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Review 2 Entertain Video / The Forsyte Saga - Complete Series 1-7 Box Set [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Porter
  • Nyree Dawn Porter
  • Kenneth More
  • John Welsh
  • David Giles (III)
  • James Cellan Jones
  • Susan Hampshire
Release date: 2004-08-23
Run time: 999 min.
RRP: £69.99
Price: £26.00

Review The Forsyte Saga - Complete Series 1-7 Box Set [1967] / 2 Entertain Video:

The Forsyte Saga is often cited as the first television miniseries; it wasn't, but there's no question that it was a singular, powerful cultural phenomenon that deservedly got under the skin of European viewers in 1967. Today the 26-episode production, based on several novels and short stories by John Galsworthy, is a more timeless enterprise than many of the protracted British TV dramas that have followed. While it would be wrong to consider The Forsyte Saga high art, it's certainly a mesmerizing and inspired mix of theater, sprawling Victorian narrative, thinking man's soap opera, and some finely tuned, 1960s black-and-white production values that (especially when shot outdoors) are strikingly handsome. Above all, Forsyte is driven by its characters-perhaps to an extreme, though the two-generation storyline makes no apologies for creating compelling people whose capacity for short-sighted blundering, bursts of grace, and slow-brewing redemption make them recognizably human. Eric Porter towers over everything as Soames Forsyte, a humorless attorney whose guiding principles of measurable value cause great heartache but slowly evolve, leaving him a graying, good father, arts patron, and sympathetic repository of memory. From the cast of 150 or so, other standouts include Susan Hampshire as Soames's troubled daughter, Nyree Dawn Porter as the wife of two very different Forsyte men, and Kenneth More as the family's artistic black sheep. -Tom Keogh.

Review Cinema Club / Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Douglas Hickox
  • Harry Andrews
  • Peter McEnery
  • Beryl Reid
  • Alan Webb
Release date: 2005-06-20
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.97

Review Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969] / Cinema Club:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Romeo And Juliet [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • John Leguizamo
  • Claire Danes
  • Harold Perrineau
  • Pete Postlethwaite
  • Baz Luhrmann
Release date: 2000-02-07
Run time: 115 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.68

Review Romeo And Juliet [1997] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom) takes a shot at reinventing Shakespeare's story of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet as a visual pastiche inspired by MTV imagery, Hong Kong action-picture clichés, and Luhrmann's own taste for deliberate, gaudy excess. The result is explosive chaos, both in terms of bullets and visual sensibility, which some may find impossible to stick with for more than a few minutes. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the leads, though not with much distinction, while Pete Postlethwaite makes a huge impression as this movie's version of Friar Laurence. The film is successful in spots, but overall its fever-dream game plan is difficult to ride out. -Tom Keogh.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The BBC TV Shakespeare Collection
Actors & Directors
  • Alvin Rakoff
Release date: 2005-11-14
Run time: 5940 min.
RRP: £199.99
Price: £145.50

Review The BBC TV Shakespeare Collection / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Gilda [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Glenn Ford
  • Joseph Calleia
  • Charles Vidor
  • Steven Geray
  • Rita Hayworth
  • George Macready
Release date: 2000-01-10
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.91

Review Gilda [1946] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Payroll [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Françoise Prévost
  • Sidney Hayers
  • Billie Whitelaw
  • William Lucas
  • Kenneth Griffith
  • Michael Craig
Release date: 2008-02-11
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.98

Review Payroll [1961] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / L'Eclisse [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Francisco Rabal
  • Lilla Brignone
  • Michelangelo Antonioni
  • Alain Delon
  • Rossana Rory
  • Monica Vitti
Release date: 2007-07-09
Run time: 123 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £7.00

Review L'Eclisse [1962] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / Whistle Down The Wind [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Elsie Wagstaff
  • Norman Bird
  • Bernard Lee
  • Bryan Forbes
  • Alan Bates
  • Hayley Mills
Release date: 2004-05-17
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.13

Review Whistle Down The Wind [1961] / ITV DVD:


Review Warner Home Video / Cat On A Hot Tin Roof [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Newman
  • Elizabeth Taylor
  • Richard Brooks
  • Jack Carson
  • Judith Anderson
  • Burl Ives
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 108 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.50

Review Cat On A Hot Tin Roof [1958] / Warner Home Video:

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof offers a smouldering, angry Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, the feline in question. Paul Newman is her ex-athlete husband, Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic who frustrates and disappoints his wife and his overbearing father, Burl Ives, the vulgar patriarch of this positively Gothic Southern family whose children return to the nest like vultures when they learn he is dying of cancer. Infidelities, addictions, latent homosexuality, depression, unrequited love and mendacity are woven into this powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Though it was somewhat whitewashed by Hollywood, the sentiment remains powerful due to the provocative performances. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor and Actress for Newman and Taylor. -Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon. com.

Review ITV DVD / The Battle Of The River Plate (Digitally Remastered Edition) [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Anthony Quayle
  • Jack Gwillim
  • Bernard Lee
  • John Gregson
  • Ian Hunter
  • Michael Powell
Release date: 2003-03-17
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.79

Review The Battle Of The River Plate (Digitally Remastered Edition) [1956] / ITV DVD:

Something of a swan song for the legendary Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger partnership, 1956's The Battle of the River Plate is their penultimate film together (the following year's Ill Met By Moonlight was the last). Shot in a semi-documentary style that stands apart from the "magical realism" of much of their previous work-Canterbury Tales, A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes-the film tells the story of the pursuit of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee by three British cruisers off the River Plate in Uruguay during November 1939. Incorporating actual wartime footage adds to the authentic air, albeit one that sits uneasily with the obviously studio-bound look of the rest. Among the solid cast Peter Finch stands out as the beleaguered Captain Langsdorff of the Graf Spee, while John Gregson is his counterpart, the stalwart British hero type. Things get a bit odd when Christopher Lee pops up in the unlikely role of a Latin-American nightclub boss. It's an atypical Powell and Pressburger picture and not exactly their best, but still a fine World War II picture that documents an important incident in the opening salvos of the war. -Mark Walker.

Review MGM Entertainment / Paths Of Glory [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • George Macready
  • Ralph Meeker
  • Wayne Morris
  • Adolphe Menjou
  • Kirk Douglas
Release date: 2002-07-15
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.69

Review Paths Of Glory [1957] / MGM Entertainment:

The pity of war has been a much-favoured film topic; the treachery of war much less so, though never more persuasively than in Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough feature from 1957. Kirk Douglas gives one of his finest screen performances as Colonel Dax, the idealistic First World War soldier appalled by the arbitrary court-marshal meted out to three of his men after an impossible attempt to storm German lines goes disastrously wrong. George Macready is an utterly believable Gerneral Mireau, obsessed with his own honour and standing, whom Adolphe Majou complements tellingly as the urbane and cynical General Bruler. Those who know Kubrick from his later sprawling epics will be surprised at the tautness and concision shown here, even though the screenplay-which he co-wrote-has a certain theatrical stiffness. On the DVD: Paths of Glory on disc reproduces well in full-screen format, and Gerald Fried's bitingly ironic score comes through powerfully. There are five dubbed and six subtitled languages. The original trailer is a masterpiece of gritty reportage, well worth reviving. Along with Dr Strangelove and 2001, this is Kubrick's most focussed and durable film. -Richard Whitehouse.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Sweet Smell Of Success [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Alexander MacKendrick
  • Susan Harrison
  • Tony Curtis
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Martin Milner
  • Sam Levene
Release date: 2002-04-15
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.85

Review The Sweet Smell Of Success [1957] / MGM Entertainment:

A classic from the late 1950s, The Sweet Smell of Success looks at the string-pulling behind-the-scenes action between desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and the ultimate power broker in that long-ago showbiz Manhattan, gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who based the Hunsecker character on the similarly brutal and power-mad Walter Winchell), the film follows Falco's attempts to promote a client through Hunsecker's column-until he is forced to make a deal with the devil and help Hunsecker ruin a jazz musician who has the nerve to date Hunsecker's sister. Shooting on location, mostly at night, director Alexander MacKendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe capture this New York demi-monde in silky black and white, in which neon and shadows share a scarily symbiotic relationship-a near-match for the poisonous give-and-take between the edgy Curtis and the dismissive Lancaster. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.

Review ITV DVD / A Canterbury Tale [1944]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Powell
  • Sergeant John Sweet
  • Dennis Price
  • Eric Portman
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Esmond Knight
  • Sheila Sim
Release date: 1999-10-11
Run time: 119 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £2.48

Review A Canterbury Tale [1944] / ITV DVD:

One of the most beloved of all British films, A Canterbury Tale marks yet another occasion to celebrate the Criterion Collection's growing DVD legacy of Powell and Pressburger classics. Originally conceived as good-natured propaganda to support the British-American alliance of World War II, the film became something truly special in the hands of the Archers (a. k. a. writer/director/producers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Taking its literary cues from Chaucer's titular classic, it begins with a prologue that harkens back to Chaucer's time before match-cutting to present-day August of 1943, with the night-time arrival of U. S. Army Sgt. Bob Johnson (played with folksy charm by John Sweet, an actual American GI) on the shadowy platform of Canterbury station in the magically rural county of Kent (where Powell was born and raised). He is soon joined by two fellow train passengers: Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), a brashly independent recruit in the British Woman's Land Army; and Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), a sergeant in the royal Army, and before long they're tracking clues to find "the glue man", a mysterious figure who's been pouring "the sticky stuff" on unsuspecting women as the midnight hour approaches. [+]
Their investigation leads to Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), a village squire whose local slide-shows celebrate life in an idyllic rural England threatened by wartime change. As Graham Fuller writes in an observant mini-essay that accompanies this DVD, is this a whodunit? Historical documentary? War film? Rustic comedy? It's all these and so much more: As photographed in glorious black and white by Erwin Hiller (faithfully preserved by one of Criterion's finest high-definition digital transfers), A Canterbury Tale has an elusive, magical quality that encompasses its trio of Canterbury "pilgrims" and translates into a an elusive, spiritually uplifting sense of elation that has made it an all-time favorite among film lovers around the world. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Warner Home Video / Casablanca -- Two Disc Special Edition [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • Ingrid Bergman
  • Conrad Veidt
  • Humphrey Bogart
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Paul Henreid
  • Claude Rains
Release date: 2004-02-09
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £4.35

Review Casablanca -- Two Disc Special Edition [1942] / Warner Home Video:

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. -Tom Keogh This generously filled two-disc special edition presentation of Casablanca features the film itself in an impressively clean new digital transfer on the first disc, with hiss-free mono sound. It's prefaced by a rather pointless introduction from Lauren Bacall (it would surely be churlish to point out that Casablanca was made two years before Bacall met Bogart) and accompanied by two full-length and fact-packed audio commentaries, one from film critic Roger Ebert, who hardly pauses to take a breath, and the other from film historian Rudy Behlmer, who provides in-depth background detail. The second disc features a plentiful collection of sundry archival features and more from Bacall, who hosts the two documentaries: You Must Remember This: The Making of Casablanca and a retrospective of Bogie's career, Bacall on Bogart. Of minor interest are two very short deleted scenes-Laszlo and Rick at the jail, and a German officer's pratfall-which in lieu of any surviving audio track have been subtitled from the original script; there's also five minutes of silent outtakes. An audio-only sample of Max Steiner's music-scoring sessions features Dooley Wilson singing "Knock on Wood" and "As Time Goes By". [+]
There are brief reminiscences from Stephen Bogart and Pia Lindstrom (son and daughter of Bogie and Ingrid Bergman, respectively); Bugs Bunny and pals in Carrotblanca; a curious 1955 Warner Bros TV version of the movie; audio excerpts from the "Screen Guild Players Radio Production" featuring the principal cast; plus the usual static galleries and other trivia. All in all, it's a valuable two-disc set that really does provide everything you always wanted to know about one of the most famous movies ever made. -Mark Walker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / To Sir With Love [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Lulu
  • James Clavell
  • Christian Roberts
  • Suzy Kendall
  • Sidney Poitier
  • Judy Geeson
Release date: 2000-02-28
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.45

Review To Sir With Love [1967] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Novelist James Clavell wrote, produced and directed this 1967 British film (based on the novel by E. R. Braithwaite) about a rookie teacher who throws out stock lesson plans and really takes command of his unruly, adolescent students in a London school. Sidney Poitier is very good as a man struggling with the extent of his commitment to the job, and even more as a teacher whose commitment is to proffering life lessons instead of just academic ones. The spirit of this movie can also be found in more recent films such as Dangerous Minds and Mr. Holland's Opus, but none are as moving as this. Besides, the others don't have a title song performed by Lulu, who also stars. -Tom Keogh.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / A Man For All Seasons [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Orson Welles
  • Robert Shaw
  • Paul Scofield
  • Fred Zinnemann
  • Leo McKern
  • Wendy Hiller
Release date: 2001-11-26
Run time: 116 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.90

Review A Man For All Seasons [1966] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Robert Bolt's successful play, A Man for All Seasons, was not considered a hot commercial property by Columbia Pictures-a period piece about a moral issue without a star, without even a love story. Perhaps that's why Columbia left director Fred Zinnemann alone to make the film as long as he stuck to a relatively small budget. The results took everyone by surprise, as the talky morality play became a box-office hit and collected the top Oscars for 1966. At the play's heart is the standoff between King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw, in young lion form) and Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield, in an Oscar-winning performance). Henry wants More's official approval of divorce, but More's strict ethical and religious code will not let him waffle. More's rectitude is a source of exasperation to Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles in a cameo), who chides, "If you could just see facts flat on without that horrible moral squint". Zinnemann's approach is all simplicity, and indeed the somewhat prosaic staging doesn't create a great deal of cinematic excitement. But the language is worth savouring, and the ethical politics are debated with all the calm and majesty of an absorbing chess game. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Eureka Entertainment LTD / Ugetsu Monogatari / Oyu-Sama [Masters Of Cinema] [1951]
Actors & Directors
  • Kinuyo Tanaka
  • Masayuki Mori
  • Machiko Kyo
  • Kenji Mizoguchi
  • Nobuko Otowa
Release date: 2008-04-21
Run time: 191 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £12.99

Review Ugetsu Monogatari / Oyu-Sama [Masters Of Cinema] [1951] / Eureka Entertainment LTD:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Ghost And Mrs Muir [1947]
Actors & Directors
  • Gene Tierney
  • Anna Lee
  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • Edna Best
  • Rex Harrison
  • George Sanders
Release date: 2005-05-09
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.69

Review The Ghost And Mrs Muir [1947] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life
Actors & Directors
  • Virginia Grey
  • Agnes Moorehead
  • Jane Wyman
  • Rock Hudson
  • Douglas Sirk
  • Conrad Nagel
Release date: 2007-01-15
Run time: 653 min.
RRP: £69.99
Price: £17.96

Review Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Network / A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Maureen Swanson
  • Renee Houston
  • Jean Anderson
  • Virginia McKenna
  • Jack Lee
  • Peter Finch
Release date: 2006-07-24
Run time: 111 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £6.97

Review A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956] / Network:


Models & Brands:
The Forsyte Saga - Complete Series 1-7 Box Set [1967], Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969], Romeo And Juliet [1997], The BBC TV Shakespeare Collection, Gilda [1946], Payroll [1961], L'Eclisse [1962], Whistle Down The Wind [1961], Cat On A Hot Tin Roof [1958], The Battle Of The River Plate (Digitally Remastered Edition) [1956], Paths Of Glory [1957], The Sweet Smell Of Success [1957], A Canterbury Tale [1944], Casablanca -- Two Disc Special Edition [1942], To Sir With Love [1967], A Man For All Seasons [1966], Ugetsu Monogatari / Oyu-Sama [Masters Of Cinema] [1951], The Ghost And Mrs Muir [1947], Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life, A Town Like Alice: Special Edition - Special Edition [1956]

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