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Review Paramount / Perry Mason: The First Season, Vol. 1 and 2 [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Anton Leader
  • Andrew V. McLaglen
  • Arthur Marks
  • Barbara Hale
  • Raymond Burr
  • William Talman
  • William Hopper
  • Buzz Kulik
  • Ray Collins
  • Arthur Hiller
Release date: 2006-11-21
Price: £38.38

Review Perry Mason: The First Season, Vol. 1 and 2 [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:


Review Tartan Video / 400 Blows - Les Quatre Cents Coup [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Pierre Léaud
  • Albert Rémy
  • Claire Maurier
  • Guy Decomble
  • François Truffaut
  • Georges Flamant
Release date: 2002-12-16
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: Marcel Moussy
RRP: £19.99
Price: £49.48

Review 400 Blows - Les Quatre Cents Coup [1960] / Tartan Video:


Review 20th Century Fox / An Affair to Remember [1957] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Leo McCarey
  • Deborah Kerr
  • Richard Denning
  • Cary Grant
  • Neva Patterson
  • Cathleen Nesbitt
Release date: 2008-01-15
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Mildred Cram
Price: £9.64

Review An Affair to Remember [1957] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Get out your handkerchiefs for this four-star weepie, a 1957 remake of the 1939 Love Affair, directed by Leo McCarey, who also made the original. Grant and Kerr are strangers on an ocean liner, involved with other people, who can't resist each other for a shipboard romance. But they decide to test whether this is the real thing by agreeing to split up, then meeting in six months atop the Empire State Building. Is there anyone who can resist that set-up or the tragic romantic mishap that nearly splits them up? Can you keep dry eyes during the famous finale? Some prefer the original (with Charles Boyer); practically no one liked the underrated 1994 remake with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. While occasionally a shade slow, this one soars on Grant's charm and Kerr's noble suffering. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The John Ford Film Collection [1935] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Carroll Baker
  • John Ford
  • Heather Angel
  • Victor McLaglen
  • Leslie Goodwins
  • Richard Widmark
  • Katharine Hepburn
Release date: 2006-06-06
Run time: 554 min.
Creator: Liam O'Flaherty
Price: £31.47

Review The John Ford Film Collection [1935] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Harry Andrews
  • Douglas Hickox
  • Beryl Reid
  • Peter McEnery
  • Alan Webb
Release date: 1994-08-01
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Joe Orton
RRP: £5.99
Price: £32.95

Review Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969] / Warner Home Video:


Review Alpha Video / Juke Joint/Reet, Petite, and Gone [1947]
Actors & Directors
  • Mantan Moreland
  • Louis Jordan
  • Spencer Williams
Release date: 2006-06-27
Run time: 128 min.
Price: £3.17

Review Juke Joint/Reet, Petite, and Gone [1947] / Alpha Video:


Review Criterion / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Neville Mapp
  • James McKechnie
  • Roger Livesey
  • Michael Powell
  • Deborah Kerr
  • Anton Walbrook
  • Emeric Pressburger
Release date: 2002-10-22
Run time: 163 min.
Creator: Richard Vernon
Price: £18.85

Review The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1943 film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was intended to bolster the propaganda effort. Colonel Blimp was a cartoon character conceived to parody the hidebound, elder military types whose attitudes towards war were irrelevant when it came to fighting the Nazis, a point made in the first few minutes of the movie when a platoon of young troops cheekily capture walrus-faced General Candy (Roger Livesey) during a training exercise, oblivious to his splutterings that "war starts at midnight!" Thereafter, Powell and Pressburger forge a more complex portrayal of Candy, following his career over 40 years, from the Boer War through World War I. There are strong, touching reminders of Goodbye, Mr Chips in his relationship with a German officer, played by Anton Walbrook, (a reflection, perhaps of Powell's own alliance with the German Pressburger), while Deborah Kerr recurs in three different roles, reminding Candy of the lifelong love he has missed out on. By the end, Candy's inability to recognise that the Nazis are not playing by his own, proper military rules is reaffirmed but more sympathetically. No one could mistake Powell and Pressburger's patriotic intentions here yet Winston Churchill was sufficiently disconcerted by the film to try to have it banned. It wasn't-and it proved a huge, deserved success. -David Stubbs Powell and Pressburger's first Technicolor masterpiece, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) transcends its narrow wartime propaganda remit to portray in warm-hearted detail the life and loves of one extraordinary man. The film's clever narrative structure first presents us with the imposingly rotund General Clive Wynne-Candy of the Home Guard (Roger Livesey in his greatest screen performance), a blustering old buffer with spreading handlebar moustache and stomach to match. Confronted by a youthful regular army Captain he seems the epitome of stuffy, outmoded values. But travelling backwards 40 years we see a different man altogether: the young and dashing officer "Sugar" Candy, just returned from earning a Victoria Cross in the Boer War. [+]
Through a series of affecting relationships with three women (all played to perfection by Deborah Kerr) and his touching lifelong friendship with a German officer (Anton Wallbrook), we see Candy's life unfold, and come to understand how difficult it is for him to adapt his sense of military honour to modern notions of "total war". If Livesey's engaging Clive Candy is the film's heart, Anton Wallbrook's Theo is its conscience; his exile speech delivered to an uncomprehending immigration officer is a heartfelt tour de force made all the more poignant by the Austrian actor's own circumstances, as well as those of Hungarian scriptwriter Emeric Pressburger. Powell's technically masterful and innovative direction illuminates every scene, from the surprising camera move in the duel sequence to the hunting montage of stuffed animal heads on a wall. Notoriously, this is the film that Churchill tried to have banned, and indeed its sympathetic portrayal of a German officer was contentious in 1943, though one suspects that Churchill's own blimpishness was a factor too. On the DVD: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp looks in excellent condition on this special edition DVD. The mono sound is crisp and the picture largely free of grain, allowing the subtle lighting and muted colours to be seen as intended. The main extra is a 25-minute documentary feature which tells us nothing revelatory about making the film, but has good new interviews with cinematographer Jack Cardiff (then an apprentice) and eloquent admirer Stephen Fry. Text biographies and stills are also included. -Mark Walker.

Review Paramount / The Wild Wild West: The Complete First Season [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Ross Martin
  • Edward Dein
  • Alvin Ganzer
  • Don Taylor
  • Alan Crosland Jr.
  • Jenie Jackson
  • Robert Conrad
  • Bernard L. Kowalski
  • Michael Dunn
  • Phoebe Dorin
Release date: 2006-06-06
Run time: 1347 min.
Price: £20.98

Review The Wild Wild West: The Complete First Season [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:


Review Arrow Films / Le Boucher [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Antonio Passalia
  • Jean Yanne
  • Mario Beccara
  • Claude Chabrol
  • Stéphane Audran
  • Pascal Ferone
Release date: 2000-01-17
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: André Génovès
Price: £15.99

Review Le Boucher [1969] / Arrow Films:


Review Image / Babette/Monique, My Love [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Woodcock
  • Linda Boyce
  • Jackie Richards
  • Geri Miller
  • Sue Akers
  • Jo Sweet
Release date: 2006-12-12
Run time: 128 min.
Creator: Max Busche
Price: £8.72

Review Babette/Monique, My Love [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image:


Review Warner Home Video / I Confess [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Brian Aherne
  • Anne Baxter
  • Karl Malden
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Roger Dann
  • Montgomery Clift
Release date: 1997-10-27
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: William Archibald
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.90

Review I Confess [1953] / Warner Home Video:

As a somewhat tortured Roman Catholic, Alfred Hitchcock jumped at the chance to direct this loose adaptation of Paul Anthelme's 1902 play Nos Deux Consciences, which brings together his twin obsessions of spiritual guilt and murder. The ingenious premise concerns a priest, Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift), who hears a killer's confession, but can't break his vow of silence and report the crime, even when suspicion falls upon himself. The film was partly shot in Quebec City (where the story is set), and the camera lingers lovingly over the sumptuous architecture. Yet it may be that Hitchcock was happier working within the confines of a studio, for he takes a low-key approach that never quite delivers on the anticipated thrills. In his defence, the production appears to have been extremely troubled. The script (credited to George Tabori and William Archibald) went through numerous rewrites, largely because the Catholic Church objected to a sub-plot involving Father Logan's ambiguous relationship with Ruth Grandfort (Ann Baxter), a woman who loved him in his pre-cassock days. This romantic angle was doubtless a concession to the box office, but it merely bogs down the suspense while remaining undeveloped in itself. And according to the gossip, Hitchcock couldn't make head or tail of his star, Clift's improvised Method acting being utterly foreign to a control freak who planned each camera movement in advance with elaborate storyboards (it didn't help that the angst-ridden Monty drank heavily during the entire shoot). For whatever reason, the priest's dilemma comes across as a clever gimmick rather than a genuine moral crisis. Perhaps on some hidden level, the director felt more in sympathy with the murderer (whose wife is named Alma, the same as Hitchcock's own wife). [+]
The movie is a failed experiment that belongs in the "interesting" category. Still, it's worth checking out, especially if you've seen the 1995 French Canadian film The Confessional, which incorporates the location shooting of I Confess into its plot. -Peter Matthews.

Review Warner Home Video / Tennessee Williams Film Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Burl Ives
  • Paul Newman
  • Elizabeth Taylor
  • John Huston
  • Richard Brooks
  • Elia Kazan
  • Vivien Leigh
  • José Quintero
  • Marlon Brando
Release date: 2006-05-02
Run time: 685 min.
Creator: Jan Read
Price: £36.47

Review Tennessee Williams Film Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Agatha Christie's Miss Marple Movie Collection [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Arthur Kennedy
  • Ron Moody
  • Lionel Jeffries
  • Margaret Rutherford
  • George Pollock
  • Muriel Pavlow
Release date: 2006-03-14
Creator: James P. Cavanagh
Price: £27.81

Review Agatha Christie's Miss Marple Movie Collection [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review / Romeo and Juliet
Actors & Directors
  • Olivia Hussey
  • Franco Zeffirelli
  • John McEnery
  • Pat Heywood
  • Leonard Whiting
  • Milo O'Shea
Run time: 138 min.
Creator: William Shakespeare
Price: £10.73

Review Romeo and Juliet:

Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was unique in its day for casting kids in the play's pivotal roles of, well, kids. Seventeen-year-old Leonard Whiting and 15-year-old Olivia Hussey play the titular pair, the Bard's star-crossed lovers who defy a running feud between their families in order to be together in love. Typically played on stage and in previous film productions by adult actors, the innocent look and rawness of Whiting and Hussey resonated at the time with a burgeoning youth movement from San Francisco to Prague. The tragic romance at the centre of the story also clicked with anti-authority sentiments, but even without that, Zeffirelli scores points by validating the ideals and passions of strong-willed adolescents. Less successful are scenes requiring the actors to have a fuller grasp of the text, though the best thing going remains the unambiguous duel between Romeo and Tybalt (Michael York). Lavishly photographed by Pasquale de Santis on location in Italy, this Romeo and Juliet brought a different tone and dimension to a story that had become tiresome in reverential presentations. -Tom Keogh.

Review Warner Home Video / Hallelujah [1929] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Roy Mack
  • William Fountaine
  • Harry Gray
  • Fanny Belle DeKnight
  • Nina Mae McKinney
  • King Vidor
  • Daniel L. Haynes
Release date: 2006-01-10
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Wanda Tuchock
Price: £6.99

Review Hallelujah [1929] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Eureka Entertainment / Yakuza Box Set [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Bunta Sugawara
  • Mai Kitajima
  • Kinji Fukasaku
  • Junko Fuji
  • Kaho Minami
  • Hiroki Matsukata
Release date: 2004-04-19
Run time: 334 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.97

Review Yakuza Box Set [1969] / Eureka Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / The Petrified Forest [1936]
Actors & Directors
  • Genevieve Tobin
  • Leslie Howard
  • Dick Foran
  • Bette Davis
  • Archie Mayo
  • Humphrey Bogart
Release date: 2000-03-06
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £12.64

Review The Petrified Forest [1936] / Warner Home Video:


Review Water Bearer Films / A Midsummer Night's Dream [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Derek Godfrey
  • Donald Eccles
  • Ian Holm
  • Judi Dench
  • Michael Jayston
Release date: 2005-03-10
Run time: 124 min.
Creator: Guy Woolfenden
Price: £11.25

Review A Midsummer Night's Dream [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Water Bearer Films:


Review Whe Europe Limited / The Terror [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Francis Ford Coppola
  • Roger Corman
  • Sandra Knight
  • Dorothy Neumann
  • Monte Hellman
  • Dick Miller
  • Jack Hill
  • Boris Karloff
  • Jack Nicholson
Release date: 2004-05-24
Run time: 81 min.
Creator: Leo Gordon
RRP: £4.99
Price: £0.99

Review The Terror [1963] / Whe Europe Limited:


Review MGM / Fellini Satyricon [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Salvo Randone
  • Mario Romagnoli
  • Federico Fellini
  • Max Born
  • Martin Potter
  • Hiram Keller
Release date: 2001-04-10
Run time: 128 min.
Creator: Bernardino Zapponi
Price: £4.94

Review Fellini Satyricon [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:


Models & Brands:
Perry Mason: The First Season, Vol. 1 and 2 [1961] (REGION 1) (NTSC), 400 Blows - Les Quatre Cents Coup [1960], An Affair to Remember [1957] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The John Ford Film Collection [1935] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969], Juke Joint/Reet, Petite, and Gone [1947], The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Wild Wild West: The Complete First Season [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Le Boucher [1969], Babette/Monique, My Love [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC), I Confess [1953], Tennessee Williams Film Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC), Agatha Christie's Miss Marple Movie Collection [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Romeo and Juliet, Hallelujah [1929] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Yakuza Box Set [1969], The Petrified Forest [1936], A Midsummer Night's Dream [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Terror [1963], Fellini Satyricon [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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