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Review Palisades Tartan / Oedipus Rex [VHS] [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Silvana Mangano
  • Carmelo Bene
  • Alida Valli
  • Julian Beck
  • Franco Citti
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini
Release date: 1999-04-12
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Sophocles
Price: £15.99

Review Oedipus Rex [VHS] [1967] / Palisades Tartan:


Review Warner Home Video / Seven Days In May [VHS] [1964]
Actors & Directors
  • Fredric March
  • John Frankenheimer
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Ava Gardner
  • Kirk Douglas
  • Edmond O'Brien
Release date: 2000-02-14
Run time: 113 min.
Creator: Rod Serling
RRP: £9.99
Price: £12.95

Review Seven Days In May [VHS] [1964] / Warner Home Video:


Review Second Sight Films Ltd. / Orson Welles' Othello [VHS] [1952]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Coote
  • Suzanne Cloutier
  • Fay Compton
  • Michael MacLiammoir
  • Orson Welles
  • Orson Welles
Release date: 2003-08-25
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: Suzanne Cloutier
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.24

Review Orson Welles' Othello [VHS] [1952] / Second Sight Films Ltd.:

Filmed as a classical tragedy, Orson Welles' Othello is a tale of passion, jealousy and murder. Welles used his earnings from several performances (including Carol Reed's classic The Third Man) to finance the production, which was shot over several years across multiple locations including Italy and Morocco. The footage was well matched photographically, resulting in an artistically brave compression of a great play. In the title role, Welles shows us a man who has fought many wars but still maintains a princely disposition. As Desdemona, Suzanne Cloutier is guileless but strong enough to have wanted and pursued the Moor. She alone is accused of pretending to be what she is not, and her openness makes her suspect in a world where few appear to be as they are. In a rare filmed role, Micheál MacLiammór excels as the diabolical Iago, a master of manipulating appearances and devoid of any motive save pure evil. MacLiammór shows how a hint can be greater than a howl, executing a series of deceptions (whose victims include Roderigo, Brabantio, and Cassio) that culminate in the symbolic destruction of Desdemona. The financial constraints appear to have ignited an even higher level of creativity within Welles, who never takes the expected angle and directs the film with a vertiginous, exhibitionist energy. Though Roderigo's death scene was filmed in a Moroccan steam bath because the costumes had not arrived, it is refreshing to see a Shakespeare film in which the cast doesn't look like it's on its way to a Beverly Hills costume party with an Elizabethan theme. [+]
The allegorical journey between heaven and hell concludes with the exposure of both Iago's scheme and the tragedy of Othello, who ultimately could not believe in the purity of his wife. This Othello won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes in April 1952. -Kevin Mulhall.

Review Paramount VHR5492 / Paris When It Sizzles (VHS) (1963)
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Quine
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Gregoire Aslan
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Noel Coward
  • William Holden
Run time: 106 min.
Price: £2.37

Review Paris When It Sizzles (VHS) (1963) / Paramount VHR5492:

Classic 60's romantic comedy featuring 2 great Hollywood stars (William Holden & Audrey Hepburn), fabulous location photography in Paris, (by famed cinematogrpher Claude Renoir) + star cameos from the likes of Marlene Dietrich & Noel Coward. The story revolves around william Holden as a screenwriter with a script deadline of 3 days. He asks secretary Audrey Hepburn to concoct ideas, which she happily acts out, the plots getting ever more increasingly preposterous.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Mazursky
  • Dyan Cannon
  • Elliott Gould
  • Horst Ebersberg
  • Robert Culp
  • Natalie Wood
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Robert Culp
RRP: £6.99
Price: £6.99

Review Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Warner Home Video / The Devil Rides Out [VHS] [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Leon Greene
  • Terence Fisher
  • Nike Arrighi
  • Charles Gray
  • Christopher Lee
  • Patrick Mower
Release date: 1999-05-17
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Richard Matheson
RRP: £5.99
Price: £34.95

Review The Devil Rides Out [VHS] [1968] / Warner Home Video:

Christopher Lee, long Hammer Studios' house villain, takes a rare heroic turn as scholar and occultist Duc de Richleau, the kind of role that Peter Cushing had made his métier. Lee plays Richleau with a dark elegance and intensity-he is a commanding figure with a trim goatee who discovers that the son of a war buddy has joined a satanic cult lorded over by the quietly malevolent Mocata (Charles Gray, best known as the narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Director Terence Fisher, working from a literate script by genre scribe Richard Matheson, creates a strikingly handsome period piece (set in 1920s rural England) dripping in dread as Richleau and Mocata battle for the souls of two young lovers on both physical and spiritual planes. The action scenes are well handled and the towering Lee cuts quite a figure leaping through hoards of robed devil worshippers to save a sacrificial victim, but the film peaks in an eerie supernatural battle in which Richleau and his sceptical party confronts Mocata's demons while protected in a giant pentagram. The effects are coarse and dated by today's standards, but the gorgeous period detail, vivid colour and unsettling imagery create a sinister ambience, and Fisher's mix of psychodrama and swashbuckling action makes for an engrossing thriller, a life-and-death struggle between two masters of the forces of light and darkness. -Sean Axmaker.

Actors & Directors
  • Michael Wilding
  • Dennis Price
  • Richard Todd
  • Bernard Lee
  • Don Chaffey
  • Richard Attenborough
Release date: 1993-08-31
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: Bernard Lee
Price: £10.99

Review Danger Within [VHS] [1958] / Lumiere Pictures:


Actors & Directors
  • Irving Reis|Raymond Massey|Farley Granger|Charles Bickford
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: Irving Reis|Raymond Massey|Farley Granger|Charles Bickford
RRP: £6.99
Price: £7.42

Review Roseanna McCoy [1949] [VHS] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Warner Home Video / The Dambusters [VHS] [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Todd
  • Patrick Barr
  • Basil Sidney
  • Michael Anderson
  • Ursula Jeans
  • Michael Redgrave
Release date: 2000-06-19
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Michael Redgrave
RRP: £10.99
Price: £2.20

Review The Dambusters [VHS] [1954] / Warner Home Video:

Something of a cult item among British war movies (and brilliantly spoofed a few years back by a lager ad), The Dam Busters turns a minor World War II incident into a saga of heroic stiff-upper-lippery in the classic British style. A bombing raid is proposed on a strategically vital Ruhr dam, but its position is inaccessible. Enter eccentric inventor Dr Barnes Wallis (Michael Redgrave in best daffy professor mode) who comes up with a genius idea-a bomb that will bounce on water like a skimmed pebble. Naturally the top brass pooh-pooh it, but gallant Wing Commander Guy Gibson (Richard Todd) is persuaded, and between them flyer and boffin forge ahead. The touches of carefully understated emotion now verge on self-parody, but it's hard not to get caught up in the narrative sweep, especially when the bombers take off on their mission and Eric Coates' stirring march hits the soundtrack. The modelwork, state-of-the-art for its early 1950s period, still looks impressive, and the death of Gibson's beloved black Labrador (embarrassingly called Nigger) is a three-hanky moment to rival the shooting of Bambi's mum. -Philip Kemp.

Review Warner Home Video / The Hanging Tree [VHS] [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Karl Malden
  • Karl Malden
  • Delmer Daves
  • Karl Swenson
  • Maria Schell
  • George C. Scott
  • Gary Cooper
Release date: 1998-04-27
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Wendell Mayes
RRP: £5.99
Price: £23.95

Review The Hanging Tree [VHS] [1959] / Warner Home Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Ran [VHS] [1985]
Actors & Directors
  • Tatsuya Nakadai
  • Akira Terao
  • Chris Marker
  • Akira Kurosawa
Release date: 2000-07-24
Run time: 160 min.
Creator: Akira Terao
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.29

Review Ran [VHS] [1985] / Warner Home Video:

As critic Roger Ebert observed in his original review of Ran, this epic tragedy might have been attempted by a younger director, but only the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, who made the film at age 75, could bring the requisite experience and maturity to this stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. It's a film for the ages-one of the few genuine screen masterpieces-and arguably serves as an artistic summation of the great director's career. In this version of the Shakespeare tragedy, the king is a 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Hidetora) who decides to retire and divide his kingdom evenly among his three sons. When one son defiantly objects out of loyalty to his father and warns of inevitable sibling rivalry, he is banished and the kingdom is awarded to his compliant siblings. The loyal son's fears are valid: a duplicitous power struggle ensues and the ageing warlord witnesses a maelstrom of horrifying death and destruction. Although the film is slow to establish its story, it's clear that Kurosawa, who planned and painstakingly designed the production for 10 years before filming began, was charting a meticulous and tightly formalised dramatic strategy. As familial tensions rise and betrayal sends Lord Hidetora into the throes of escalating madness, Ran (the title is the Japanese character for "chaos" or "rebellion") reaches a fever pitch through epic battles and a fortress assault that is simply one of the most amazing sequences on film. -Jeff Shannon.

Review 4 Front Video / Mr Deeds Goes to Town [VHS] [1936]
Actors & Directors
  • Lionel Stander
  • Douglass Dumbrille
  • Gary Cooper
  • George Bancroft
  • Frank Capra
  • Jean Arthur
Release date: 2003-04-07
Run time: 111 min.
Creator: Robert Riskin
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.98

Review Mr Deeds Goes to Town [VHS] [1936] / 4 Front Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Star Wars [VHS] [1977]
Actors & Directors
  • George Lucas
  • Peter Cushing
  • Carrie Fisher
  • Alec Guinness
  • Mark Hamill
  • Harrison Ford
Release date: 1995-10-16
Run time: 116 min.
Creator: Rick McCallum
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.96

Review Star Wars [VHS] [1977] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

What's interesting about this video is also what makes it seem amateurish at first: it is neither endorsed nor authorised by 20th Century Fox or Lucasfilm. The result: a montage of interviews with everybody of importance to the Star Wars world-from George Lucas and Liam Neeson to Samuel L. Jackson and Harrison Ford, with intelligently written voice-over narration, and a unique exploration of Star Wars and Star Trek together. This is at once an homage to the Star Wars trilogies and a documentary of its sci-fi precursors, from silent film to Star Trek. Since this collection of interviews isn't authorised by Lucasfilm, you won't find footage of the Star Wars movies here, although you will find terrific snippets from sci-fi milestones such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis. A youthful Carrie Fisher talk about the interplanetary appeal of the original Star Wars, while a 20-years-older Fischer talks about the films' fairytale-like grasp across generations. Young and older Harrison Fords and Mark Hamill give interesting perspectives as well; the video also sports one of the longer interviews recorded with the man inside C-3PO. Besides the actual cast and crew of the Star Wars movies, including The Phantom Menace, there are interviews here with stars as fans, famous people who love the movies as much as anyone: Sharon Stone, Gary Busey, Hugh Hefner, Magic Johnson, Christina Ricci and William Shatner. A fun and provocative look through uncensored interviews across the spectrum at all that is Star Wars, worthy of any fan's archive, this is a must for any serious collection. -Erik Macki.

Review 4 Front Video / What's Good For The Goose [1969] [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Sally Geeson
  • Terence Alexander
  • Derek Francis
  • Norman Wisdom
  • Sarah Atkinson
Release date: 1997-07-21
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Sally Geeson
Price: £5.99

Review What's Good For The Goose [1969] [VHS] / 4 Front Video:


Review Windsong Video / Coronation Street - 1961 [VHS] [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • William Roache
  • Beverley Callard
  • Helen Worth
  • Barbara Knox
  • Anne Ross Muir
  • Brian Lennane
  • Alan Grint
  • Simon Gregson
  • Alan Bromly
  • Baz Taylor
Release date: 1990-11-05
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Simon Gregson
Price: £7.99

Review Coronation Street - 1961 [VHS] [1960] / Windsong Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / War And Peace [VHS] [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Henry Fonda
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Vittorio Gassman
  • Mel Ferrer
  • King Vidor
  • Herbert Lom
Release date: 1996-01-01
Run time: 208 min.
Creator: Mario Camerini
RRP: £5.99
Price: £24.99

Review War And Peace [VHS] [1956] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review WARNER BROTHERS / Conflict [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • ALEXIS SMITH
  • SYDNEY GREENSTREET
  • HUMPHREY BOGART
Run time: 83 min.
Price: £7.99

Review Conflict [VHS] / WARNER BROTHERS:


Review Connoisseur Video / Seven Samurai [VHS] [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Toshirô Mifune
  • Yoshio Inaba
  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Seiji Miyaguchi
  • Takashi Shimura
  • Minoru Chiaki
Release date: 1999-11-22
Run time: 195 min.
Creator: Shinobu Hashimoto
RRP: £15.99
Price: £12.77

Review Seven Samurai [VHS] [1954] / Connoisseur Video:

Unanimously hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of the motion picture, Seven Samurai has inspired countless films modelled after its basic premise. But Akira Kurosawa's classic 1954 action drama has never been surpassed in terms of sheer power of emotion, kinetic energy, and dynamic character development. The story is set in the 1600s, when the residents of a small Japanese village are seeking protection against repeated attacks by a band of marauding thieves. Offering mere handfuls of rice as payment, they hire seven unemployed "ronin" (masterless samurai), including a boastful swordsman (Toshiro Mifune) who is actually a farmer's son desperately seeking glory and acceptance. The samurai get acquainted with but remain distant from the villagers, knowing that their assignment may prove to be fatal. The climactic battle with the raiding thieves remains one of the most breathtaking sequences ever filmed. It's poetry in hyperactive motion and one of Kurosawa's crowning cinematic achievements. This is not a film that can be well served by any synopsis; it must be seen to be appreciated and belongs on the short list of any definitive home-video library. -Jeff Shannon.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Natalie Wood
  • Paul Mazursky
  • Horst Ebersberg
  • Dyan Cannon
  • Elliott Gould
  • Robert Culp
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Robert Culp
RRP: £6.99
Price: £6.99

Review Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Dd Home Entertainment / Room At The Top [1958] [VHS] [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Donald Wolfit
  • Donald Houston
  • Laurence Harvey
  • Jack Clayton
  • Heather Sears
  • Simone Signoret
Release date: 2002-01-21
Run time: 112 min.
Creator: Neil Paterson
Price: £10.99

Review Room At The Top [1958] [VHS] [1959] / Dd Home Entertainment:


Browse Classic Films:

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Oedipus Rex [VHS] [1967], Seven Days In May [VHS] [1964], Orson Welles' Othello [VHS] [1952], Paris When It Sizzles (VHS) (1963), Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969], The Devil Rides Out [VHS] [1968], Danger Within [VHS] [1958], Roseanna McCoy [1949] [VHS], The Dambusters [VHS] [1954], The Hanging Tree [VHS] [1959], Ran [VHS] [1985], Mr Deeds Goes to Town [VHS] [1936], Star Wars [VHS] [1977], What's Good For The Goose [1969] [VHS], Coronation Street - 1961 [VHS] [1960], War And Peace [VHS] [1956], Conflict [VHS], Seven Samurai [VHS] [1954], Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice [VHS] [1969], Room At The Top [1958] [VHS] [1959]

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