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Review Tartan Video / The Gospel According To St. Matthew [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Susanna Pasolini
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini
  • Margherita Caruso
  • Enrique Irazoqui
  • Marcello Morante
  • Mario Socrate
Release date: 2002-09-23
Run time: 127 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £13.48

Review The Gospel According To St. Matthew [1967] / Tartan Video:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Quai Des Brumes [1938]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean Gabin
  • Pierre Brasseur
  • Marcel Carne
Release date: 2007-04-30
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £9.96

Review Quai Des Brumes [1938] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / The War Lover [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Gary Cockrell
  • Robert Wagner
  • Michael Crawford
  • Philip Leacock
  • Steve McQueen
  • Shirley Anne Field
Release date: 2003-06-16
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.98

Review The War Lover [1962] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Arrow Films / Ulysses [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Martin Dempsey
  • Milo O'Shea
  • Barbara Jefford
  • Maurice Roëves
  • T.P. McKenna
  • Joseph Strick
Release date: 2004-02-23
Run time: 120 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.08

Review Ulysses [1967] / Arrow Films:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment (UK) / Sunset Boulevard - Paramount Originals (includes Limited Edition reproduction film poster) [1950]
Actors & Directors
  • Billy Wilder
  • Gloria Swanson
  • Erich Von Stroheim
  • Fred Clark
  • William Holden
  • Nancy Olson
Release date: 2007-07-23
Run time: 106 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £11.14

Review Sunset Boulevard - Paramount Originals (includes Limited Edition reproduction film poster) [1950] / Paramount Home Entertainment (UK):


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Le Jour Se Leve [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • René Génin
  • Arletty
  • Marcel Carné
  • Mady Berry
  • Jean Gabin
  • Jules Berry
Release date: 2007-04-30
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £7.98

Review Le Jour Se Leve [1939] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Helen Of Troy [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Rossana Podesta
  • Robert Wise
  • Niall MacGinnis
  • Cedric Hardwicke
  • Stanley Baker
  • Nora Swinburne
Release date: 2004-05-17
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.49

Review Helen Of Troy [1955] / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox / Moontide [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Arthur Ayleswofth
  • Gertrude Astor
  • Ralph Byrd
  • Ralph Dunn
  • Jerome Cowan
Release date: 2008-09-02
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: David Buttolph
Price: £5.08

Review Moontide [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / H.M.S. Defiant [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Alec Guinness
  • Richard Carpenter
  • Lewis Gilbert (II)
  • Maurice Denham
  • Nigel Stock
Release date: 2002-03-18
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.85

Review H.M.S. Defiant [1962] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Set in 1797 at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, HMS Defiant is an enthralling British naval drama made to capitalise upon MGM's epic remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, also released in 1962. Based on the novel Mutiny by Frank Tilsey and starring Alex Guinness as a fair-minded captain locked in psychological conflict with Dirk Bogarde, his manipulative, coldly malicious first officer, the parallels with the famous true story are clear. However there were many naval mutinies at this period and this large-scale saga, which includes some spectacularly staged widescreen naval battles, offers a realistic depiction of life in the British navy at the time-from the press gangs and floggings, to the appalling food and living conditions. Director Lewis Gilbert-who previously helmed Sink the Bismarck! (1960)-strikes a good balance between the personal drama and sweeping maritime adventure. Guinness successfully varies his firm-but-fair officer from The Bridge on the River Kwai, Bogarde is chillingly hateful and Anthony Quayle gives strong support. ITV's recent Hornblower cumulatively offers a more detailed portrait of the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars, though the TV series cannot match the visual scale of this big-screen production. On the DVD: HMS Defiant is presented anamorphically enhanced at 2. 35:1, though a little of the original CinemaScope frame is still cropped at the sides. The image is generally very good, though a handful of scenes near the end show considerable print damage and there is an inconstancy of colour grading between some shots. Grain is variable, but not generally a problem, though some unattractive "ringing" from edge enhancement is noticeable, particularly around Alex Guinness when he stands against a bright sky. [+]
The sound is in very clear mono with just occasional distortion on the music score. The disc offers the option of watching with dubbed French, German, Italian or Spanish soundtracks. The original trailer is included-under the American title of Damn the Defiant!-as are trailers for three other classic war films. The only other extra features are a small gallery of original publicity materials and three very basic filmographies. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Dragonwyck [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • Vincent Price
  • Gene Tierney
  • Walter Huston
Release date: 2005-04-04
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.97

Review Dragonwyck [1946] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Accident [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael York
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Vivien Merchant
  • Joseph Losey
  • Stanley Baker
  • Delphine Seyrig
Release date: 2008-01-07
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.82

Review Accident [1967] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Pickup On South Street [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Widmark
  • Murvyn Vye
  • Richard Kiley
  • Jean Peters
  • Samuel Fuller
  • Thelma Ritter
Release date: 2004-07-19
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.98

Review Pickup On South Street [1953] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Prism Leisure / Notorious [1946] (Alfred Hitchcock)
Actors & Directors
  • Cary Grant; Ivan Triesault; Ingrid Bergman; Claude Rains; Louis Calhern; Alexis Minotis; Moroni Olsen; Wally Brown; Reinhold Schunzel
  • Alfred Hitchcock
Release date: 2000-10-30
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £12.97

Review Notorious [1946] (Alfred Hitchcock) / Prism Leisure:

One of Alfred Hitchcock's classics, this romantic thriller features a cast to die for: Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains. Bergman plays the daughter of a disgraced father who is recruited by American agents to infiltrate a post-World War II spy ring in Brazil. Her control agent is Grant, who treats her with disdain while developing a deep romantic bond with her. Her assignment: to marry the suspected head of the ring (Rains) and get the goods on everyone involved. Danger, deceit, betrayal-and, yes, romance-all come together in a nearly perfect blend as the film builds to a terrific (and surprising) climax. Grant and Bergman rarely have been better. -Marshall Fine.

Review Network / Seance On A Wet Afternoon [1964]
Actors & Directors
  • Kim Stanley
  • Richard Attenborough
  • Patrick Magee
  • Bryan Forbes
  • Nanette Newman
Release date: 2006-06-05
Run time: 117 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.85

Review Seance On A Wet Afternoon [1964] / Network:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Barabbas [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Arthur Kennedy
  • Richard Fleischer
  • Katy Jurado
  • Silvana Mangano
  • Harry Andrews
  • Anthony Quinn
Release date: 2002-03-25
Run time: 127 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.76

Review Barabbas [1962] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Starring Anthony Quinn in the title role Barabbas was released in 1961 in the midst of a wave of widescreen epics based on Biblical characters. "It begins where the other big ones leave off", declaims the trailer. The screenplay, by playwright Christopher Fry (who also contributed to Ben-Hur), is an unusually intelligent one: listen out for Barabbas' final encounter with the Apostle Thomas, for example. Further assets are the imaginative, sparingly orchestrated score by Mario Nascimbene and a handsome production design by art director Mario Chiari that is so rewarding to the eye in Aldo Tonti's often dazzling cinematography. Like the other Biblical epics of the day, in its original theatrical incarnation Barabbas had an intermission and orchestral intermezzo which is sadly missing from this version. (It occurred at the point where Barabbas emerges from a 20 years exile in the sulphur mines in Sicily, allowing the audience to dwell on his recuperation before we next encounter him. He now appears muscled and bronzed ploughing the verdant fields outside Rome in all too quick a fashion!). Many scenes, such as Christ's crucifixion, are shot and staged like tableaux in a style reminiscent of the great masters of art. And in Fleischer's hands this film surpasses anything Ridley Scott achieved years later in Gladiator: he fills the huge arena-a vast Roman amphitheatre-with a gladiatorial school of hand-to-hand combat, a parade of elephants and a den of lions, and then caps his production with a riveting and thrillingly mounted duel between Jack Palance, careering round the circumference of the arena in his chariot, and Barabbas dodging him on foot. The supporting cast, who sport a variety of accents call for some tolerance, however. [+]
On the DVD: Barabbas on disc comes devoid of any extra features other than trailers for it and another contemporaneous blockbuster, The Guns of Navarone. -Adrian Edwards.

Review Warner Home Video / Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Mike Nichols
  • Richard Burton
  • Sandy Dennis
  • Elizabeth Taylor
  • George Segal
  • Frank Flanagan
Release date: 2006-12-05
Run time: 131 min.
Price: £11.78

Review Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

A word of advice: if George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) ever ask you over for late-night cocktails-pass. On the other hand, if you have the opportunity to see Mike Nichols's scorching film version of Edward Albee's sensational play, don't miss it! Elegantly photographed in crisp black and white by the great Haskell Wexler, the play has been "opened up" for the screen by director Nichols (The Graduate, Primary Colors) and producer/writer Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest) without diluting its concentrated, claustrophobic power. Taylor has never been better or brasher as Martha, letting loose with all the fury of a drunken, frustrated academic's wife on one crazy Walpurgisnacht bender. Burton plays her husband, George, the ineffectual history prof married to the college president's daughter. And George Segal and Sandy Dennis are young, callow Nick and Honey, who have no idea what sort of mind-warping psychological games they're being drawn into. Among the most successful theatrical adaptations (artistically and popularly) ever brought to the screen, the entire principal cast of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was nominated for Oscars-and Taylor, Dennis and cinematographer Wexler won. -Jim Emerson.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Pink String And Sealing Wax [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Sally Ann Howes
  • Googie Withers
  • Robert Hamer
  • Jean Ireland
  • Mervyn Johns
  • Gordon Jackson
Release date: 2008-05-12
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £6.99

Review Pink String And Sealing Wax [1945] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Far From The Madding Crowd [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Fiona Walker
  • Alan Bates
  • Terence Stamp
  • Peter Finch
  • John Schlesinger
  • Julie Christie
Release date: 2004-09-13
Run time: 155 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £9.95

Review Far From The Madding Crowd [1967] / Warner Home Video:

John Schlesinger's solid adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel sees three rival suitors vying for the affections of the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie decked out in a variety of bonnets and frilly dresses), who has just inherited a farm. The men in her life are stout, whiskered yeoman Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), an impoverished local farmer; neurotic, repressed squire William Boldwood (Peter Finch); and handsome rascal Sgt Troy (Terrence Stamp), who dresses as if he's Flashman and breaks women's hearts for a hobby. Thanks to cameraman Nic Roeg and production designer Richard MacDonald (who also worked for Joseph Losey), 19th-century Dorset looks as pretty and as picturesque as a John Constable reproduction on top of a biscuit tin. Not that Schlesinger or screenwriter Frederic Raphael underplay the duress of rural life. We see the hardship of the farm workers' lives as the seasons turn. The film opens with a spectacular sequence in which Gabriel Oak's dog drives his flock of sheep over a cliff, thereby forcing him into penury. Whether hunger or heartbreak, every character here suffers. Bathsheba (like the model Christie plays in Darling) is a free-spirit in a society in which women's rights are severely restricted. -Geoffrey Macnab.

Review 20th Century Fox / With a Song in My Heart [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Leif Erickson
  • Bill Baldwin
  • Richard Allan
  • Robert Easton
  • Douglas Evans
Release date: 2007-11-13
Run time: 117 min.
Creator: Alfred Newman
Price: £7.53

Review With a Song in My Heart [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Warner Home Video / A Man and a Woman [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Antoine Sire
  • Pierre Barouh
  • Claude Lelouch
  • Jean-Louis Trintignant
  • Valérie Lagrange
  • Anouk Aimée
Release date: 2003-03-18
Run time: 103 min.
Price: £8.15

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.

Models & Brands:
The Gospel According To St. Matthew [1967], Quai Des Brumes [1938], The War Lover [1962], Ulysses [1967], Sunset Boulevard - Paramount Originals (includes Limited Edition reproduction film poster) [1950], Le Jour Se Leve [1939], Helen Of Troy [1955], Moontide [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC), H.M.S. Defiant [1962], Dragonwyck [1946], Accident [1967], Pickup On South Street [1953], Notorious [1946] (Alfred Hitchcock), Seance On A Wet Afternoon [1964], Barabbas [1962], Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Pink String And Sealing Wax [1945], Far From The Madding Crowd [1967], With a Song in My Heart [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Man and a Woman [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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