In 1957's The Naked Truth Terry Thomas plays a dodgy peer of the realm being blackmailed in the company of Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton by a gutter press journalist, Dennis Price ("Don't try to appeal to my better nature, because I haven't one"). One fascinating element in this picture is the portrayal of those relationships that could be only suggested in a period of tighter censorship, such as Peter Sellers' TV personality and Kenneth Griffith as his dresser, whose gay relationship is only faintly etched in here. More overt is the characterisation of a masculine looking authoress, known only by her initials, but sporting Agatha Christie's hairdo. The moments of slapstick are brought off to a tee, as when the larger-than-life Peggy Mount attempts a suicide drop from her window to be saved by an awning on a shop front. On the DVD: The Naked Truth comes to DVD in 4:3 ratio and with a mono soundtrack. The only extra feature is a trailer. More TT tomfoolery can be found in the three-disc Terry Thomas Collection. -Adrian Edwards.

The third in Ingmar Bergman's trilogy of "chamber works" featuring characters in isolated, existentially dramatic settings, The Silence, made in 1963, is set in Timoka, a fictional Eastern European town with its own made-up language. Stylistically more sensual and maximal than its austere predecessors Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light, it was both a success and a scandal in its day, featuring as it does scenes of masturbation, sex and even lesbian eroticism. Jorgen Lindstrom plays Jonas, a small boy travelling with his mother Anna (Gunnel Lindblom) and aunt Ester (Ingrid Thulin). His aunt is dying of consumption, but his mother is a great deal more alive and smouldering with sexual energy. As the tension between the bedridden aunt and the frustrated mother mounts, Jonas roams the hotel corridors and chances almost surreally upon the hotels only other occupants-an elderly floor waiter and a troupe of performing dwarves. Meanwhile, his mother is picked up by a waiter in a cafe, is seduced by him in a church then engages in a traumatically miserable bout of hotel sex. Sultry, full of incident and dreamlike cinematic spectacle (the performing dwarves, a rumbling tank, an overheated railway carriage) there's a sense of aimlessness and oblivion about The Silence, in which the godlessness of the universe, though never discussed, is implied throughout the movie. There is, however, a note of humanist hope struck in the conclusion, more convincing than the platitudinous finale of Through a Glass Darkly. On the DVD: Bergman's notes explain how he had long nurtured the notion of setting a movie in an imaginary city where "the rules of society cease to exist", and how the young boy's curious wanderings were inspired by his first exposure to Stockholm as a child. Critic Philip Strick's notes reveal that Greta Garbo had at one point been mooted to make a return to the screen in this film and that in certain countries, censors insisted on separate screenings of The Silence for males and females. [+]

The film boasts the best of the Bond title songs (this one sung on a dreamy track by Nancy Sinatra), but the movie itself is one of the weaker ones of the Sean Connery phase of the 007 franchise. The story concerns an effort by the evil organisation SPECTRE to start a world war, but the not-so-super villain behind the plot is the awfully civilised Donald Pleasence. The thin script is by Roald Dahl (shouldn't we have expected a better Bond nemesis from the creator of mad genius Willy Wonka?), and direction is by British veteran Lewis Gilbert (Alfie). But the movie can't hold a candle to Dr. No, From Russia with Love, or Goldfinger. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. comOn the DVD: This was another troubled production according to the insightful "making of" documentary: director and producers luckily avoided boarding a plane out of Tokyo that crashed and killed everyone on board; the Japanese actresses couldn't speak English and one threatened suicide if she was dropped from the part; and the aerial cameraman filming the helicopter fight had his leg sliced off by a rotor blade. Maurice Binder's evocative main title designs are the subject of the second documentary, "Silhouettes", in which his colleagues voiceboth their admiration of his art and frustration at his chaotic working practices. The commentary is another edited selection of interviews with principal cast and crew. An animated storyboard sequence, trailers, radio spots and a handsome booklet add up to another winning entry in this series. [+]

This 1956 pop adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest is one of the best, most influential science fiction movies ever made. Its space explorers are the models for the crew of Star Trek's Enterprise, and the film's robot is clearly the prototype for Robby in Lost in Space. Walter Pidgeon is the Prospero figure, presiding over a paradisiacal world with his lovely young daughter and their servile droid. When the crew of a spaceship lands on the planet, they become aware of a sinister invisible force that threatens to destroy them. Great special effects and a bizarre electronic score help make Forbidden Planet as fresh, imaginative and fun as it was when first released.

Blake Edwards's delightful 1959 comedy stars Cary Grant as a World War II submarine captain whose preference for a by-the-book command reluctantly yields to certain realities. Chief among those is that Grant's first officer (Tony Curtis, who impersonated Grant that same year in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot), a shameless hustler, is better than the navy at delivering whatever supplies the ship and crew need to keep going. But when Curtis sneaks a handful of Philippine refugees and several gorgeous nurses onto the all-male sub, the skipper not only has to cool down his crew but deal with an unexpected feminine influence on ship protocol. The film is a great deal of fun, sprinkled with the director's trademark sight gags (including one of Edwards's best, involving a torpedo and jeep), and graced with his unmistakable lilt. Grant is in great form, his comic brilliance almost impossibly effortless. -Tom Keogh.