner is Cora, a restless sexpot stuck in a roadside diner married to mundane middle-aged fry cook Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) when handsome drifter Frank (Garfield) blows her way. It's lust at first sight, a rapacious desire that neither can break off, and before long they're plotting his demise-but in the wicked world of Cain nothing is that easy. Garnett's visual approach is subdued compared to the more expressionistic film noir of the period, but he's at no loss when he films the luminous Turner in her milky-white wardrobe. She radiates repressed sexuality and uncontrollable passion while Garfield's smart-talking loner Frank mixes street-smart swagger and scrappy toughness with vulnerability and sincere intensity. Co-star Hume Cronyn cuts a cold, calculating figure as their conniving lawyer, a chilly character that only increases our feelings for the murderous couple, victims of an all-consuming amour fou that drives their passions to extremes. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Review Arrow Films / Faster Pussycat... Kill! Kill! [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Stuart Lancaster
  • Tura Santana
  • Russ Meyer
  • Lori Williams
  • Dennis Busch
Release date: 2005-03-28
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.50

Review Faster Pussycat... Kill! Kill! [1966] / Arrow Films:


Review ITV DVD / The Wicked Lady [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Margaret Lockwood
  • Patricia Roc
  • Griffith Jones
  • Leslie Arliss
  • James Mason
  • Michael Rennie
Release date: 2004-03-15
Run time: 99 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.76

Review The Wicked Lady [1945] / ITV DVD:

An extraordinarily racy movie for its time, The Wicked Lady was and still is as notable for its acres of heaving bosom as for its radical challenge to female stereotypes. This bodice-ripper about a bored aristocratic woman who turns highwayman just for kicks became a huge box-office success in post-war Britain, but Margaret Lockwood's eloquent bust proved a bit too expressive for Hollywood, so the film was expensively reshot for a sanitised US release. (From 1945 right up to Janet Jackson at the 2004 Superbowl, American audiences apparently have an enduring problem with those prominent parts of the female anatomy). This is the definitive Gainsborough picture, a period romp crammed with cads, in which the camera gazes lasciviously down (it's all shot from a male eyelevel) at the low-cut ladies' dresses. But this time the female anti-heroine gives as good as she gets. and then some. Lockwood's Lady Barbara Skelton is quite gleefully amoral-more so even than Thackeray's arch-manipulator Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair-failing even to pay lip service to the moral standards of the 1940s, let alone those of the 17th century. It is she who wears the trousers (quite literally, in her highwayman guise) while the weak-chinned and weak-willed men around her crumble under the weight of their conventionality. [+]
Only James Mason's handsome dandy highwayman can keep up with her, but even he has to draw the line somewhere. Ultimately, social mores reassert their grip and Lady Barbara gets her comeuppance, but not before she's overturned every contemporary movie convention about femininity. "She was the wickedest woman ever seen on the screen", trumpets the original theatrical trailer on this otherwise bare-bones DVD release: it's still probably true even today. -Mark Walker.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Winning [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Barry Ford
  • James Goldstone
  • Robert Wagner
  • Joanne Woodward
  • Paul Newman
Release date: 2007-03-05
Run time: 117 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.98

Review Winning [1969] / Universal Pictures UK:

Paul Newman plays a racecar driver, Frank Capua, who steps out of his professional and personal isolation long enough to marry a single mother, Elora (Joanne Woodward). The two have a brief but happy life together with Elora's 13-year-old son, Charley (Richard Thomas), but it comes to an end when Frank goes back on the racing circuit and Elora assuages her loneliness in the arms of her husband's chief rival, Luther (Robert Wagner). Frank checks out, and Charley travels across the country to find him and effect a reconciliation. A touching movie (with some good racing footage) by director James Goldstone, Winning is about the real pain of people who have become used to a certain way of safe, arm's-length living, and who have to learn to get beyond it to find redemption in love and faith. Good performances by Newman, Woodward, and Thomas, who makes a terrific impression in one of his earliest roles. -Tom Keogh.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Longest Day [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Louis Barrault
  • Bernhard Wicki
  • Ken Annakin
  • Arletty
  • Richard Beymer
  • Darryl F. Zanuck
  • Paul Anka
  • Andrew Marton
  • Eddie Albert
Release date: 2004-05-31
Run time: 168 min.
RRP: £22.99
Price: £6.99

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

After seeing Saving Private Ryan, this epic tale about the Normandy invasion will look sanitised. But in its re-creation of events leading to the epochal battle, The Longest Day is captivating and grand, and the parade of famous actors who cross the screen naturally give the already charged action even more of a boost. Three directors worked on it: Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge), Andrew Marton (Crack in the World) and Bernhard Wicki (this film being his only credit). -Tom Keogh The Longest Day is Hollywood's definitive D-day movie. More modern accounts such as Saving Private Ryan are more vividly realistic, but producer Darryl F Zanuck's epic 1962 account is the only one to attempt the daunting task of covering that fateful day from all perspectives. From the German high command and front-line officers to the French Resistance and all the key Allied participants, the screenplay by Cornelius Ryan, based on his own authoritative book, is as factually accurate as possible. The endless parade of stars (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton, to name a few) makes for an uneasy mix of verisimilitude and Hollywood star-power, however, and the film falls a little flat for too much of its three-hour running time. But the set-piece battles are still spectacular, and if the landings on Omaha Beach lack the graphic gore of Private Ryan they nonetheless show the sheer scale and audacity of the invasion. -Mark Walker.

Review Artificial Eye / Weekend [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Mireille Darc
  • Jean Yanne
  • Jean-Luc Godard
Release date: 2005-02-28
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.76

Review Weekend [1967] / Artificial Eye:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / All That Jazz [1979]
Actors & Directors
  • Bob Fosse
  • Leland Palmer
  • Cliff Gorman
  • Roy Scheider
  • Ann Reinking
  • Jessica Lange
Release date: 2003-06-30
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.97

Review All That Jazz [1979] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Choreographer-turned-director Bob Fosse turns the camera on himself in All That Jazz, a nervy, sometimes unnerving 1979 feature, a nakedly autobiographical piece that veers from gritty drama to razzle-dazzle musical, allegory to satire. It's an indication of his bravura, and possibly his self-absorption, that Fosse (who also co-wrote the script) literally opens alter ego Joe Gideon's heart in a key scene-an unflinching glimpse of cardiac surgery, shot during an actual open-heart procedure. Roy Scheider makes a brave and largely successful leap out of his usual romantic lead roles to step into Gideon's dancing pumps and supplies a plausible sketch of an extravagant, self-destructive, self-loathing creative dynamo, while Jessica Lange serves as a largely allegorical Muse, one of the various women that the philandering Gideon pursues (and usually abandons). Gideon's other romantic partners include Fosse's own protégé (and a major keeper of his choreographic style since his death) Ann Reinking, whose leggy grace is seductive both "onstage" and off. Fosse/Gideon's collision course with mortality, as well as his priapic obsession with the opposite sex, may offer insights into the libidinal core of the choreographer's dynamic, sexualised style of dance, but musical aficionados will be forgiven for fast-forwarding to cut out the self-analysis and focus on the music, period. At its best-as in the knockout opening, scored to George Benson's strutting version of "On Broadway", which fuses music, dance and dazzling camera work into a paean to Fosse's hoofer nation-All That Jazz offers a sequence of classic Fosse numbers-hard-edged, caustic and joyously physical. -Sam Sutherland.

Review ITV DVD / Norman Wisdom Collection [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Norman Wisdom
Release date: 2008-09-01
Run time: 1088 min.
RRP: £59.99
Price: £25.98

Review Norman Wisdom Collection [1953] / ITV DVD:


Browse Classics:

Models & Brands:
Separate Tables [1958], A Tale Of Two Cities [1958], Breakfast At Tiffany's [1961], Adam - Giselle (Cojocaru, Royal Ballet, Gruzin) [2006] (NTSC), The Killing [1956], A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956], Scarface [1932], Cat Ballou [1965], We Dive At Dawn [1943], Spartacus [HD DVD] [1960], Georg W. Pabst - The Threepenny Opera [1931], The Sword In The Stone [1963], The Postman Always Rings Twice [1946], Faster Pussycat... Kill! Kill! [1966], The Wicked Lady [1945], Winning [1969], The Longest Day [1962], Weekend [1967], All That Jazz [1979], Norman Wisdom Collection [1953]

Top headlines:
Search 
DVD Rental: try it for free