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Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Desert Rats [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • James Mason
  • Robert Wise
  • Richard Burton
  • Robert Newton
Release date: 2005-07-04
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.04

Review The Desert Rats [1953] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / World War II Classics 2 - We Dive At Dawn / Reach For The Sky [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • Reginald Purdell
  • John Mills
  • Lewis Gilbert
  • Anthony Asquith
  • Eric Portman
  • Muriel Pavlow
  • Kenneth More
Release date: 2001-11-12
Run time: 233 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £15.98

Review World War II Classics 2 - We Dive At Dawn / Reach For The Sky [1943] / ITV DVD:

Two examples of British Second World War films, We Dive at Dawn (1943) and Reach for the Sky (1956), are here stylishly packaged as a World War II Classics pack. We Dive at Dawn tells of the encounter between a British submarine and a German warship in the Baltic Sea. John Mills gives a dependable performance as the submarine commander, with Eric Portman the pick of a strong supporting cast. Director Anthony Asquith finds the balance between action sequences and "in situ" dialogue, and there's an evocative score from Louis Levy. The movie was an underrated film that deserves reappraisal, whereas Reach for the Sky (1956) was a box-office hit and remains a fondly regarded classic. Kenneth More is ideally cast as Douglas Bader, the gifted pilot who loses both legs in a pre-war air crash, only to play a major role in the Battle of Britain, rise to the rank of Group Captain and become a war hero. Based on Paul Brickhill's biography, this is an "official" history maybe, but Lewis Gilbert's screenplay and direction are historically accurate and informed by that very British humour of which More was a natural. The film is graced by a decent supporting cast, and a typically "widescreen" score from John Addison. On the DVD: The black and white prints look and sound excellent. Whereas We Dive at Dawn has 4:3 video aspect ratio, 15 chapter points and no subtitles, the later Reach for the Sky has vivid 16:9 anamorphic reproduction, 20 chapter points, subtitles and detailed biographies of More, Gilbert and Barder. [+]
The original theatrical trailer is included, but it would also have made sense to include an interview or documentary footage of Bader himself. Even so, this is an excellent starting-point for investigating a key area of British cinema. -Richard Whitehouse.

Review Alpha Video / Flaming Frontiers, Chapters 1-15 [1938]
Actors & Directors
  • Johnny Mack Brown
Release date: 2005-12-27
Run time: 305 min.
Price: £1.67

Review Flaming Frontiers, Chapters 1-15 [1938] / Alpha Video:


Review Lionsgate / High Noon [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Grace Kelly
  • Gary Cooper
  • Fred Zinnemann
  • Katy Jurado
  • Lloyd Bridges
  • Thomas Mitchell
Release date: 2008-06-10
Run time: 85 min.
Price: £7.41

Review High Noon [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lionsgate:

One of the greatest Westerns ever made gets the deluxe treatment on this superior disc. Written by Carl Foreman (who was later blacklisted during the anticommunist hearings of the 1950s) and superbly directed by Fred Zinnemann, this 1952 classic stars Gary Cooper as just-married lawman Will Kane, who is about to retire as a small-town sheriff and begin a new life with his bride (Grace Kelly) when he learns that gunslinger Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is due to arrive at high noon to settle an old score. Kane seeks assistance from deputies and townsfolk, but soon realises he will have to stand alone in his showdown with Miller and his henchmen. Innovative for its time, the suspenseful story unfolds in approximate real time (from 10:40 a. m. to high noon in an 84-minute film), and many interpreted Foreman's drama as an allegorical reflection of apathy and passive acceptance of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaign. Political underpinnings aside, this remains a milestone of its genre (often referred to as the first "adult" Western), and Cooper is flawless in his Oscar-winning role. The first-rate DVD gives this landmark film all the respect it deserves, beginning with a digitally remastered transfer from the original film negative. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Johnny Reno [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Dana Andrews
  • John Agar
  • Lyle Bettger
  • R.G. Springsteen
  • Jane Russell
  • Lon Chaney Jr.
Release date: 2005-08-01
Run time: 80 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.75

Review Johnny Reno [1966] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Critic's Choice / Rough Riders - Triple Feature #3 (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Luana Walters
  • Tim McCoy
  • Howard Bretherton
  • Dave O'Brien
  • Buck Jones
  • Raymond Hatton
Release date: 2006-02-15
Run time: 180 min.
Price: £7.99

Review Rough Riders - Triple Feature #3 (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Critic's Choice:


Review 20th Century Fox / Fox Classic Western Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Hugh Marlowe
  • Gary Cooper
  • Richard Widmark
  • Henry King
  • Susan Hayward
  • Henry Hathaway
  • Cameron Mitchell
Release date: 2008-05-13
Run time: 272 min.
Price: £6.13

Review Fox Classic Western Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / The Hills Run Red [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Thomas Hunter
  • Dan Duryea
  • Carlo Lizzani
  • Henry Silva
Release date: 2008-09-08
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.98

Review The Hills Run Red [1966] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / How The West Was Won
Actors & Directors
  • Henry Hathaway
  • Richard Thorpe
  • Karl Malden
  • Carroll Baker
  • Lee J. Cobb
  • John Ford
  • Henry Fonda
  • George Marshall
  • Carolyn Jones
Release date: 2000-04-03
Run time: 157 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £8.98

Review How The West Was Won / Warner Home Video:


Review Alpha Video / The Range Rider, Vol. 1 [1951]
Actors & Directors
  • Jock Mahoney
  • Dickie Jones
Release date: 2005-10-25
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £1.67

Review The Range Rider, Vol. 1 [1951] / Alpha Video:


Review BCI, a Navarre Corporation Company / Wanted: Dead or Alive: Season Two (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Steve McQueen
Release date: 2007-07-17
Run time: 800 min.
Price: £13.43

Review Wanted: Dead or Alive: Season Two (REGION 1) (NTSC) / BCI, a Navarre Corporation Company:


Review Warner Home Video / The Wild Bunch [Blu-ray] [1970] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Ernest Borgnine
  • William Holden
  • Warren Oates
  • Sam Peckinpah
  • Robert Ryan
  • Edmond O'Brien
Release date: 2007-09-25
Run time: 145 min.
Price: £11.26

Review The Wild Bunch [Blu-ray] [1970] [US Import] / Warner Home Video:

Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line. " All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film-surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made-is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times. " The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The 144-minute director's cut enhances the theme of male bonding that recurs in many of Peckinpah's films, restoring deleted scenes to deepen the viewer's understanding of the friendship turned rivalry between Pike and his former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who now leads a posse in pursuit of the bunch, a dimension that adds resonance to an already classic American film. [+]
The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Warner Home Video / D-Day To Berlin [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • George Stevens Jr.
  • George Stevens
Release date: 2004-05-31
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.98

Review D-Day To Berlin [1994] / Warner Home Video:


Review Warner Home Video / The Long Voyage Home [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Thomas Mitchell
  • John Ford
  • Ian Hunter
  • Wilfrid Lawson
  • John Wayne
  • Barry Fitzgerald
Release date: 2007-05-22
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £3.57

Review The Long Voyage Home [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Universal Pictures Video / Flying Tigers (John Wayne) [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • David Miller
  • Paul Kelly
  • John Carroll
  • John Wayne
  • Mae Clarke
Release date: 2006-06-05
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.96

Review Flying Tigers (John Wayne) [1942] / Universal Pictures Video:

John Wayne plays the tough commander of Flying Tigers, the famous fighter squadron that fought to save China from the Japanese. Wayne finds he is fighting a war on two fronts: he's taking on the enemy with only a handful of inexperienced men and patched-up planes while keeping a cocky new pilot from stealing his girl. The story has little in common with real history, and lots of classic post-Pearl Harbor propaganda fills the script. Regardless, the movie is all Wayne's, and Wayne fans will enjoy seeing the prototype for what would become the Duke's trademark portrayal of the military fighting man. Although the pressure of making life-and-death decisions in wartime may be more maturely explored in Twelve O'Clock High, Flying Tigers still has enough characterisation and action to keep the viewer's attention (not to mention special effects by the pioneering Howard Lydecker). -Mark Savary.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Lawrence Of Arabia : The Reel Collection (2 Disc Deluxe Edition In Metal Tin) [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • David Lean
  • I.S. Johar
  • Henry Oscar
  • Gamil Ratib
  • Peter O'Toole
  • Hugh Miller
Release date: 2006-10-02
Run time: 227 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £11.11

Review Lawrence Of Arabia : The Reel Collection (2 Disc Deluxe Edition In Metal Tin) [1962] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Odeon Entertainment / Candlelight In Algeria [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • James Mason
Release date: 2007-07-23
Run time: 81 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £7.24

Review Candlelight In Algeria [1942] / Odeon Entertainment:


Review Columbia TriStar / The Professionals [1966] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Brooks
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Jack Palance
  • Woody Strode
  • Lee Marvin
  • Robert Ryan
Release date: 2005-04-05
Run time: 117 min.
Price: £4.98

Review The Professionals [1966] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:

Director Richard Brooks' marvellous ode to friendship, loyalty and disillusionment The Professionals may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of Sam Peckinpah's more famous The Wild Bunch, but Brooks' storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is that Brooks is a lot more optimistic. Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster are buddies who have drifted into oblivion after fighting together in the Mexican Revolution. Marvin, the principled loyalist and munitions expert, lost his wife and his heart. Lancaster, the dynamite expert and unprincipled adventurer, keeps losing his pants. They team up with wrangler Robert Ryan and archer Woody Strode to rescue the beguiling Claudia Cardinale, who has been kidnapped by their old revolutionary buddie Jack Palance. So it's back into bloody Mexico they go on a "mission of mercy" for railroad tycoon Ralph Bellamy, who's paying handsomely for the return of his wife. But nothing is what it seems in this exciting, existential adventure, which was beautifully shot by Conrad Hall. Sarcastic quips, philosophical musings and heart-rending reversals underlie Brooks' humanistic sentiments. These are tired, world-weary men who somehow find the strength and the will to pull together for the sake of love and commitment. [+]
Through it all, Brooks seems to be lamenting a decline in professionalism much deeper than his story. He's decrying Hollywood and the society at large, anticipating Peckinpah's later strategy. -Bill Desowitz.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Morituri [1965]
Actors & Directors
  • Trevor Howard
  • Bernhard Wicki
  • Yul Brynner
  • Marlon Brando
Release date: 2006-02-20
Run time: 123 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.81

Review Morituri [1965] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Dunkirk [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • John Mills
  • Robert Urquhart
  • Anthony Nicholls
  • Leslie Norman
  • Ray Jackson
  • Meredith Edwards
Release date: 2000-06-19
Run time: 130 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £8.95

Review Dunkirk [1958] / Warner Home Video:


Models & Brands:
The Desert Rats [1953], World War II Classics 2 - We Dive At Dawn / Reach For The Sky [1943], Flaming Frontiers, Chapters 1-15 [1938], High Noon [1952] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Johnny Reno [1966], Rough Riders - Triple Feature #3 (REGION 1) (NTSC), Fox Classic Western Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Hills Run Red [1966], How The West Was Won, The Range Rider, Vol. 1 [1951], Wanted: Dead or Alive: Season Two (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Wild Bunch [Blu-ray] [1970] [US Import], D-Day To Berlin [1994], The Long Voyage Home [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Flying Tigers (John Wayne) [1942], Lawrence Of Arabia : The Reel Collection (2 Disc Deluxe Edition In Metal Tin) [1962], Candlelight In Algeria [1942], The Professionals [1966] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Morituri [1965], Dunkirk [1958]

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