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Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Comancheros, The / The Undefeated [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Andrew V. McLaglen
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Lee Marvin
  • John Wayne
  • Rock Hudson
  • Stuart Whitman
Release date: 2003-06-02
Run time: 217 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £3.22

Review Comancheros, The / The Undefeated [1961] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

This is a John Wayne Western double-bill featuring The Comancheros (1961) and The Undefeated (1969). Nobody made a fuss about The Comancheros when it came out, yet it has proved to be among the most enduringly entertaining of John Wayne's later Westerns. The Duke, just beginning to crease and thicken toward Rooster Cogburn proportions, plays a veteran Texas Ranger named Jake Cutter who joins forces with a New Orleans dandy (Stuart Whitman) to subdue rampaging Indians and the evil white men behind their uprising. The Comancheros was the last credit for Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), who, ravaged by cancer, ceded much of the direction to Wayne (uncredited) and action specialist Cliff Lyons. With support from Wayne stalwarts James Edward Grant (co-screenplay) and William Clothier (camera), the first of many rousing Elmer Bernstein scores for a Wayne picture and a big, flavourful cast including Lee Marvin (the once and future Liberty Valance), Nehemiah Persoff, Bruce Cabot, and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (in his last movie), they made a broad, cheerfully bloodthirsty adventure movie for red-meat-eating audiences of all ages. In The Undefeated Wayne and Rock Hudson each play a Civil War commander who, after the ceasefire, lead a community of folks into Mexico to make a fresh start. Hudson is a Southern gentleman; Wayne commanded the Yankee cavalry at Shiloh, where Hudson's brother died. Nevertheless, Rock, with his extended family, and Duke, with his troop of cowboys and 3,000 horses to sell to Emperor Maximilian, soon join forces to outgun banditos and beam paternally over the budding romance between their respective daughter and son. Lingering North-South animosities are celebrated in an obligatory communal fistfight, and the showdown with both Maximilian's lancers and the rebel Juaristas is disconcertingly perfunctory. -Richard T Jameson.

Review ITC Entertainment group / THUNDERBIRDS - Complete collection of 32 episodes incl extras - dig. remastered - 8 disc DVD Box set
Run time: 1560 min.
Creator: Gerry Anderson
Price: £19.00

Review THUNDERBIRDS - Complete collection of 32 episodes incl extras - dig. remastered - 8 disc DVD Box set / ITC Entertainment group:

European import. Plays on standard UK DVD players in English without subtitles. Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation". The series followed the adventures of International Rescue, an organisation created to help those in grave danger using technically advanced equipment and machinery. The series focused on the head of the organisation, ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, and his five sons who piloted the "Thunderbird" machines. A popular show, the series is still shown today and has inspired a number of subsequent television programmes and films. Set in the 21st century (the actual year remains a hot topic amongst fans, due to contradictory dates seen on newspapers and calendars in different episodes, though Gerry Anderson stated in a Sci-Fi interview that it was set in 2065) the show depicts the adventures of the Tracy family, which consists of millionaire former astronaut Jeff Tracy and his five sons: Scott (pilot of Thunderbird 1 and principal rescue co-ordinator), Virgil (pilot of Thunderbird 2), Alan (astronaut in Thunderbird 3), Gordon (aquanaut in Thunderbird 4) and John (principal duty astronaut on the space station Thunderbird 5) - each named after a Mercury astronaut - Scott Carpenter,[1] Virgil Grissom,[2] Alan Shepard,[3] Gordon Cooper[4] and John Glenn,[5] respectively. Together with Jeff's elderly mother called Grandma Tracy, the scientific genius and engineer "Brains", the family's manservant Kyrano and his daughter Tin-Tin, the Tracy family live on a remote, uncharted Pacific island. They are, in secret, the members of International Rescue, a private and highly-advanced emergency response organisation, which covers the globe and even reaches into space, rescuing people with their futuristic vehicles, the Thunderbirds.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The Sherlock Holmes Collection [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Cushing
  • Nigel Stock
Release date: 2004-06-21
Run time: 300 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £7.99

Review The Sherlock Holmes Collection [1968] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review ITV DVD / Above Us The Waves [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Donald Sinden
  • John Mills
  • Ralph Thomas
  • James Robertson Justice
  • Michael Medwin
  • John Gregson
Release date: 1999-10-11
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: Robin Estridge
RRP: £6.99
Price: £1.90

Review Above Us The Waves [1955] / ITV DVD:

Directed by Ralph Thomas, Above Us the Waves (1955) tells of a Royal Navy mission to sink the "invincible" German battleship Tirpitz, off the Norwegian coast. John Mills is calm and confident as the mission commander, with strong support from John Gregson and Donald Sinden-all treated by the German personnel as fellow gentlemen when captured. Despite stirring music from Arthur Benjamin, the action sequences are visually no more than adequate, and the film is only a partial success. -Richard Whitehouse.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / I Dream Of Jeannie - The Complete First Season [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Barton MacLane
  • Larry Hagman
  • Barbara Eden
  • Woodrow Parfrey
  • Emmaline Henry
Release date: 2008-10-06
Run time: 749 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £11.99

Review I Dream Of Jeannie - The Complete First Season [1965] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Oh, the innocent days when the sexiest thing on television was Barbara Eden's hidden navel! In the classic 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, an astronaut stranded on a desert island discovered a bottle containing a genie-a shapely blond genie in scarves and diaphanous pantaloons. He sets her free, but she follows him back to Cocoa Beach, Florida, where her efforts to serve him only cause mischief and threaten his career in the space program. I Dream of Jeannie depicted the male fantasy of a beautiful but subservient girl-but this subservient girl was all-powerful and oddly willful in her attempts to serve. It all worked because of the leads: Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman went on to lengthy careers (later starring in Harper Valley PTA and Dallas, respectively), but arguably never matched the chemistry they had as Jeannie and Captain (soon to be Major) Tony Nelson. Jeannie, though naive and eager to please, always had Eden's intelligence and steely resolve lurking under her bubbly blonde surface, while Hagman projected a genuine decency that somehow made the potentially salacious situation seem innocent. Still, the show would never have been more than a knockoff of the similar Bewitched (basically, the battle of the sexes with a magic twist) if Tony's secret hadn't been discovered mid-season by his best friend, fellow astronaut Roger (the wonderful Bill Daily). Unburdened by the need for decency, Roger could be the show's insatiable id, eager to use Jeannie for no end of self-serving purposes. Meanwhile, psychiatrist Dr. Bellows (Hayden Rorke) served as the show's perpetually flabbergasted superego, constantly demanding a rational explanation for all the madcap events around him. All at once the show's storylines-which had previously been dominated by Jeannie's desire for marriage-could wander in any daffy direction the writers chose. [+]
The result was deeply silly and utterly charming. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review ITV DVD / A Tale Of Two Cities [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Marie Versini
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Paul Guers
  • Ian Bannen
  • Ralph Thomas
  • Dorothy Tutin
Release date: 2002-02-18
Run time: 137 min.
Creator: T.E.B. Clarke
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.04

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


Review Warner Home Video / Letters From Iwo Jima HD DVD [HD DVD] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Ken Watanabe
  • Clint Eastwood
Release date: 2007-07-09
Run time: 135 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £6.97

Review Letters From Iwo Jima HD DVD [HD DVD] [2006] / Warner Home Video:


Review Bfi Video / Electric Edwardians - The Films Of Mitchell And Kenyon [1900]
Actors & Directors
  • Sagar Mitchell
  • James Kenyon
Release date: 2005-05-30
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.47

Review Electric Edwardians - The Films Of Mitchell And Kenyon [1900] / Bfi Video:


Review Second Sight Films Ltd. / Pygmalion [1938]
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony Asquith; Leslie Howard
  • Wendy Hiller; Leslie Howard; Winifred Lawson; Scott Sunderland
Release date: 2007-08-06
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.08

Review Pygmalion [1938] / Second Sight Films Ltd.:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Aces High [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Plummer
  • Simon Ward
  • Malcolm McDowell
  • Jack Gold
  • David Wood
  • Peter Firth
Release date: 2007-01-01
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.03

Review Aces High [1976] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / The Damned [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Helmut Griem
  • Ingrid Thulin
  • Charlotte Rampling
  • Luchino Visconti
  • Helmut Berger
  • Dirk Bogarde
Release date: 2004-05-24
Run time: 148 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.84

Review The Damned [1969] / Warner Home Video:


Review Walt Disney Home Video / Pinocchio : Special Edition [1940]
Actors & Directors
  • Mel Blanc
  • Walter Catlett
  • Dickie Jones
  • Ben Sharpsteen
  • Christian Rub
  • Hamilton Luske
  • Don Brodie
Release date: 2003-03-03
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Otto Englander
RRP: £14.99
Price: £11.89

Review Pinocchio : Special Edition [1940] / Walt Disney Home Video:

This legendary animated feature is surely beyond criticism by now and, furthermore, it's unlikely that we'll see such forceful narrative in a kids' cartoon ever again. Disney's treatment of Collodi's story of the little wooden puppet who wants nothing more than to be a real boy is always guaranteed to have audiences entranced. While some of the movie's success is derived from its liberal use of the kind of imagery no children's film-maker would even attempt to get past the storyboard stage today-a mysterious island where children smoke cigars, get drunk and turn into donkeys, a monstrous, malicious sea-creature which is devoid of any trace of cuddliness and a pair of villains who routinely abduct children, to give just a few examples-the characters are depicted with the finest attention to detail, most of the songs have become classics in their own right ("When You Wish Upon a Star" being only one of many) and the graceful, stylised animation positively glows with fine detail. Essential family viewing. -Roger Thomas.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Great Escape (Special Edition) [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • James Donald
  • Steve McQueen
  • Richard Attenborough
  • Charles Bronson
  • James Garner
  • John Sturges
Release date: 2002-05-20
Run time: 165 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.93

Review The Great Escape (Special Edition) [1963] / MGM Entertainment:

The Great Escape image of Steve McQueen (as "The Cooler King") astride his motorcycle has entered silver-screen iconography, alongside Brando on his bike from The Wild One. Based on a true story about a group of POWs who mount a daring breakout from a supposedly inescapable Nazi prison camp, this rousing and suspenseful World War II epic features an all-star cast, including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and David McCallum. -Jim Emerson A stirring example of courage and the indomitable human spirit, for many John Sturges' The Great Escape is both the definitive World War II drama and the nonpareil prison escape movie. Featuring an unequalled ensemble cast in a rivetingly authentic true-life scenario set to Elmer Bernstein's admirable music (who writes contrapuntal march themes these days?), this picture is both a template for subsequent action-adventure movies and one of the last glories of Golden Age Hollywood. Reunited with the director who made him a star in The Magnificent Seven Steve McQueen gives a career-defining performance as the laconic Hilts, the baseball-loving, motorbike-riding "Cooler King". The rest of the all-male Anglo-American cast-Dickie Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Garner, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Coburn and Gordon Jackson-make the most of their meaty roles (though you have to forgive Coburn his Australian accent). Closely based on Paul Brickhill's book, the various escape attempts, scrounging, forging and ferreting activities are authentically realised thanks also to the presence on set of technical advisor Wally Flood, one of the original tunnel-digging POWs. Sturges orchestrates the climactic mass break out with total conviction, giving us both high action and very poignant human drama. Without trivialising the grim reality, The Great Escape thrillingly celebrates the heroism of men who never gave up the fight. On the DVD: The Great Escape special edition is indeed a special event. [+]
The anamorphic 2. 35:1 picture is good if a tad grainy, and the remastered Dolby 5. 1 soundtrack is a fitting vehicle for Elmer Bernstein's magnificent contribution. Accompanying the feature there's a reasonable cut-and-paste group commentary culled from interviews with various cast and crew, plus text trivia captions about the actors and the real-life camp. The second disc features a first-rate Granada TV documentary from 2001, "The Untold Story", which tells of both the escape itself and the subsequent post-war search for the Gestapo officers who butchered 50 of the 76 escapees. This has an appendix of further valuable interviews with survivors, and there's also an American making-of documentary, "Heroes Underground", which is good though annoyingly divided into separate chapters and featuring non-anamorphic clips from the film. Perhaps best of all though is the 25-minute life of American POW David Jones, "The Real Virgil Hilts", whose career both during and after the war is extraordinary and inspirational. A classic movie finally gets the DVD treatment it merits. -Mark Walker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / You Were Never Lovelier [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • Adolphe Menjou
  • Leslie Brooks
  • Isobel Elsom
  • William A. Seiter
  • Fred Astaire
  • Rita Hayworth
Release date: 2004-05-24
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Sixto Pondal Ríos
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.42

Review You Were Never Lovelier [1942] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / True Grit [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Kim Darby
  • Henry Hathaway
  • John Wayne
  • Jeremy Slate
  • Robert Duvall
  • Glen Campbell
Release date: 2005-06-06
Run time: 128 min.
Creator: Marguerite Roberts
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.40

Review True Grit [1969] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

John Wayne hams it up as a one-eyed, broken-down marshal in this 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis's bestselling novel. Kim Darby plays the formal-speaking adolescent who goes to Wayne for help tracking down her father's killer, and singer Glen Campbell straps on his guns to join the quest. Directed by old lion Henry Hathaway (Rawhide), True Grit is largely a showcase for Wayne (who finally won an Oscar), but it is also a decent Western with a particularly stirring final act. -Tom Keogh.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / The Joseph Losey Collection [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael York
  • Alain Delon
  • Wendy Craig
  • Jeanne Moreau
  • James Fox
  • Joseph Losey
Release date: 2008-10-20
Run time: 724 min.
RRP: £49.99
Price: £31.27

Review The Joseph Losey Collection [1954] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Bfi Video / Carmen Jones [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Otto Preminger
  • Harry Belafonte
  • Olga James
  • Pearl Bailey
  • Joe Adams
  • Dorothy Dandridge
Release date: 2004-03-29
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: Prosper Mérimée
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.34

Review Carmen Jones [1954] / Bfi Video:

Few actresses have dominated the camera as powerfully as Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones. Her polished beauty plays in irresistible contrast to her title character's leonine sexuality and fluid emotions; a man can't decide from moment to moment if he wants to save her from doom, build her a castle, or never let her out of bed. Of course, that's the problem with the boys in this semi-experimental adaptation of Bizet's opera, Carmen. Straight-arrow Joe (a strapping Harry Belafonte), an obedient corporal on a southern military base during World War II, is all set to go to flight school and marry his hometown sweetie, Cindy Lou (Olga James), when his troublemaking sergeant orders him to accompany Carmen to a civilian court. In short order, Joe is swept up in Carmen's carnal anarchy and her craving for release from lousy options in life. An impulsive act of violence ensures that Joe's future is gone forever, putting Carmen in the difficult position of destroying their relationship to save him. Oscar Hammerstein II took Bizet's music in 1943 and rewrote the book and lyrics. The result is largely a smashing success with a few missteps (the bullfighter in Bizet's piece becomes a heavyweight boxer here, which breaks up a certain grace in the story) and a couple of perfect stretches (the long prelude to Carmen and Joe's first embrace, set on Carmen's hoodoo-ish home turf). Despite the fact that both Dandridge and Belafonte were singers, their vocal performances were dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne. (Yes, it is a little disconcerting to hear another voice coming out of the more familiar Belafonte's mouth. [+]
) Otto Preminger directed with his usual eye on economy of action and production, as the numerous musical numbers tend to be shot in lengthy, single, carefully choreographed takes. The result can be a little visually static at times, but the passion behind the singing pulls everything through. -Tom Keogh.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / How To Marry A Millionaire [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Betty Grable
  • William Powell
  • Jean Negulesco
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Lauren Bacall
Release date: 2006-05-22
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.24

Review How To Marry A Millionaire [1953] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Castaway NW [VCP] / The Great Caruso [1951]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Bright
  • David Bond
  • Ann Blyth
  • Edith Angold
  • Peter Brocco
Release date: 2008-03-25
Creator: Peter Herman Adler
Price: £7.92

Review The Great Caruso [1951] / Castaway NW [VCP]:

ALL REGION DVD - HONG KONG IMPORT - NTSC.

Review MGM Entertainment / Irma La Douce [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Lou Jacobi
  • Bruce Yarnell
  • Shirley MacLaine
  • Billy Wilder
  • Herschel Bernardi
  • Jack Lemmon
Release date: 2001-11-26
Run time: 137 min.
Creator: I.A.L. Diamond
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.69

Review Irma La Douce [1963] / MGM Entertainment:

Irma La Douce reunited The Apartment team of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine with director Billy Wilder in an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name which had been a hit in Paris, London and New York. The screen transfer by Wilder and his colleague-writer IAL Diamond-however, omits the show's songs, relegating them to a background score refashioned by Andre Previn with some additional themes of his own. Background here is a complimentary term, for whatever qualms one might entertain as to this move, the two sets of themes are skilfully woven together by Previn and emerge as a witty and lyrical aural delight in their own right which is given due prominence on the soundtrack. Wilder is no rush to tell prostitute Irma's story: her affair with Lemmon being the pivot of the tale as he takes on the disguise of an English Lord. Lemmon and MacLaine beautifully play their mutual attraction under Wilder's deft direction with the slapstick never allowed to get out of hand. Many will recognise Wilder's touch in his handling of the scene where Lemmon as a policeman is carted off in a van full of voracious prostitutes from the bunks-in-the-train sequence in Some Like It Hot. The handsome production, designed by Alexander Tranner-with the occasional view of the Seine thrown in for good measure-and the Panavision photography by Joseph La Shelle are further assets. On the DVD: The DVD contains a longer than usual theatrical trailer, half shot as a cartoon with characters closely resembling those Pink Panther figures who emerged at the same time from the Mirisch Brothers, a pair prominent in sustaining the unique success of United Artists, whose name was deleted, in favour of the MGM logo, in the early 1960s. It's too bad that the music on this DVD transfer sometimes strikes a coarse note particularly over the extended opening credits. -Adrian Edwards.

Browse Classics:

Models & Brands:
Comancheros, The / The Undefeated [1961], THUNDERBIRDS - Complete collection of 32 episodes incl extras - dig. remastered - 8 disc DVD Box set, The Sherlock Holmes Collection [1968], Above Us The Waves [1955], I Dream Of Jeannie - The Complete First Season [1965], A Tale Of Two Cities [1958], Letters From Iwo Jima HD DVD [HD DVD] [2006], Electric Edwardians - The Films Of Mitchell And Kenyon [1900], Pygmalion [1938], Aces High [1976], The Damned [1969], Pinocchio : Special Edition [1940], The Great Escape (Special Edition) [1963], You Were Never Lovelier [1942], True Grit [1969], The Joseph Losey Collection [1954], Carmen Jones [1954], How To Marry A Millionaire [1953], The Great Caruso [1951], Irma La Douce [1963]

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