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Review Jungle Book / Jungle Book/Jungle Book 2 [1967]
Release date: 2007-11-05
Run time: 145 min.
RRP: £26.99
Price: £24.99

Review Jungle Book/Jungle Book 2 [1967] / Jungle Book:

Disney's 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book seems even more entertaining now than it did upon first release, with a hall-of-fame vocal performance by Phil Harris as Baloo, the genial bear friend of feral child Mowgli. Loosely based on Rudyard Kipling's original, the film goes its own way as Disney animation will, but the strong characters and smart casting (George Sanders as the villainous tiger, Shere Khan) make it one of the studio's stronger feature-length cartoons. Songs include "The Bare Necessities" and "Trust in Me". -Tom Keogh One of the very best animated films that the Walt Disney Studio has ever released (and the last to be produced by Walt Disney himself), and as downright brilliant as it was on its debut in 1967, The Jungle Book makes a very welcome return to DVD in this excellent 40th anniversary double-disc set. Based loosely on the Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, the film tells the story of man-cub Mowgli, and the friends he makes in the jungle. And it's these friends who ignite the film, with some of the most memorable characters and songs that Disney has ever put on the screen. Kings of The Jungle Book are the likes of Baloo the Bear, King Louie the villainous Shere Khan the Tiger, while supporting characters such as Colonel Hathi are just as memorable. It's astonishing that it packs so much and so many into its relatively short running time. It's an amazing achievement too that The Jungle Book bristles with such energy and fun, and that it's just as likely to enthral the current generation of youngsters as well as those of us who saw it first time round. And when those songs start playing-from Bare Necessities through to I Wanna Be Like You-it'll take some effort to not start tapping your feet. [+]
A brilliant, brilliant film, and as vintage as the Disney back catalogue gets. -Simon Brew.

Review MGM Entertainment / Kismet [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Ann Blyth
  • Monty Woolley
  • Stanley Donen
  • Vic Damone
  • Vincente Minnelli
  • Dolores Gray
  • Howard Keel
Run time: 108 min.
Creator: Luther Davis
RRP: £10.99
Price: £13.47

Review Kismet [1955] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Eureka Entertainment / Der Golem [1920]
Actors & Directors
  • Lyda Salmonova
  • Hans Stürm
  • Ernst Deutsch
  • Carl Boese
  • Paul Wegener
  • Paul Wegener
  • Albert Steinrück
Release date: 2003-09-22
Run time: 84 min.
Creator: Henrik Galeen
RRP: £19.99
Price: £6.93

Review Der Golem [1920] / Eureka Entertainment:

A relic certainly, but a fascinating one, Der Golem is perhaps the screen's first great monster movie. Though it was actually the third time director-star Paul Wegener had played the eponymous creation, the earlier efforts (sadly lost) were rough drafts for this elaborate dramatisation of the Jewish legend. When the Emperor decrees that the Jews of mediaeval Prague should be evicted from the ghetto, a mystical rabbi creates a clay giant and summons the demon Astaroth who breathes out in smoky letters the magic word that will animate the golem. Intended as a protector and avenger, the golem is twisted by the machinations of a lovelorn assistant and, like many a monster to come, runs riot, terrorising guilty and innocent alike until a little girl innocently ends his rampage. Wegener's golem is an impressively solid figure, the Frankenstein monster with a slightly comical girly clay-wig. The wonderfully grotesque Prague sets and the alchemical atmosphere remain potent. On the DVD: Der Golem on disc has an imaginative menu involving the rabbi opening a book of spells that leads to alternate versions of the film with German or English inter-titles. The print is cobbled from several sources and tinted to the original specifications, with an especially impressive crimson glow as the ghetto burns. The extras are an audio essay, illustrated with clips, on Der Golem and German Expressionist cinema in general, plus a gallery of stills and other illustrations. -Kim Newman.

Review Starz Home Entertainment / Sadisterotica [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Adrian Hoven
  • Alexander Engel
  • Jess Franco
  • Rosanna Yanni
  • Chris Howland
  • Janine Reynaud
Release date: 2005-08-22
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £1.99

Review Sadisterotica [1967] / Starz Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Touch Of Evil [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Orson Welles
  • Janet Leigh
  • Joseph Calleia
  • Charlton Heston
  • Akim Tamiroff
  • Orson Welles
Release date: 2003-11-10
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: Whit Masterson
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.49

Review Touch Of Evil [1958] / Universal Pictures UK:

Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles' film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all-it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles' original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles' directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles' control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Village Entertainment / The Blob [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Steve McQueen
  • Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
  • Olin Howland
  • Aneta Corsaut
  • Alden 'Stephen' Chase
  • Russell S. Doughten Jr.
  • Earl Rowe
Release date: 2004-07-12
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £8.00

Review The Blob [1958] / Village Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / A Man and a Woman [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Louis Trintignant
  • Claude Lelouch
  • Antoine Sire
  • Pierre Barouh
  • Valérie Lagrange
  • Anouk Aimée
Release date: 2003-03-18
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Pierre Uytterhoeven
Price: £10.10

Review A Man and a Woman [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

French film-maker Claude Lelouch continues to take critical heat for this 1966 international hit, which has been labelled "schmaltzy" and dismissed as overly stylised for its simple story line. While it certainly can't be mistaken for a masterpiece of the French New Wave (Lelouch was left in the dust that year by such wonders as Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Feminin), A Man and a Woman has a jumpy impressionism that engages a viewer precisely because it cuts against conventional expectations of romance. Starring Anouk Aimée as a widowed "script girl" (working in film production) and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a racer who lost his wife to suicide, the film is really an objective sampling-almost a study-of moments between the time the two characters meet and the point at which they begin to read each other intuitively. Generous flashbacks fill in details on the pair's woeful, recent histories, while endless documentary-like glimpses of Aimée's and Trintignant's characters at work in their highly charged professions become a visual engine for the days passing between measured developments in love. Lelouch is more drily humane than lush in his approach, though the film strains once in a while for a forced naturalism that can actually be more narcissistic than the most obvious romantic contrivance. Still, A Man and a Woman-in the best sense-is also a movie in love with itself, with its own ability to evoke and conjure and construct dozens of different ways of tracking a relationship in progress. If Lelouch doesn't exactly push open the boundaries of cinema as several of his film-making peers did at the time, he certainly enjoys what he's doing. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Universal Pictures UK / A Foreign Affair [1948]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean Arthur
  • John Lund
  • Billy Wilder
  • Marlene Dietrich
Release date: 2008-10-13
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.64

Review A Foreign Affair [1948] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Castle Keep [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Falk
  • Jean-Pierre Aumont
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Patrick O'Neal
  • Sydney Pollack
  • Astrid Heeren
Release date: 2004-08-23
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.36

Review Castle Keep [1969] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Marooned [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Crenna
  • Gregory Peck
  • David Janssen
  • John Sturges
  • Gene Hackman
  • James Franciscus
Release date: 2004-07-26
Run time: 124 min.
Creator: Mayo Simon
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.94

Review Marooned [1969] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Network / Nearest And Dearest - Series 3 [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Joe Gladwin
  • Jimmy Jewel
  • Bill Podmore
  • Madge Hindle
  • Edward Malin
  • Hylda Baker
Release date: 2006-04-03
Run time: 200 min.
Creator: Vince Powell
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.94

Review Nearest And Dearest - Series 3 [1968] / Network:


Review 4 Front Video / The Bells Of St. Mary's [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Ingrid Bergman
  • William Gargan
  • Ruth Donnelly
  • Leo McCarey
  • Henry Travers
  • Bing Crosby
Release date: 1997-01-13
Run time: 126 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £12.90

Review The Bells Of St. Mary's [1945] / 4 Front Video:


Review Warner Home Video D012356 / By The Light Of The Silvery Moon [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Gordon MacRae
  • Rosemary DeCamp
  • Leon Ames
  • David Butler
  • Doris Day
  • Billy Gray
Run time: 98 min.
Price: £10.95

Review By The Light Of The Silvery Moon [1953] / Warner Home Video D012356:

The stars come out when the night shimmers like this! Young lovers Doris Day and Gordon MacRae return in a moonlit sequel to "On Moonlight Bay". "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon" has charm by the bucketful as Leon Ames, Rosemary DeCamp, Mary Wickes and Billy Gray rejoin the two leads in this remembrance of World War I-era Americana. There's a new array of nine nostalgic standards - and a new emphasis on production numbers: Doris and Gordon spin through the Winfield kitchen to "Ain't We Got Fun", Doris crows "King Chanicleer" at a stage pageant and just about the whole town head to Miller's Pond and laces up ice skates for the title-tune finale. Like its predecessor, "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon" draws from Booth Tarkington's "Penrod" stories for its portraits of heartland mirth, values and "warm hearts, cold feet" romance. Ain't we got fun? you bet we have!.

Review Walt Disney Home Video / Sleeping Beauty [Disney 1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Mary Costa
  • Verna Felton
  • Clyde Geronimi
  • Bill Shirley
  • Eleanor Audley
  • Barbara Luddy
Release date: 2000-05-22
Run time: 72 min.
Creator: Ted Sears
RRP: £14.99
Price: £5.00

Review Sleeping Beauty [Disney 1959] / Walt Disney Home Video:

Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty was the studio's most ambitious effort to date, a lavish spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapted from the music of Tchaikovsky. In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent (not dissimilar to the wicked queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her sixteenth birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Fortunately, some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are on hand to assist. It's not really all that much about the title character-how interesting can someone in the middle of a long nap be, anyway? Instead, those fairies carry the day, as well as, of course, good Prince Phillip, whose battle with the malevolent Maleficent in the guise of a dragon has been co-opted by any number of animated films since. See it in its original glory here, alongside Malificent's castle, which, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur. -David Kronke, Amazon. com.

Actors & Directors
  • Stanley Baker
  • George Baker
  • Stephen Boyd
  • Julian Amyes
  • Ronald Lewis
  • Victor Maddern
Release date: 2009-04-27
Run time: 69 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.98

Review A Hill In Korea [1956] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Naxos / Jazz Icons - Oscar Peterson - Live In '63, '64 And '65 [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Oscar Peterson
Release date: 2008-09-29
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £11.27

Review Jazz Icons - Oscar Peterson - Live In '63, '64 And '65 [1963] / Naxos:


Review Warner Home Video / Stay Away, Joe [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Tewksbury
  • Joan Blondell
  • Elvis Presley
  • Burgess Meredith
  • Thomas Gomez
  • Katy Jurado
Release date: 2007-08-07
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Michael A. Hoey
Price: £4.58

Review Stay Away, Joe [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Joan Fontaine
  • Barbara Eden
  • Walter Pidgeon
  • Robert Sterling
  • Irwin Allen
  • Peter Lorre
Release date: 2005-08-01
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.92

Review Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea [1961] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Bus Stop [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Don Murray
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Betty Field
  • Joshua Logan
  • Eileen Heckart
  • Arthur O'Connell
Release date: 2006-05-22
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.15

Review Bus Stop [1956] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Wuthering Heights/Romeo And Juliet [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Leonard Whiting
  • Franco Zeffirelli
  • Ralph Fiennes
  • Peter Kosminsky
  • Olivia Hussey
  • Juliette Binoche
Release date: 2008-10-06
Run time: 235 min.
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.54

Review Wuthering Heights/Romeo And Juliet [1968] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Browse Classics:

Models & Brands:
Jungle Book/Jungle Book 2 [1967], Kismet [1955], Der Golem [1920], Sadisterotica [1967], Touch Of Evil [1958], The Blob [1958], A Man and a Woman [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Foreign Affair [1948], Castle Keep [1969], Marooned [1969], Nearest And Dearest - Series 3 [1968], The Bells Of St. Mary's [1945], By The Light Of The Silvery Moon [1953], Sleeping Beauty [Disney 1959], A Hill In Korea [1956], Jazz Icons - Oscar Peterson - Live In '63, '64 And '65 [1963], Stay Away, Joe [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea [1961], Bus Stop [1956], Wuthering Heights/Romeo And Juliet [1968]

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