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Review 20th Century Fox / The Three Musketeers [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • The Ritz Brothers
  • Don Ameche
  • Gloria Stuart
  • Allan Dwan
  • Binnie Barnes
  • Pauline Moore
Release date: 2007-06-12
Run time: 72 min.
Price: £7.17

Review The Three Musketeers [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Universal Classics & Jazz / Dmitri Shostakovich - Shostakovich - Cherry Town [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Gennadi Bortnikov
  • Vladimir Vasilyev (III)
  • Olga Zabotkina
  • Gerbert Rappaport
  • Marina Khotuntseva
  • Svetlana Zhivankova
Release date: 2007-05-14
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £11.98

Review Dmitri Shostakovich - Shostakovich - Cherry Town [1963] / Universal Classics & Jazz:


Review Warner Home Video / The Titfield Thunderbolt [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Crichton
  • Naunton Wayne
  • John Gregson
  • Godfrey Tearle
  • Stanley Holloway
  • George Relph
Release date: 1998-07-06
Run time: 80 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £4.99

Review The Titfield Thunderbolt [1953] / Warner Home Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / They Got Me Covered [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • David Butler|Bob Hope|Dorothy Lamour|Otto Preminger
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £16.75

Review They Got Me Covered [1942] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Fastforward / Private Buckaroo [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • Shemp Howard
  • Jennifer Holt
  • Dick Foran
  • Edward F. Cline
  • The Andrews Sisters
  • Joe Lewis
Release date: 2006-12-18
Run time: 68 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £1.95

Review Private Buckaroo [1942] / Fastforward:


Review Quantum Leap / The Good Doctor [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Marsha Mason
  • Richard Chamberlain
  • Edward Asner
  • Lee Grant
Release date: 2004-06-28
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.91

Review The Good Doctor [1978] / Quantum Leap:


Review Criterion / Sullivan's Travels [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Billy Bletcher
  • Al Bridge
  • Monte Blue
  • Eric Blore
  • Roscoe Ates
Release date: 2001-08-21
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Leo Shuken
Price: £16.16

Review Sullivan's Travels [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line. The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks. Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face-albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art. [+]
-Sam Sutherland.

Review Facets / Who Wants to Kill Jessie? [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Václav Vorlícek
  • Jirí Sovák
  • Juraj Visny
  • Dana Medrická
  • Karel Effa
  • Olga Schoberová
Release date: 2006-10-31
Run time: 80 min.
Price: £11.32

Review Who Wants to Kill Jessie? [1965] / Facets:


Review Passport International / The Marx Brothers Collection
Actors & Directors
  • Marilyn Burtis
Release date: 2007-04-30
Run time: 264 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.71

Review The Marx Brothers Collection / Passport International:


Review Miramax / A Hard Day's Night [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Wilfrid Brambell
  • Paul McCartney
  • George Harrison
  • Ringo Starr
  • John Lennon
  • Richard Lester
Release date: 2002-09-24
Run time: 92 min.
Price: £4.30

Review A Hard Day's Night [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:

A Hard Day's Night may have been The Beatles' first big-screen experience but, as they had become the biggest band in the world by the time of its production, the Moptops were able to ensure it was a bit different from the band-movie norm. "We'd made it clear that we weren't interested in being stuck in one of those nobody-understands-our-music plots," John Lennon would later recall. "The kind of thing where we'd just pop up a couple of times between the action, all smiles and clean shirts, to sing our latest record. Never mind all your pals, how could we have faced each other if we had allowed ourselves to be involved in that kind of movie?" Instead the quartet recruited a young director named Richard Lester-who had previously worked with the Fab Four's beloved Goons-to make a movie that followed them as they enjoyed and endured the phenomenon that was Beatlemania. "The film wrote itself right in front of our eyes," says Lester. "We just took the dirty bits and cut them out. " The result is a frenetic hour and a half inside The Beatles' personal space as they engage in all manner of surreal hi-jinks-more often than not involving Paul's "grandfather" (played by Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell) while dodging the ever-present horde of screaming fans. Although the result now seems a little dated, there remains an almost heart-breakingly good-natured aura around the foursome's naïve performances while few could argue about the quality of a soundtrack that includes "Can't Buy Me Love", "And I Love Her" and "A Hard Day's Night" itself, to name but a few. Whether the film would have been quite so successful if Lester had followed McCartney's suggestion and called it "Oh, What A Lovely Wart!" will, sadly, never be known. -Clark Collis A Hard Day's Night may have been the Beatles' first big-screen experience but, as they had become the biggest band in the world by the time of its production, the Moptops were able to ensure it was a bit different from the band-movie norm. [+]
"We'd made it clear that we weren't interested in being stuck in one of those nobody-understands-our-music plots," John Lennon would later recall, "The kind of thing where we'd just pop up a couple of times between the action, all smiles and clean shirts, to sing our latest record. " Instead the quartet recruited a young director named Richard Lester-who had previously worked with the Fab Four's beloved Goons-to make a movie that followed them as they enjoyed and endured the phenomenon that was Beatlemania. "The film wrote itself right in front of our eyes," says Lester. "We just took the dirty bits and cut them out. " The result is a frenetic hour and a half inside the Beatles' personal space as they engage in all manner of surreal hijinks-more often than not involving Paul's "grandfather" (played by Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell) while dodging the ever-present horde of screaming fans. Although the result now seems a little dated, there remains an almost heartbreakingly good-natured aura around the foursome's naïve performances, while few could argue about the quality of a soundtrack that includes "Can't Buy Me Love", "And I Love Her" and "A Hard Day's Night" itself, to name but a few. Whether the film would have been quite so successful if Lester had followed McCartney's suggestion and called it "Oh, What a Lovely Wart!" will, sadly, never be known. -Clark Collis.

Review Warner Home Video / In the Good Old Summertime [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Z. Leonard
  • Van Johnson
  • Lillian Bronson
  • Spring Byington
  • Liza Minnelli
  • Judy Garland
Release date: 2004-04-06
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: George Stoll
Price: £7.81

Review In the Good Old Summertime [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox / How to Marry a Millionaire [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Lauren Bacall
  • Rory Calhoun
  • David Wayne
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Betty Grable
Release date: 2001-05-29
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £4.69

Review How to Marry a Millionaire [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Nunnally Johnson's Broadway comedy How to Marry a Millionaire was brought to the big screen by director Jean Negulesco and built around a trio of female stars, Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. They play friends who come up with a plan to find and marry rich men: they rent a lavish penthouse and use it as their launching pad to lure men with money in the bank. But each eventually finds that love is more important that material possessions, though it takes a while. One running joke has Monroe so insecure about her looks that she refuses to wear glasses, though this means she bumps into furniture and walls. The other has Bacall rejecting suitor Cameron Mitchell because he doesn't wear a tie, assuming this means he's low-class-when, in fact, he's the Donald Trump of 1954. Pre-feminist comedy captures the mindset of an era in which women's identities were based on the men they married. It has its moments, but much of the humour seems dated, though its take on sexual politics is occasionally acute. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.

Review Kino / It Happened Tomorrow [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Dick Powell
  • Linda Darnell
  • Edgar Kennedy
  • Jack Oakie
  • René Clair
  • John Philliber
Release date: 2003-07-22
Run time: 84 min.
Price: £8.76

Review It Happened Tomorrow [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Kino:


Review Warner Home Video / Pure Hell Of St. Trinian's, The / The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery [1957] [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Frank Launder|Sidney Gilliat|Cecil Parker|Joyce Grenfell
Release date: 1993-09-06
Run time: 180 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £9.99

Review Pure Hell Of St. Trinian's, The / The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery [1957] [1966] / Warner Home Video:


Review MGM / Bush Christmas [1947] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Stan Tolhurst
  • Thelma Grigg
  • John Fernside
  • Pat Penny
  • Ralph Smart
  • Chips Rafferty
Release date: 2005-11-08
Run time: 77 min.
Price: £4.60

Review Bush Christmas [1947] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:


Review Stonevision Entertainment / Laurel And Hardy - Wizard Of Oz / Hustling For Health [1919]
Actors & Directors
  • Oliver Hardy
  • Stan Laurel
Release date: 2000-03-27
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £23.99
Price: £2.99

Review Laurel And Hardy - Wizard Of Oz / Hustling For Health [1919] / Stonevision Entertainment:


Review 4 Front Video / Abbott And Costello - The Time Of Their Lives [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Barton
  • Lou Costello
  • Bud Abbott
Release date: 2003-01-27
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.30

Review Abbott And Costello - The Time Of Their Lives [1946] / 4 Front Video:


Review Universal Studios / The Truth About Charlie [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Sotigui Kouyaté
  • Jonathan Demme
  • James Brooks
  • Françoise Bertin
  • Sakina Jaffrey
  • Christine Boisson
Release date: 2003-04-01
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: Rachel Portman
Price: £2.74

Review The Truth About Charlie [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:

It seems blasphemous to remake Stanley Donen's classic romantic thriller Charade, but The Truth About Charlie achieves its own unique identity. Rather than mimic the inimitable chemistry of the original, director Jonathan Demme takes a vividly contemporary approach, with Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton well cast in roles originated by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The plot's essentially the same, kicking into high gear when Newton-the unwitting courier of a priceless treasure-is chased around Paris by her murdered husband's military cohorts, an avuncular embassy official (Tim Robbins), and a suave stranger (Wahlberg) whose true identity remains elusive. In a film filled with twists and turns, Demme fails to find a consistent tone of humor, romance, and danger. But he's crafted a peculiar Parisian valentine, seasoned with Gallic cameos (singer Charles Aznavour, Anna Karina, director Agnès Varda) and vibrantly alive with music, style, and forward momentum. Charade it's not, but that's not necessarily a complaint. -Jeff Shannon.

Actors & Directors
  • Kenneth More
  • Cecil Parker
  • Gerald Harpur
  • Diane Cilento
  • Sally Anne Howes
Run time: 90 min.
Price: £64.99

Review The Admirable Crichton aka Paradise Lagoon (1957) / Columbia Pictures:

Lord Loam has modern ideas about his household; he believes in treating his servants as his equals - at least sometimes. His butler, Crichton, still believes that members of the serving class should know their place and be happy there. But when the Loam family are shipwrecked on a desert island with the self-reliant Crichton and lady's maid Tweeny, the class system is put to the test.

Review Lionsgate / School for Scoundrels [1960] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Ian Carmichael
  • Terry-Thomas
  • Janette Scott
  • Hal E. Chester
  • Robert Hamer
  • Cyril Frankel
  • Dennis Price
  • Alastair Sim
Release date: 2007-03-27
Run time: 94 min.
Price: £3.12

Review School for Scoundrels [1960] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lionsgate:

In School for Scoundrels wimpy Ian Carmichael wants to impress girls and get one over on all-round show-off and cad Terry Thomas (playing gloriously to type). Discovering Alastair Simms' unorthodox school Carmichael happily enrols and learns the quaint tricks of the day for securing the admiration of a fair lady. Ultimately as a star pupil he teaches the Master a thing or two about true love when everything turns out just fine in the end. Appealing to all male sensibilities is the idea of a magical set of simple rules for winning someone's affections. Set in the tweed-rich environment of an English boarding school makes this an even quainter notion. To watch this classic comedy is to cock one's snoot at womanisers everywhere while unavoidably making a mental list of anything that might actually work! The three central performances are brilliantly realised, particularly the role reversal between Carmichael and Thomas. Try playing a tennis match after a viewing without calling "hard cheese". -Paul Tonks.

Models & Brands:
The Three Musketeers [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Dmitri Shostakovich - Shostakovich - Cherry Town [1963], The Titfield Thunderbolt [1953], They Got Me Covered [1942], Private Buckaroo [1942], The Good Doctor [1978], Sullivan's Travels [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Who Wants to Kill Jessie? [1965], The Marx Brothers Collection, A Hard Day's Night [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC), In the Good Old Summertime [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC), How to Marry a Millionaire [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC), It Happened Tomorrow [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Pure Hell Of St. Trinian's, The / The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery [1957] [1966], Bush Christmas [1947] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Laurel And Hardy - Wizard Of Oz / Hustling For Health [1919], Abbott And Costello - The Time Of Their Lives [1946], The Truth About Charlie [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Admirable Crichton aka Paradise Lagoon (1957), School for Scoundrels [1960] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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