MovieMail April 2014

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Bringing you a world of great film

Internet Edition

April 2014

Monthly Film Catalogue

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12 Years A Slave

Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning masterpiece

Also Inside

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Sp M ri ass In ng iv si S e de al e

Over 250 films Man of Marble Nymphomaniac Fame is the Spur Vintage Epics Sale


About MovieMail MovieMail Team Q. With Mark Cousins’ A Story of Children and Film coming out this month (see page 25), our question is, ‘What is your favourite film about children?’

Dan Hunter Editor Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro

Graeme Hobbs Writer Wim Wenders’ Alice in the Cities

Becky Smith Buyer Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso

It’s the year of our eighteenth anniversary but the idea stays the same – to share interesting films and to celebrate one of the world’s great communal art forms. Thousands of DVDs and Blu-rays are released every month; we select the best and most worthwhile and let you know about them – in our monthly film catalogue, on our website, in email newsletters and in the podcast.

The Monthly Film Catalogue Here we present the best new DVD & Blu-ray releases from a wide range of genres to bring great films, documentaries and TV programmes to your attention in an easily digested format. Those films we particularly recommend are highlighted with a star or ‘recommended’ badge and a review. Published from wood-free pulp grown in sustainable forests. Please recycle, and let us know if you’d rather not receive it.

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Aisling Walsh’s Song for a Raggy Boy Page 2

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April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

MovieMail News

W

e’ve learned of a potentially damaging draft bill from the Government, requiring DVD publishers to submit all extras for BBFC classification – a costly process that would seriously damage the viability of the smaller DVD labels (Arrow, Masters of Cinema, Second Run, Odeon etc) who go that extra mile to provide worthwhile supplementary content on their releases. This is an unintended consequence of badly-framed legislation which needs addressing before it is made law. To this end, we have started an online petition which, if you are someone who has enjoyed an extrasfilled DVD edition – and let’s face it, that’s almost all of us –

Contributors

Film of the Month 5 12 Years A Slave Curse of the Cat People Fame is the Spur Flying Down to Rio

16

World Cinema we urge you to sign, asking the Culture secretary to revisit the draft legislation. You can find it online here: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/vra Or if you’re not on the internet, let us know your name and postcode and we will add your name to the list. That’s it – I’m off to watch Fred and Ginger movies!

A. Cate Shortland’s Lore

(Yasujiro Ozu’s I was Born, But...) James is a film critic and historian. Although he is preoccupied with the more vintage brand of cinema, he’s been pleasantly surprised recently by the number of high quality contemporary films: Nebraska, American Hustle, Blue is the Warmest Colour, The Grand Budapest Hotel ... these are good times for movie-goers. Long may it continue.

Mike McCahill (Nicolas Philibert’s Être et Avoir) is a freelance writer and broadcaster who contributes regularly to The Guardian, Metro and The Sunday Telegraph and also blogs on cinema for MovieMail

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Classic Movies

James Oliver

Michael Brooke (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani’s The Night of San Lorenzo) is a freelance writer and DVD producer. A prolific contributor to Sight & Sound, he has also written numerous booklet essays for Arrow, the BFI and Second Run

Contents

David Parkinson (Lionel Jeffries’ The Railway Children) is a film critic and historian whose books on cinema include Thames & Hudson’s History of Film, The Rough Guide to Musicals and 100 Ideas that Changed Film Julian Upton (Bryan Forbes’ Whistle Down the Wind) wrote Fallen Stars and edited Offbeat: British Cinema’s Curiosities, Obscurities and Forgotten Gems. He is currently up to H in his ‘A-Z of Forgotten British Films’ on the MovieMail website

Enquiries info@moviemail.com

Man of Marble Like Father, Like Son An Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano

25

Television Dr Finlay’s Casebook

Stage

28

Documentaries

28

Story of Children and Film

30

Contemporary Nymphomaniac CFF: Runaways American Hustle

Art

34

From the Cheap Seats

36

Order Form

37

Special Offers Vintage Epics

11

Alec Guinness

10

British Cinema

15

Spring Sale

22-23

Arthouse Cinema 24 Acorn TV Sale

27 Page 3


Information

Current Top 10 Chart

Bonus Points

1 Blue is the Warmest Colour

A modern French masterpiece and a profoundly moving hymn to love and life, Abdellatif Kechiche’s epic of emotional transformation follows the contours of a love affair between two young women (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux). Item# 73508 / 73509 France | 2013 | 179 | subt | 18 | £15.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £6 Blu-ray: £12.99 Save £7

2 Philomena

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan star in director Stephen Frears’ compelling drama about a mother’s search for the child she was forced to give up years before. Based on Martin Sixsmith’s book, ‘The Lost Child of Philomena Lee’. Item# 73822 / 73823 UK | 2013 | 98 | 12 | £19.99

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3 The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Charles Laughton stars as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara the beautiful gypsy girl, Esmeralda, in William Dieterle’s excellent 1939 adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel. A marvellous, moving spectacle, this is one of Hollywood’s finest hours.

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Key to MovieMail Recommended Recommended by MovieMail is a collection of the very best DVDs. Visit www.moviemail.com/ recommended for the full archive

Extras Following the disc icon, we list details of the supplementary materials found in the package. Blu-ray A disc with superior picture and sound quality compared to DVD. Requires a blu-ray player and High Definition TV to enjoy. DVD+Blu-ray A pack containing DVD and Blu-ray discs, usually with the same content on each. Digital copy A video file that you can play on PC, Mac, iPad etc.

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Item# 73831 USA | 1939 | 116 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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4 12 Years A Slave

Steve McQueen’s essential, Oscar-winning slave-narrative drama, based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free born black man kidnapped and sold into slavery. Storytelling nous combines with an artist’s eye to make a truly great film. Item# 74190 / 74191 USA | 2013 | 134 | 15 | £19.99

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5

Nymphomaniac Volumes I & II DVD: £12.49 Save £7.5

Norman Conquests 6 The

DVD: £13.99 Save £6

7

Cat People DVD: £9.99 Save £3

8 It’s Not Cricket DVD: £9.99 Save £3

9

Man of Marble DVD: £11.99 Save £4

10 Scaffold

Lift to the DVD: £11.99 Save £4 Released 26th May

Reader Feedback Thank you to all those who wrote and emailed in with film queries after last month’s request for some. We now have plenty to be getting on with for the next couple of months. To kick off, Alec Hamilton wrote in with something he has been wondering about for nearly 50 years. ‘Some time in the mid-60s (1965, probably) my friend Lance and I bunked off school and went to the pictures in Bristol. We saw a film called ‘Johnny ... something’ – the question is ‘Johnny What?’ The only thing I can remember about it now is that someone bumped someone else off while riding a window-cleaners’ cradle on a high-rise building. And it was in black-and-white.’ Thinking caps on! Please email feedback@moviemail.com or send us a postcard.

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Names of the Month: George Baker, Denis Lavant, Val Lewton, Sydney Tafler, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Bonus Points reward you when you buy your films from MovieMail. You accumulate them when you spend money with us and can cash them in to get money off future orders. For every pound you spend on films, you'll receive 5 bonus points. You can convert 625 points into a £5 discount on any order with MovieMail. Keep track of your points total on our website and on your invoices. To cash them in, simply let us know when you're making your order.


April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

MovieMail’s Film of the Month

12 Years A Slave Recommended Director: Steve McQueen Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender Released: 12th May Extras: TBC Item# 74190 | USA | 2013 | E1 | 134 | Cert 15

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Also on Blu-ray 12 Years a Slave Item# 74191 USA | 2013 | 134 | 15 | £24.99

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See Also Hunger

Steve McQueen

Item# 57403 UK | 2008 | 96 | 15 | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg

Item# 71391 USA | 2012 | 144 | 12 | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £7.99

Roots

Item# 51583 USA | 1977 | 450 | PG | £30.98

Our DVD Price: £17.99

I

n 1841, Solomon Northrup, a respectable free-born black man of Saratoga, New York, was drugged, bound and shipped to New Orleans where he was sold into slavery under the name of Platt. He finally got a letter through to those in a position to free him and his memoir of the ordeal was published in 1853. His is the raw story to which Steve McQueen has given an intense charge of new life with 12 Years A Slave, a deserving Best Film Oscar winner. The film was shot in sites near to where the original events happened; as lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor said, there was the feeling that they were ‘dancing with ghosts’. Overseeing the production, these spirits have ensured that the result burns and stings from the screen, not with rage but historical fidelity, exquisitely controlled artistry and good old-fashioned storytelling nous. There are strong performances here too, with scenes between Northrup and the pitifully brutal plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) that are gaspinducingly good. As the subject demands, at times it’s a tough watch, but, as you would expect

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One of the best and most important films of the 21st century from the Turner prize-winning artist McQueen, who cites Goya’s ability to transmute horrific images into great art as an inspiration for his approach, it is strikingly composed and filmed with lingering attention to detail. Cameraman Sean Bobbitt’s use of the widescreen canvas is superlative – it’s rare for a film to make such fulfilling use of lateral space. The scars on the slaves’ bodies are all too apparent. As for the slave owners, broiling with feelings of sexual jealousy, desire and inadequacy, turning shades of various disgust into sadistic cruelty, there is deep damage within, in their world where bonds of Bible-backed ownership outweigh claims to common humanity. McQueen has talked of American slavery being a massive hole in the cinematic canon. His superlative film will endure as an important step in righting this oversight with candour and grace. Graeme Hobbs Page 5


Classic Movies English Language Films, 1930 - 1969

Duel at Diablo

New Releases The Belles of St Trinian’s (60th Anniversary Edition) Frank Launder

The first of the St.Trinian’s films, based on Ronald Searle’s cartoon creations. Alastair Sim stars as the headmistress of the penurious St Trinian’s School for Girls – and also as her bookmaking brother The Girls of Clarence. St Trinian’s; Interviews; Digitally Restored. UK | 1954 | STUDC | 87 | Cert U Item# 74140 / 74141 | RRP £17.99 | 28th April

Alvin Rakoff

Kenneth More became one of Britain’s most durable leading men, and this bittersweet 1963 comedy, in which he plays a provincial actor staring middle age and failure in the face, further demonstrated his talent.

Dead Men Are Dangerous Harold French

In an early lead role that captures the richly talented British stage actor at the time of his transition to film, Robert Newton stars in a murder melodrama charting a struggling novelist’s bid to start life anew – in a dead man’s clothes. UK | 1939 | NWORK | 66 | Cert TBC Item# 73930 | RRP £9.99 | 28th April

UK | 1945 | NWORK | 75 | Cert U Item# 73925 | RRP £9.99 | 21st April

Our DVD Price: £8.99

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The First Rebel

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Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen team up with larger-than-life vaudevillian Teddy Brown and future horror queen Hazel Court for this wartime comedy in which Bud dreams up some hilarious misadventures. Features a medley of the duo’s best-loved musical numbers.

Our DVD Price: £8.99

USA | 1939 | ODEON | 81 | Cert U Item# 74167 | RRP £12.99 | 14th April

UK | 1964 | NWORK | 89 | Cert 15 Item# 73911 | RRP £9.99 | 21st April

John Baxter

USA | 1966 | MGM | 100 | Cert 15 Item# 74262 | RRP £9.99 | 7th April

A 1939 John Wayne western set in colonial America. In Pennsylvania, 1759, adventurer James Smith (Wayne) pressures the British governor (George Sanders) to make it illegal to supply weapons to the Indians. But trader Ralph Callender (Brian Donlevy) hides rifles inside military supply trains, forcing Smith to take action.

The Comedy Man

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Unlikely companions are thrown together to fight off an imminent Apache attack in this rousing Cavalry and Indians western. There’s an embittered army scout (James Garner) seeking revenge for the death of his Comanche wife, an ex-cavalry sergeant (Sidney Poitier), a racist bigot (Dennis Weaver) and his runaway wife (Bibi Anderson).

William A. Seiter

DVD Price: £12.99 Blu-ray: £16.99

Dreaming

Ralph Nelson

The Flying Squad Herbert Brenon

Adapted from a story by Edgar Wallace, this 1940 crime thriller centres on the attempts of Flying Squad officers to smash a London drug-smuggling ring. This final feature by prolific silent-era director Herbert Brenon stars some of the era’s most accomplished performers, including Sebastian Shaw, Jack Hawkins and Kathleen Harrison. UK | 1940 | NWORK | 63 | Cert PG Item# 73909 | RRP £9.99 | 14th April

Our DVD Price: £8.99

Great British Movies: Crime A box set of four classic British crime features. Contains Turn the Key Softly (Jack Lee, 1953), Checkpoint (Ralph Thomas, 1956), Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959) and The Informers (Ken Annakin, 1963). 4 discs.

The Curse of the Cat People Recommended Director: Robert Wise Starring: Ann Carter, Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Elizabeth Russell Released: 14th April Item# 74165 USA | 1944 | ODEON | 70 | | B&W | Cert U

That the huge success of Val Lewton’s Cat People spawned a sequel is no surprise; that its lurid, studio-imposed title should conceal a finely-judged, sensitive portrayal of childhood imagination, before which adult reason and psychology stand helpless, certainly is. Reprising their roles from the original movie, Kent Smith and Jane Randolph play the ‘plain Americanos’ Oliver and Alice, now married and with a flaxen-haired 6 year-old child, Amy, whose inclination to dream up imaginary playmates leads Oliver to suspect the lingering influence of his first wife, Irena. Then Amy makes a wish on a ring for a friend, bringing Irena into her life, and something has to give between child and parents. Poised between fantasy and gothic horror and dabbed with subtle touches of shadowy darkness, Curse of the Cat People disappointed RKO executives after a quick buck-making supernatural thriller. What Lewton made was more lasting though; one of that wonderful run of his RKO pictures which are never quite what you expect them to be and entirely transcend genre expectations. GH

Buying Details

UK | 1953-63 | Strawberry | 12 Item# 74079 | RRP £19.99 | 31st March

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April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Fame is the Spur Recommended

Exclusive Director: Roy Boulting Starring: Michael Redgrave, Rosamund John, Bernard Miles, Maurice Denham, David Tomlinson Released: 12th May Item# 74045 | UK | 1946 | SpiritStrawberry | 113 | B&W | Cert U

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B 55 Bonus Points If purchased for £11.99

See Also Bill Brand: The Complete Series Item# 72289 UK | 1976 | 550 | 15 | £29.99

Our DVD Price: £23.99

The Spirit of ‘45 Ken Loach

Item# 71077 UK | 2013 | 98 | E | £14.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

The Life Story of David Lloyd George Maurice Elvey

Item# 72220 UK | 1918 | 152 | B&W | E | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £15.99

T

he story of the passionate idealist entering politics only to dilute his radical beliefs as he rises through the ranks is one that can be applied to any age, making this polished and dignified Boulting brothers’ adaptation of Howard Spring’s novel as thematically relevant today as it was in 1947. Also present are salient reminders of the upheavals and crises that affect every generation, and every colour, of British politics: strikes, the case for war, definitions of patriotism and swingeing budget cuts. To 1940s audiences, the parallels with the life and career of the first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald would have been most prominent, as Hamer Radshaw (Michael Redgrave) educates himself out of a Victorian slum and sets out on a path to make things better for Britain’s hardworking poor. Radshaw’s charisma, passion and gift for oratory see him rise to the higher echelons of the Labour Party. But whereas he starts out as a revolutionary firebrand, by middle age he is advocating a more reserved and ‘statesmanlike’ approach to politics, something that causes conflict, not least with his wife (Rosamund John), a dedicated suffragette. This is a lament for the values and

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Michael Redgrave stars in Roy Boulting’s ambitious political epic visionaries of early British socialism from the perspective of an era that many now covet as a noble experiment in socialism itself. As such, it is a fascinating window on mid-20th century British history, a time when postwar optimism and the drive for reform were tempered with the realities of inequality and necessary compromise. As the wavering hero, Michael Redgrave gives a rousing, compelling performance as Radshaw, portraying the politician from virile young manhood to blathering old age. Director Roy Boulting brings an epic quality to the proceedings, as Radshaw’s life plays out on a wider canvas of tumultuous social change and the key events of the age. An ambitious, prestigious piece of work directed with a steady hand, Fame is the Spur, although a ‘fictional’ tale, takes its place alongside TV series such as Bill Brand and celebrated biopics of political cinema such as The Life Story of David Lloyd George, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, Nixon and Reds. Julian Upton Page 7


The Curse of the Cat People



Classic Movies Hide and Seek

Miracle in Soho

Cy Endfield

Julian Amyes

Ian Carmichael heads a strong cast in this Cold War comic thriller that also stars Hugh Griffith, Curd Jürgens and Janet Munro. He plays a scientist at a secret missile project who finds himself in a defection plan when he encounters an old friend from behind the Iron Curtain. UK | 1964 | NWORK | 88 | Cert TBC Item# 73904 | RRP £9.99 | 21st April

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Hobson’s Choice (60th Anniversary Edition) David Lean

A beautifully observed comedy in which a drunken, tyrannical Lancashire bootmaker (Charles Laughton) is brought to heel by his tough eldest daughter (Brenda de Banzie) and her simple husband (John Mills) after they open a Digitally restored; Interviews. rival shoe shop. UK | 1953 | STUDC | 102 | Cert U Item# 74148 / 74149 | RRP £17.99 | 5th May

I’ll Turn to You

A topical postwar film that tells the story of a former pilot (Don Stannard) who is struggling to adapt to civvy street after being in the Far East. Both he and his wife (Terry Randall) have changed, and the pressure begins to tell on their marriage. Will they be able to put aside their differences and rekindle their romance? USA | 1946 | RENOWN | 92 | Cert PG Item# 74089 | RRP £12.99 | 25th April

Peter Graham Scott Pre-dating Mel Brooks’ The Producers by a year, this 1967 comedy stars the inimitable Charlie Drake as a budding playwright whose magnum opus seems a cast-iron guarantee of box-office disaster. Featuring support comes from an array of British stars, including George Baker, John Le Mesurier and Wanda Ventham.

Murder in Soho Norman Lee

A Brit-noir crime thriller featuring relatively early roles for Googie Withers, James Hayter, future Bond star Bernard Lee and Broadway veteran Jack La Rue, who plays the owner of a Soho club that is a front for his nefarious activities, and who is willing to murder to protect his rackets. UK | 1939 | NWORK | 68 | Cert U Item# 73933 | RRP £9.99 | 28th April

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King’s Rhapsody

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Herbert Wilcox

Adapting Ivor Novello’s long-running musical play for the big screen, this enchanting Ruritanian romance marked the second pairing of Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle. Blending sumptuous pageantry and richly varied music and choreography, the film echoed the abdication crises that enthralled pre-war Europe.

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Mister Ten Per Cent

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Geoffrey Faithfull

Our DVD Price: £8.99

UK | 1957 | SpiritStrawberry | 97 | Cert U Item# 74090 | RRP £12.99 | 14th April

UK | 1967 | NWORK | 80 | Cert U Item# 73902 | RRP £9.99 | 28th April

DVD Price: £12.99 Blu-ray: £16.99

UK | 1955 | NWORK | 90 | Cert U Item# 73903 | RRP £9.99 | 21st April

John Gregson, Belinda Lee, Ian Bannen, Billie Whitelaw, Rosalie Crutchley and Cyril Cusack star in this 1957 film, adapted from Emeric Pressburger’s novel, about the goings-on in a small street in Soho – especially the romance between a womanising asphalt-layer and the daughter of an Italian family who are about to emigrate to Canada.

Once a Sinner Lewis Gilbert

Jack Watling stars as an impoverished British bank clerk, hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Irene (Pat Kirkwood). She ends up marrying him, but she can’t give up her true love, seedy counterfeiter Jimmy Smart (Sydney Tafler).

Ealing Studios Rarities Vol 12 Recommended

Contains: The Bailiffs (Cadman, 1932), Loyalties (Dean & Dickinson, 1933), Three Men in a Boat (Cutts, 1933) and Laburnum Grove (Reed, 1936) Released: 7th April Extras: 2 discs. Item# 73908 UK | 1932-36 | NWORK | 320 | B&W | Cert PG

The diverse quartet of films on this twelfth volume in the Ealing Rarities series take us deep into the attitudes and humour of 1930s Britain. Called by Graham Greene ‘an English film one can unreseverdly praise’, Carol Reed’s Laburnum Grove (1936) – adapted from JB Priestley’s brightly barbed play about the hidden price of suburban respectability – stars Edmund Gwenn as a man who cheerfully announces to his sponging relatives that he is a forger. It has the desired effect of getting them off his back, but is he actually telling the truth? Reed was also assistant director on two more films in the set: Basil Dean’s Loyalties (1933) – a poisonous drama about smart society closing ranks against a Jew, and Graham Cutts’ Three Men in a Boat (1933), the first sound version of Jerome K Jerome’s evergreen entertainment of a boating holiday on the Thames. Lastly, Flanagan and Allen’s first short film, The Bailiffs, is a showcase for the pair’s brand of knockabout comedy and quickfire linguistic invention. GH

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UK | 1950 | RENOWN | 78 | Cert PG Item# 73864 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

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Vintage Epics Pronunciation:/epik/, Noun, “A long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time.” Inspired by the arrival of Samson and Delilah and 55 Days at Peking, we celebrate the best in vintage epic cinema – a feast of grand films whose scope and length have been employed to transport the viewer into other worlds for a truly fulfilling cinematic experience. And, if that wasn’t enough, they offer fantastic value for money!

2001: A Space Odyssey

Doctor Zhivago

Samson and Delilah

David Lean

Cecil B. DeMille

Stanley Kubrick

Filled with staggering visuals, Lean’s wintry adaptation of Pasternak’s Russian revolutionary romance is a masterpiece of grand filmmaking. Julie Christie and Omar Sharif star. 2 discs.

Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature take the leads in DeMille’s extravagant film of the biblical story of the strongman and the seductress. Dutch R2 edition; Original English film with optional subtitles.

Item# 8890 / 71209 USA | 1965 | 192 | 12 | £19.99

Item# 74363 USA | 1949 | 130 | £12.99

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DVD: £12.99

Becket

The Fall of the Roman Empire

Khartoum

Item# 3749 / 53568 USA | 1968 | 136 | U | £7.99

Dir: Peter Glenville. Burton and O’Toole play out the tempestuous friendship between King Henry II and his troublesome priest. Item# 33491 UK / USA | 1964 | 142 | PG | £17.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £12

Dir: Anthony Mann. A Hollywood spectacular in the grand tradition, featuring a star-studded cast. Item# 65104 / 65105 USA | 1964 | 172 | | £9.99

Dir: Basil Dearden. Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston star in this biopic chronicling the last years of General Gordon in Sudan. Item# 13032 USA / UK | 1966 | 123 | PG | £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £3 Blu-ray: £9.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Ben-Hur

55 Days at Peking

Lawrence of Arabia

Dir: William Wyler. The stats: 100,000 costumes, 8,000 extras, 300 sets, 11 Academy Awards. Charlton Heston takes the lead as Judah Ben-Hur.

Dir: Nicholas Ray. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven star in this impressive and intelligent epic one of the best of the ‘megaramas’.

Dir: David Lean. The sumptuous, 7 Oscar-winning epic in which TE Lawrence leads Arabs against oppression. Peter O’Toole stars.

Item# 8892 / 71205 USA | 1959 | 217 | PG | £19.99

Item# 73906 / 73901 USA | 1963 | 147 | U | £12.99

Item# 65549 / 69190 UK | 1962 | 217 | PG | £5.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £11 Blu-ray: £11.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £3 Blu-ray: £13.99

DVD: £5.99 Blu-ray: £8.99

The Big Country

Giant

Seven Samurai

Dir: William Wyler. A powerful western in which a sea captain finds himself in the middle of a bitter land dispute. Burl Ives and Charlton Heston star.

Dir: George Stevens. A young ranchhand strikes it rich in the Texas oil fields. James Dean’s final screen performance. 2 discs.

Dir: Akira Kurosawa. This is magnificent cinema, as seven warriors defend a village from bandits. New edition; Remastered; Documentary.

Item# 9078 / 73346 USA | 1958 | 95 | B&W | PG | £12.99

Item# 14362 USA | 1956 | 201 | B&W | PG | £19.99

Item# 73964 Japan | 1954 | 200 | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

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DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £13.99 Save £6 Blu-ray: £13.99

Cleopatra

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Ten Commandments

Dir: Sergio Leone. Last and best of the ‘Dollars’ spaghetti western trilogy. Clint Eastwood plays the Good.

Dir: Cecil B. DeMille. For sheer pageantry and spectacle, few motion pictures can equal this. Heston stars.

Item# 4417 / 71483 Italy | 1966 | 161 | 18 | £15.99

Item# 70226 / 70231 USA | 1957 | 222 | U | £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9 Blu-ray: £14.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £9 Blu-ray: £11.99

Désirée

Ivan the Terrible

Zulu

Dir: Henry Koster. A lavish costume drama based on the life of Désirée Clary, Napoleon’s first love. Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando star.

Dir: Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein’s striking epic of one of Russia’s great unifiers is one of the masterpieces of Russian cinema. 2 discs.

Dir: Cy Endfield. Michael Caine, Jack Hawkins and Stanley Baker star in this vigorous account of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879.

Item# 70703 USA | 1954 | 105 | U | £9.99

Item# 5676 Russia | 1944/45 | 179 | subt | B&W | PG | £24.99

Item# 12049 / 56046 UK | 1963 | 133 | PG | £15.99

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Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor play the lovers in this grandiose and ill-fated production. 2 discs. Item# 71633 / 66923 USA | 1963 | 248 | PG | £12.99

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‘Do you read me, HAL?’. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s celebrated sci-fi treatise glides the human ape into a universe that is pregnant with possibilities.


Classic Movies Othello

Orson Welles

Some sequences in Welles’ Othello would work just as effectively as silent film, such is his genius for evoking mood. He uses less than half of Shakespeare’s text, but captures the essence of the tragedy. Welles plays Othello and, in a rare filmed role, Micheál MacLiammór the lank-haired, diabolical Iago. USA | 1952 | UPFRT | 90 | Cert U Item# 74006 | RRP £14.99 | 14th April

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These Dangerous Years Herbert Wilcox

Crooner Frankie Vaughan stars with George Baker, Kenneth Cope, John Le Mesurier and Thora Hird in this 1957 musical in which he plays a gangleader and would-be rock ‘n’ roll star who is conscripted into the army, where to everyone’s surprise, he makes good – until he and his friend are tricked into crossing a minefield. UK | 1957 | NWORK | 95 | Cert PG Item# 73938 | RRP £9.99 | 14th April

This Is My Street Sidney Hayers

There’s an outstanding cast (John Hurt, June Ritchie, Ian Hendry, Mike Pratt, Avice Landone, Annette André) in this midsixties realist drama set on a drab street of decaying houses in London’s Battersea, home to a cross-section of workingclass families. UK | 1964 | NWORK | 90 | Cert PG Item# 73915 | RRP £9.99 | 14th April

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Violent Saturday (Masters of Cinema) Richard Fleischer

This year marks the centenary of Alec Guinness’s birth (April 2nd 1914). One of our most versatile actors, he had a chameleon-like talent for immersing himself to the point of invisibility in his roles, his ordinariness providing the backdrop for an incredible range of characters. Which is your favourite?

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Great Expectations

David Lean

A masterly Dickens adaptation that won Oscars for art direction and photography and blends excitement, suspense and emotion right from its opening. Guinness plays Pip’s friend, Herbert Pocket.

A multiple Oscar-winning war film in which British PoWs are forced to build a bridge in Burma for the Japanese. Guinness is at his best as the single-minded Colonel. Item# 350 / 65156 UK | 1957 | 155 | PG | £22.99

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Item# 54971 / 54048 1946 | 113 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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Alec Guinness Collection

The Mudlark

Kind Hearts..., The Man in the White Suit, Captain’s Paradise, The Last 5 discs Holiday, Barnacle Bill.

Dir: Jean Negulesco. Guinness stars with Irene Dunne in this enchanting 1950 British film in which an orphan boy visits the Queen. Item# 68530 UK | 1950 | 95 | B&W | U | £12.99

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The Captain’s Paradise

Oliver Twist

Dir: Anthony Kimmins. Guinness plays a ferry captain with one wife in Gibraltar and another in Tangiers. Item# 21023 UK | 1953 | 84 | U | £12.99

Dir: David Lean. A superb adaptation of Dickens’ famous tale. John Howard Davies plays Oliver and Alec Guinness, Fagin. Item# 54972 UK | 1948 | 111 | B&W | U | £12.99

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Father Brown

Our Man in Havana

Dir: Robert Hamer. Appropriately, Guinness plays a priest detective in this deft and witty adaptation of GK Chesterton’s famous character.

Dir: Carol Reed. Comedic spy story adapted from Graham Greene in which Guinness’s hard-up salesman becomes MI6’s man in Havana.

Item# 57381 UK | 1954 | 83 | PG | £9.99

Item# 25736 UK | 1959 | 103 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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H.M.S. Defiant

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy / Smiley’s People

Dir: Lewis Gilbert. Guinness stars with Dirk Bogarde in this naval drama set aboard a British warship during the Napoleonic Wars. DVD: £5.99 Save £14

2 discs.

David Lean

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Item# 20061 UK | 1962 | 98 | PG | £19.99

USA | 1955 | EUREK | 90 | Cert PG Item# 73955 | RRP £17.99 | 21st April

Page 12

Alec Guinness

Item# 50627 UK | 1949-53 | 618 | PG | £34.99

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A brutal noir played out against sun-drenched Arizona landscapes, where three criminals arrive in a mining town, intent on robbing its bank. Victor Mature, Lee Marvin, and, in one of his most unforgettable roles, Ernest Borgnine, star in this gem of Hollywood storytelling.

The films of

Two enthralling BBC espionage miniseries. Guinness is Smiley. 4 discs. Item# 66167 UK | 1982 | 687 | 15 | £12.99

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Kind Hearts and Coronets (Restored)

The Man in the White Suit (Restored)

Dir: Robert Hamer. Deprived of his inheritance, Louis Mazzini plots to regain his title. One of Ealing’s finest.

Dir: Alexander Mackendrick. Classic Ealing, with Alec Guinness playing the inventor of a self-cleaning suit.

Item# 62499 / 62500 UK | 1949 | 101 | B&W | U | £15.99

Item# 69597 / 69215 UK | 1951 | 81 | B&W | U | £15.99

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Ginger Rogers A trio of new releases starring the sparkling actress

Flying Down to Rio Recommended Director: Thornton Freeland

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle Recommended

Bachelor Mother Recommended Director: Garson Kanin Starring: David Niven, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson, EE Clive

Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond

Director: HC Potter

Released: 14th April

Released: 31st March

Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers

Item# 74164 USA | 1939 | ODEON | 83 | B&W | Cert U

Item# 73848 USA | 1933 | ODEON | 85 | B&W | Cert U

Released: 14th April

With its exotic setting, glorious Art Deco sets, glamorous stars and Vincent Youmans’s catchy score, Flying Down to Rio was calculatingly designed as Depression escapism. While the subplot about Dolores Del Rio’s socialite being torn between her fiancé and a band-leading aviator was perfectly serviceable, it was Fred and Ginger that everyone wanted to see and, 80 years later, it still is. The wedding of RKO producer Merian Cooper and Dorothy Jordan was one of the most important in screen history, as it meant the actress had to drop out of this musical adaptation of Anne Caldwell’s play and Ginger Rogers was hired in her stead to partner Fred Astaire. Even then, their all-toobrief forehead-touching shimmy to ‘The Carioca’ was only supposed to be a filler before the picture’s novelty dance highlight featuring chorines tethered to the wings of a biplane. However, audiences were thrilled by Fred’s grace and Ginger’s pep and – much to the initial chagrin of both – they became cinema’s peerless dance duo and box-office bankers who kept the studio afloat. DP

Item# 74166 USA | 1939 | ODEON | 93 | B&W | Cert U

Here’s a little treat from the golden age of Hollywood comedy. Ginger Rogers stars as Polly Parrish, a humble assistant at Merlin’s Department Store who sees someone abandoning a child. Trying to do a good turn, she is mistaken for the mother and – after a string of mishaps involving her boss’s son David (David Niven) – is left literally holding the baby. And if all that wasn’t enough, David is determined to see that she raises the child properly. Bachelor Mother affords Ginger Rogers – coming fresh from the end of her partnership with Fred Astaire – a chance to show what a superb comedienne she really was. She’s helped in no small way by her co-star: Niven gamely hurls himself into his role with a willingness to be humiliated that Cary Grant would surely approve of. Despite all this – not to mention the superlative script by Norman Krasna and exquisite direction by Garson Kanin – Bachelor Mother has been somewhat forgotten over the years. Well, it’s high time to rectify that: make no mistake, this one of the very greatest of screwball comedies. JO

A hundred years ago, or thereabouts, Vernon and Irene Castle were amongst the biggest names in entertainment, ballroom dancers who thrilled audiences with their graceful waltzes, passionate tangos and stylish fox-trots. They were, then, the obvious precursors of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, so it’s no wonder that Fred ‘n’ Ginger slipped on their dancing shoes once more to pay tribute in a film that charts the partnership’s rise and tragic demise. Based as it is on real life, it’s a mite less fantastical than Fred and Ginger’s earlier outings and even builds to an ending that will have you sobbing in your hankies. Don’t worry though, there’s still the carefree entertainment one expects from the happy couple, with larks and twirls galore, but it’s grounded in a more recognisable reality, with more intimate dance styles derived from the Castle’s own choreography. This was the last picture Fred and Ginger made at RKO. It brings down the curtain on one of the greatest partnerships in movie history with rare grace and panache. JO

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窶連LLO MY DARLINGS!

More from The British Film this April

Details on these and our other releases in the Moviemail catalogue and website networkdistributing

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Vintage British Cinema Sale Treat yourself to some mouthwatering vintage British movies with these 18 DVDs from Strawberry Films. Over the last couple of years, Strawberry have been reliably publishing real crackers from the archives. This sale collects some of the best and is packed with performances from treasured stars.

Great British Movies: Romance

High Treason

Four British romantic dramas: The Astonished Heart (Fisher & Darnborough, 1950), Always a Bride (Smart, 1953), The Young Lovers (Asquith, 1954) and Quest for Love (Thomas, 1971).

The sequel to the Oscar-winning Seven Days to Noon (1950), this British espionage thriller sees Liam Redmond and André Morell trying to prevent a terrorist attack on a power station.

John Paddy Carstairs

Item# 70160 UK | 1950-71 | 12 | £19.99

Item# 70106 UK | 1951 | 89 | B&W | £12.99

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Item# 72050 UK | 1948 | 91 | B&W | PG | £12.99

21 Days

The Informers

Seven Thunders

Dir: Basil Dean. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier play the fated lovers with only three weeks together in this British romantic crime drama.

Dir: Ken Annakin. A classic British 1960s crime drama, filmed at Pinewood and on location in London, Nigel Patrick and Harry Andrews star.

Dir: Hugo Fregonese. Stephen Boyd and Tony Wright play the escaped PoWs in Marseilles, where they battle over the affections of an orphan.

Item# 67714 UK | 1937 | 72 | B&W | PG | £12.99

Item# 68332 UK | 1963 | 101 | B&W | 12 | £12.99

Item# 68448 UK | 1957 | 96 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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Always a Bride

The Kidnappers

So Long at the Fair

Dir: Ralph Smart. Classic British comedy starring Ronald Squire and Peggy Cummins as father and daughter con-artists on the Riviera.

Dir: Philip Leacock. A charming family film that follows the adventures of two orphaned boys sent to live with their grandfather in Nova Scotia.

Dir: Fisher & Darnborough. Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde play the pair who try to solve the mystery of her brother’s disappearance in Paris.

Item# 70119 UK | 1953 | 82 | B&W | 12 | £12.99

Item# 67716 UK | 1953 | 89 | B&W | 12 | £12.99

Item# 64606 UK | 1950 | 86 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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The Beauty Jungle

The Rocking Horse Winner

The Spy in Black

4 discs.

Dir: Val Guest. 1960s comedy drama in which a young woman (Janette Scott) becomes a beauty queen, but finds herself in the London jungle. Item# 70109 UK | 1964 | 110 | 12 | £12.99

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Dir: Anthony Pelissier. A dark, complex psychological British drama, adapted from DH Lawrence’s story. Item# 66543 UK | 1949 | 87 | B&W | PG | £12.99

A postwar British espionage thriller set on The Orient Express, where a man (Alan Wheatley) is hiding out with a stolen and politically dangerous diary. DVD: £7.99 Save £5

An atmospheric spy thriller in which a German spy (Conrad Veidt) seeks to destroy a large number of the British fleet during WWI. Item# 67234 UK | 1939 | 78 | B&W | U | £12.99

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Checkpoint

Sapphire

Turn the Key Softly

Dir: Ralph Thomas. Stanley Baker stars as a man hired to steal a rival team’s plans in this motor racing crime drama, filled with early cars.

Dir: Basil Dearden. A hard-hitting British 1950s crime drama exploring racist attitudes towards immigrants among the London public and police.

Dir: Jack Lee. A psychological drama that follows three women after they are released from prison. Joan Collins puts in a fine turn.

Item# 67725 UK | 1956 | 86 | U | £12.99

Item# 66098 UK | 1959 | 91 | | £12.99

Item# 67221 UK | 1953 | 81 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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A Day to Remember

Sea Fury

Venetian Bird

Dir: Ralph Thomas. A pub darts team goes on a day trip to Boulogne in this innocent little 1953 comedy starring Stanley Holloway and Bill Owen.

Dir: Cy Endfield. A maritime drama in which a violent rivalry develops between two tug-boat operators (Victor McLaglen and Stanley Baker).

Dir: Ralph Thomas. 1952 British thriller starring Richard Todd as a detective who finds himself in deadly danger in Venice.

Item# 67567 UK | 1953 | 90 | B&W | PG | £12.99

Item# 67713 UK | 1958 | 97 | B&W | PG | £12.99

Item# 72022 UK | 1952 | 95 | B&W | PG | £12.99

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John & Roy Boulting

Sleeping Car to Trieste


World Cinema Films in a Foreign Language

New Releases The Battle Rafa Lara

Aka Cinco de Mayo: La Batalla. Mexican historical war drama set on May 5th 1862, when a few thousand Mexican soldiers put their lives on the line against the occupying French forces in one legendary battle for Mexico’s freedom. Mex | 2013 | ANBY | 125 | sub | 15 Item# 73905 / 73907 | RRP £15.99 | 5th May

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Item# 74179 UK | 2012 | Bridge | 88 | Cert 15

Earning high praise from Quentin Tarantino, who called it the best film of 2013, this Israeli crime thriller follows the fortunes of three men – led by a detective who goes well beyond the boundaries of his profession – whose lives become intertwined by a number of grisly murders. Israel | 2013 | MET-D | 105 | subt | Cert 18 Item# 74189 | RRP £17.99 | 28th April

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Boy Meets Girl Leos Carax

Carax’s brilliant feature debut, which follows the relationship of an aspiring filmmaker (Denis Lavant) who has just been left by his lover and a suicidal woman (Mireille Perrier) also reeling from a failed romance. With its bold and mesmerising blackand-white imagery, Boy Meets Girl is a beautiful blend of black humour and gentle romance.

In a Bedroom

Tomasz Wasilewski A brittle, minimalist and mysterious Polish arthouse suspense thriller which tells the story of a 40 year-old woman who acts as call girl to spend the night in a warm bed while the men she promised sex to lie sedated. Pol | 2012 | MATCH | 78 | subt | 15 Item# 74287 | RRP £15.99 | 12th May

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Page 16

Starring: Micsha Sadeghi, Shiraz Haq Extras: Director Q&A; Director’s commentary

Aharon Keshales

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Recommended Exclusive Director: Tina Gharavi Released: Out Now

Big Bad Wolves

France | 1984 | ART-E | 100 | subt | Cert 18 Item# 74284 / 74283 | RRP £15.99 | 12th May

I Am Nasrine

Nominated for a BAFTA in 2013 in the Outstanding Debut category, I am Nasrine is an immigration fable of a delicacy and promise that truly merits recognition. Director Tina Gharavi has in some ways updated Michael Winterbottom’s In This World, shifting the emphasis from the journey to the eventual destination. After being raped in police custody in her native Tehran, teenager Nasrine is packed off by her father in the back of a lorry, in the hope of arriving at a better life. When the wheels stop, our heroine emerges in brash, bigmouthed Tyneside, where she and her brother Ali are obliged to make a fresh start amid the all-night kebab shops and front-yard racists. I Am Nasrine nudges us towards a more complete understanding of why migrants like its heroine are drawn here in the first place; it intuits that – however crummy the weather and grim the digs, however bigoted some of the idiots you encounter – it is a better life here, and there is joy to be found, whether in the gaudy thrills of a passing funfair, or on a garage forecourt sharing wine gums with the one you love. Really, there is little to match it for optimism or heart. MM

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Like Father, Like Son Recommended Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda Released: 28th April Item# 73551 Japan | 2013 | Arrow | 121 | subt | Cert PG

Yasujiro Ozu went through a phase of working almost exclusively with children and this latest film from Hirokazu Kore-Eda – the filmmaker most observers now regard as the closest the Japanese cinema has to Ozu – extends the tradition. Like Father, Like Son is an elegant, quietly affecting take on the sort of babyswap material one might encounter on the Lifetime channel, and if its plot details are region-specific, the emotions it generates are universal. The set-up – children mixed up at birth – sparks a series of quandaries; should the parents simply exchange the children they’ve raised for six years, or would you concede that, after all this time, the bond between infant and guardian was now too strong to sever? This nature-versusnurture debate is played out over the course of a year, allowing us time to contrast the personalities of the fathers and those of their sons, and to mentally mix-and-match, feeling out who works best where. Among other thjings, Like Father, Like Son is a gentle record of simple pleasures – the kind our adult selves often contrive to complicate and mess up. MM

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April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Man of Marble Recommended Director: Andrzej Wajda Starring: Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Krystyna Janda, Tadeusz Lomnicki Released: 12th May Extras: 2 discs; New HD digital restoration; Three exclusive, newly filmed interviews with director Andrzej Wajda, lead actress Krystyna Janda and first assistant director Agnieszka Holland. Item# 73918 | Poland | 1976 | 2RUN | 160 | subt | Cert U

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See Also Andzrej Wajda War Trilogy

Item# 54084 Poland | 1958 | 313 | subt | 12 | £29.99

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Citizen Kane Orson Welles

Item# 18338 USA | 1941 | 136 | B&W | U | £19.99

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Man of Iron

Andrzej Wajda

Item# 58666 Poland | 1981 | 147 | subt | PG | £12.99

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T

hanks to it winning the Palme d’Or, an Oscar nomination and brilliantly capturing the mood of the Solidarity protests, Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron (1981) is far better known internationally than its predecessor, Man of Marble, made four years earlier as a standalone film. But back home, this has long been regarded as one of the greatest of all Polish films, not least for its bravery in tackling a topic so controversial that thirteen years elapsed between the first-draft screenplay and the first day of shooting. Consciously modelled on Citizen Kane, it uses a similar multiple-viewpoint flashback structure to uncover the facts behind a legendary life. The difference is that instead of a wealthy newspaper magnate, Wajda’s subject is humble bricklayer Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), briefly famous in the early 1950s as a Stakhanovite exemplar of his profession, celebrated in posters, documentaries and even a marble statue, before inexplicably vanishing. Recent filmschool graduate Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda), in search of a career-boosting splash of a subject, thinks that this is perfect, comprising both a probing investigation into a still-taboo part of Polish history while telling what she hopes will be a gripping detective story – but the more

Enquiries info@moviemail.com

Wajda’s brave work is one of the greatest of all Polish films interviewees she tracks down, the murkier things become. Will she even get to complete the film, let alone see it approved for broadcast by a nervous executive? Wajda was no stranger to contentious periods of Polish history: Kanal (1957) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958) had cemented his reputation two decades earlier. But although things had changed significantly since the Stalinist era, Poland was still ruled by the Communist Party, whose cultural apparatchiks were genuinely worried about the film’s implied message (however justified) that moraleboosting government propaganda was often based on cynical lies. But their private hopes that the film would be quietly ignored were dashed: thanks to Wajda’s propulsive direction and electrifying performances from the two leads, it caught the public imagination with a vengeance and ushered in one of the great creative periods of Polish cinema as Wajda’s colleagues realised what they could now get away with. Michael Brooke Page 17


Like Father, Like Son



World Cinema The Leos Carax Collection

Three films from the daring French director Leos Carax: his brilliant debut feature, Boy Meets Girl (1984), The Night is Young (Mauvais Sang, 1986) and the fantastically unhinged Holy Motors (2012). Denis Lavant stars in all three. 3 discs.

1984-2012 | ART-E | 331 | sub | 18 Item# 74272 / 74279 | RRP £29.99 | 12th May

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Mouchette

Robert Bresson

One of Robert Bresson’s greatest cinematic achievements, plumbing immense emotional depths in one of the most heartbreaking portraits of human frailty ever made. Hemmed in by a dying mother, an alcoholic father and a baby brother in need of care, a downtrodden peasant girl eventually kills herself. Mouchette tells her story with Zum Beispiel an unmatched visual austerity. Bresson (Kotulla, 1967). France | 1967 | ART-E | 78 | subt | Cert 15 Item# 69672 / 71047 | RRP £15.99 | Out Now

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The Artist and the Model Fernando Trueba A poetic tale of a quest for beauty and artistic inspiration in wartime France, sumptuously shot in monochrome. Jean Rochefort plays the sculptor who finds a new muse in a a beautiful young Spanish refugee. Item# 72961 Spain | 2012 | 105 | subt | 15 | £15.99

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Don’t Look Down Dir: Eliseo Subiela. A tantalizing coming-of-age film in which a sleepwalking teenager falls through a roof into a beautiful woman’s bed. Item# 62043 Argentina | 2008 | 85 | subt | 18 | £15.99

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The Night is Young Leos Carax

A swoon-inducing thriller that blends blends film noir, romance and science fiction. Denis Lavant stars as the street hustler who, on behalf of a gangster (Michel Piccoli), plots to steal a new miracle cure for a sexually transmitted virus. Then Alex falls for his boss’s girlfriend (Juliette Binoche) and the film becomes an ecstatic portrayal of being young and in love. France | 1986 | ART-E | 114 | subt | Cert 15 Item# 74290 / 74293 | RRP £15.99 | 12th May

The Exterminating Angels Dir: Jean-Claude Brisseau. A filmmaker holds boundary-pushing auditions for a project on pleasure. Item# 57100 France | 2006 | 100 | subt | 18 | £15.99

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Kings of the Road Dir: Wim Wenders. A multi-layered, marvellously meandering, black and white road movie, filmed entirely near the old East German border. Item# 54838 Ger | 1976 | 168 | subt | B&W | 18 | £19.99

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Seven Samurai (Remastered) Akira Kurosawa

Peasants in 16th century Japan hire seven warriors to protect their village from vicious bandits. With comedy, pathos, tension and some of the finest action sequences ever filmed, this is simply magnificent cinema. Digitally remastered; The Art of Akira Kurosawa (2013, 49 mins); Booklet. Japan | 1954 | BFI | 200 | subt | Cert PG Item# 73964 / 73963 | RRP £19.99 | 21st April

Student Services Dir: Emmanuelle Bercot. Déborah François stars as the student who turns to prostitution to make ends meet in this superbly acted drama. Item# 71241 France | 2010 | 101 | subt | 18 | £15.99

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The Wayward Cloud Dir: Tsai Ming-Liang. A characteristically colourful effort about sex, water shortage and watermelons from the Taiwanese auteur.

Tomorrow was the War Recommended

Limited Stocks

Director: Yuri Kara Released: Out Now Extras: Russian import, English language menus and optional subtitles. Item# 74029 Russia | 1987 | Ruscico | 84 | subt | B&W |

Set in a provincial town in the autumn of 1940, Tomorrow was the War centres on Irina, the daughter of a stern Party apparatchik. She comes to realise there is more to life than approved ideology when she discovers supposedly decadent poetry, music and art on befriending a classmate whose father is a leading aviation designer and the pride of the community. However, the girl’s mother holds a grudge from the civil war era and her treachery leads to a tragedy after the man is arrested by the KGB. Contrasting the drab monochrome of daily existence with the subtle colours of happiness, director Kara evokes both time and place in his debut feature with finesse. The dialectical discussions are sometimes a little dense, but the human story is thoroughly compelling and it is impossible not to be moved by the simple pleasures of the woodland picnic, the outpouring of grief at the rain-sodden funeral and the biting irony of the concluding hope that 1941 would be a better year for everyone. This is a film that should be much better known. DP

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Item# 52417 Taiwan | 2004 | 114 | 18 | £19.99

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Page 20

Discover arthouse gems from around the world in our new sale of films from Axiom, from a poetic, erotic film on artistic inspiration to one of the great road movies.

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Arthouse Cinema Sale

Headed by the extraordinary The Act of Killing – at the top of many people’s best of 2013 lists – this arthouse sale offers a great opportunity to go on an exciting global cinematic expedition, from Sweden to Argentina and Greece to Japan and Mali. Old world meets new and recent titles rub shoulders with established classics, so fill your screen with a world of wonder.

The Brigitte Bardot Collection

A Late Quartet

Joshua Oppenheimer A surreal, unsettling and visually extraordinary film in which former Indonesian death-squad leaders re-enact their 1960s mass killings for the screen. Strange and inventive, this is like nothing you’ve seen.

Three films starring the French sex kitten: Une Parisienne (Boisrond, 1957), Les Bijoutiers du Clair de Lune (Vadim, 1958) and And God Created Woman (Vadim, 1956). 3 discs.

A moving and thoughtful ensemble drama in which the future of a renowned string quartet hangs in the balance when their cellist (Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Item# 72851 / 72852 UK | 2012 | 115 | subt | 15 | £14.99

Item# 60160 France | 1956-58 | 265 | subt | 12 | £22.99

Item# 71805 / 71794 USA | 2012 | 106 | 15 | £15.99

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La Antena

Bamako

Only Human

Dir: Esteban Sapir. A visually stunning, black and white, near silent sci-fi film in which an entire city has lost its voice.

Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako. A vital, satirical drama that sees the World Bank and the Intentional Monetary Fund put on trial in a Malian village.

Dir: Harari & Pelegri. An irreverent comedy in which a girl introduces her Palestinian boyfriend to her Jewish parents and senile grandfather.

Item# 55053 Argentina | 2007 | 90 | subt | B&W | PG | £14.99

Item# 33115 Mali | 2006 | 113 | subt | PG | £19.99

Item# 23797 Spain | 2004 | 86 | subt | 15 | £19.99

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L’Argent

Call Girl

Dir: Robert Bresson. An adaptation of Tolstoy’s story, in which the passing of a forged banknote leads to theft, corruption and murder.

Dir: Mikael Marcimain. A top-class Swedish thriller that follows a police investigation into an underage prostitution ring in Stockholm.

Sexual Tension: Violetas

Item# 21851 France | 1983 | 82 | subt | PG | £19.99

Item# 72649 Sweden | 2012 | 140 | subt | 18 | £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Yaron Zilberman

Dir: Berger & Mónaco. Volume 2 of the Sexual Tension diptych takes us on a journey into female seduction. Item# 71982 Argentina | 2013 | 91 | subt | 18 | £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Air Doll DVD £6.99

Amour DVD £6.99

Ascent to Heaven DVD £6.99

Bangkok Love Story A Comedy of Power DVD £6.99 DVD £7.99

Dogtooth DVD £6.99

The Girl from Nowhere DVD £6.99

Les Grandes Manoeuvres £6.99

Leningrad Cowboys (Kaurismäki) £19.99

Laissez-Passer DVD £6.99

Land and Freedom DVD £7.99

Love Exposure DVD £6.99

Le Maître de Musique DVD £5.99

À Nous la Liberté DVD £5.99

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies £6.99

Red Angel DVD £6.99

Uzak DVD £6.99

Va Savoir DVD £5.99

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Offer ends 28th May or while stocks last

The Act of Killing


Spring Film &

Wipe away the dust from your television with our Spring Film & TV Sale. With the we brightening up everyone’s DVD and Blu-ray collections with a gust of fresh spring ai sale featuring 34 films and TV series, all guaranteed to nurture new life in existing pa

World Cinema

Television

Betty Blue

Renoir

Fall of Eagles

Jean-Jacques Beineix

Gilles Bourdos

A sexy, sassy, serio-comic odyssey of obsession, volatile passion and neurotic lust, starring Jean-Hugues Anglade and Béatrice Dalle. 2 discs; Director’s cut and the original theatrical cut.

A flame-haired teenager captivates the lives of the famous painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and his young son Jean in this evocative drama. An unashamedly shimmering, summery and sensual film.

A major 1970s BBC costume drama, filled with familiar names, that charts the decline and fall of the great Houses of Europe in war and revolution between the mid-19th century and the end of WWI. Michael Hordern narrates.

Item# 73022 / 73023 Fra | 1986 | 177 | sub | 18 | £19.99

Item# 72657 France | 2012 | 112 | subt | 12 | £17.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £11 Blu-ray: £10.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £8

DVD: £19.99 Save £15

À L’Aventure

In the City of Sylvia

Anno 1790

Dir: Jean-Claude Brisseau. An exploration of female sexuality in which a woman embarks on a journey of sexual discovery.

Dir: José Luis Guerín. A spellbinding film of a young artist searching for a beautiful girl he glimpsed years before in Strasbourg.

A fine Swedish period drama that marries crime mysteries with romance. Peter Eggers plays the physician detective. 4 discs.

Item# 57254 France | 2009 | 104 | subt | 18 | £15.99

Item# 58398 Spain / France | 2007 | 85 | subt | PG | £19.99

Item# 71877 Sweden | 2011 | 582 | subt | 15 | £24.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £8

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

DVD: £15.99 Save £9

A Call Girl

Like Someone in Love

Downton Abbey

Dir: Damjan Kozole. A Slovenian drama in which a girl escapes smalltown life and sets up as a call girl for Eurocrats in Ljubljana.

Dir: Abbas Kiarostami. An elegant and playful film, interwoven with references to Yasujiro Ozu, about mistaken and assumed identities.

The phenomenally successful drama about lives and loves above and below stairs in Downton Abbey.

Item# 68001 Slovenia | 2009 | 90 | subt | 15 | £15.99

Item# 72653 / 72652 Jap | 2012 | 110 | sub | 12 | £15.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £8

DVD: £6.99 Save £9 Blu-ray: £8.99

S1-4 DVD: £13.99 each S1-4 Blu-ray: £14.99 each

The Deep

Los Olvidados

Francesco’s Venice

Dir: Baltasar Kormákur. A powerful Icelandic drama loosely based on real events, in which a fisherman survived the sinking of his ship.

Dir: Luis Buñuel. A visceral, unflinchingly honest and at times surreal depiction of a boy’s life in Mexico’s slums.

Architect, historian and filmmaker Francesco da Mosta profiles the history and secrets of Venice from the fifth century to the present day.

Item# 72830 Iceland | 2012 | 93 | subt | 12 | £17.99

Item# 63160 Mexico | 1950 | 90 | subt | B&W | 12 | £15.99

Item# 29480 UK | 2005 | 235 | 15 | £13.27

DVD: £7.99 Save £10

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

DVD: £7.99 Save £5

Germany Year Zero

Paradise: Love / Faith / Hope

House of Cards: Season 1 (2013)

Dir: Ulrich Seidl. Sex tourism, religion, obesity and infatuation come under Seidl’s lens. 3 discs.

The first series of the US political drama starring Kevin Spacey, based on Michael Dobbs’ novel. 4 discs.

Item# 72261 Austria | 2012-13 | 325 | subt | 18 | £24.99

Item# 71691 / 71692 USA | 2013 | 463 | 18 | £29.99

DVD: £15.99 Save £9

DVD: £16.99 Save £13 Blu-ray: £22.99

Three Films from Fellini

Peaky Blinders: Series 1

Contains I Vitelloni (1953), La Dolce Vita (1960) and Guilietta degli Spiriti (1965). 3 discs.

Compelling BBC drama about an Edwardian Birmingham gangland family. Cillian Murphy stars. 3 discs

Item# 73060 Italy | 1953-65 | 329 | subt | B&W | 15 | £24.99

Item# 72902 / 72903 UK | 2013 | 360 | 15 | £24.99

DVD: £15.99 Save £9

DVD: £10.99 Save £14 Blu-ray: £12.99

Dir: Roberto Rossellini. The final part of Rossellini’s great neo-realist war trilogy, described by Scorsese as a prayer to the postwar world. Item# 61827 Italy | 1947 | 71 | subt | B&W | PG | £14.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £6

Hannah Arendt Dir: Margarethe Von Trotta. An intense study of philosopher Hannah Arendt, the woman who coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’. Item# 73442 France / Germany | 2012 | 113 | 12 | £17.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £9

4 discs.

Item# 72678 UK | 1974 | 710 | 12 | £34.99

Item# Various UK | 2010-13 | 12 | £24.99

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& TV Sale

et winter soon to be a fleeting memory we’re ir. So, shine up your spirits with this marvellous assions.

Modern Film Schalcken the Painter

Heaven’s Gate

The Selfish Giant

Michael Cimino

Clio Barnard

Leslie Megahey

The complete director’s cut of one of the last great epic westerns. It sank United Artists and was butchered on release, but now it’s rightly hailed as a masterpiece of cinema. 2 discs; Restored.

A contemporary fable about two teenage boys who get caught up in the world of copper theft in northern England. An outstanding work of poeticised social realism in the manner of Loach’s Kes.

This much-requested BBC ghost story, adapted from Sheridan Le Fanu’s story of 17th century painter Godfried Schalcken, is a rare and satisfying combination of intelligence and artistry.

Item# 72626 / 72627 USA | 1980 | 207 | 15 | £15.99

Item# 73383 / 73384 UK | 2013 | 91 | 15 | £15.99

DVD+Blu-ray: £9.99 Save £10

DVD: £9.99 Save £6 Blu-ray: £12.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £8 Blu-ray: £9.99

Plays for Britain

The Act of Killing

Kelly + Victor

Six plays by writers at early stages in their careers, including Stephen Poliakoff, Roger McGough, Howard Brenton and Brian Glover. 2 discs.

Dir: Joshua Oppenheimer. A surreal, strange and remarkable documentary that tells the stories of members of the 1960s Indonesian death squads.

Dir: Kieran Evans. An excellent psychosexual drama that tells a compelling story of love on the streets of broken Britain.

Item# 72078 UK | 1976 | 325 | 15 | £19.99

Item# 72851 / 72852 UK | 2012 | 115 | subt | 15 | £14.99

Item# 73398 / 73399 UK | 2012 | 94 | 18 | £15.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £11

DVD: £6.99 Save £8 Blu-ray: £12.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9 Blu-ray: £9.99

The Returned: Series 1

Before Midnight

Much Ado About Nothing

Item# 72582 UK | 1979 | 70 | 12 | £19.99

An enthralling supernatural French TV series set in a small alpine town 3 discs. where the dead return. Item# 72441 France | 2012 | 480 | subt | 18 | £29.99

Dir: Richard Linklater. The third part of Linklater’s beautifully crafted romantic trilogy starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Item# 72501 USA | 2013 | 109 | 15 | £19.99

DVD: £16.99 Save £13

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

The Story of the Jews

Behind the Candelabra

Simon Schama presents an epic fivepart series exploring the extraordinary story of the Jewish experience from ancient times. 2 discs. Item# 70833 UK | 2012 | 295 | E | £19.99

DVD: £10.99 Save £9

The Strange World of Gurney Slade Anthony Newley stars in this brilliantly inventive, startlingly surreal series that was unlike anything previously seen.

Dir: Steven Soderbergh. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon star in this glitzy and engaging Liberace biopic. Item# 72541 / 72542 USA | 2013 | 118 | 15 | £17.99

Dir: Joss Whedon. Any lover of Shakespeare will find Whedon’s production a richly entertaining film. Item# 72183 / 72191 2012 | 108 | BW | 12 | £17.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £10 Blu-ray: £9.99

Silence Dir: Pat Collins. A rich and resonant portrait of a sound recordist documenting western Ireland’s unpeopled landscapes. Item# 72833 Ireland / Germany | 2012 | 84 | PG | £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £11 Blu-ray: £9.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £8

Caesar Must Die

War Horse

Dir: Paolo & Vittorio Taviani. A deft drama, mixing narrative and documentary, about a production of Julius Caesar by prison inmates.

Dir: Steven Spielberg. An odyssey of joy, sorrow and high adventure about a boy who searches for his horse after it is taken away to serve in WWI.

Item# 71446 Italy | 2012 | 77 | subt | B&W | 12 | £15.99

Item# 68278 / 68280 UK / USA | 2011 | 146 | 12 | £17.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £6

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

DVD: £7.99 Save £10 Blu-ray: £10.99

Supernatural

Frances Ha

Werewolves, vampires and ghosts haunt the living in this much soughtafter BBC horror series originally broadcast in 1977. 2 discs.

Dir: Noah Baumbach. A beautifullyfilmed monochrome rite-of-passage comedy starring Greta Gerwig as a hapless New Yorker.

The Wicker Man: The Final Cut

Item# 72581 UK | 1977 | 400 | 15 | £24.99

Item# 73458 / 73459 2012 | 86 | B&W | 15 | £17.99

DVD: £15.99 Save £9

DVD: £7.99 Save £10 Blu-ray: £10.99

Item# 65840 UK | 1960 | 150 | PG | £14.99

Dir: Robin Hardy. Three cuts of the legendary film, including the ‘final cut’ and a soundtrack CD. 3 discs. Item# 72644 / 72645 UK | 1973 | 84 | 15 | £24.99

DVD: £12.99 Save £12 Blu-ray: £15.99

ail.com or 0844 376 0009


An Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano Recommended Limited Stocks Director: Nikita Mikhalkov Starring: Alexander Kalyagin, Nikita Mikhalkov Released: Out Now Extras: Russian import, English language menus and optional subtitles. Item# 74028 | Russia | 1976 | Ruscico | 103 | subt |

Buying Details

Our DVD Price:

£14.99 RRP: £16.99 Save £2

B 70 Bonus Points If purchased for £14.99

See Also Barber of Siberia Nikita Mikhalkov

Item# 18561 Russia | 1998 | 170 | subt | 12 | £15.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

Burnt by the Sun Nikita Mikhalkov

Item# 53268 Russia | 1994 | 146 | subt | 15 | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Uncle Vanya Stuart Burge

Item# 15357 UK | 1961 | 120 | B&W | E | £15.99

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Page 24

I

t is the languid days of summer and, somewhere in the provinces of Imperial Russia, the General’s wife has invited the local gentry to enjoy a leisurely day at their estate. Amongst the guests is Mikhail Platonov, the local school teacher and a man who had hoped for more from life. When he discovers that Sophia, the lover he thought he had forgotten, is also amongst the guests, he begins to consider what has happened to him, and whether it’s too late to change. As the synopsis suggests, this is a film derived from a play by Anton Chekhov – in this case, his first, untitled and never-quite completed play (usually known simply as Platonov in the Anglophone world). His touch is present throughout in the film’s irony, the study of family life and the patient depiction of profoundly flawed people. But while it’s Chekhov’s play, this is very much Nikita Mikhalkov’s film; director Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) also co-wrote the adaption and distils Chekhov’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink apprentice work into a focused story of regret and missed opportunities. These people are never exactly likeable (the communist authorities

A masterful distillation of Anton Chekhov’s early play, Platonov always did take a dim view of the former aristocracy) but their feelings, and desires, are etched with sharp clarity. For all it is derived from a play, it’s filmed with a vivid cinematic eye. Indeed, other directors of theatrical adaptations might do well to study how Mikhalkov opens out the action and pares back the dialogue. He’s helped by the exquisite cinematography of Pavel Lebeshev, who handles the shifts in light (the film takes us from shimmering afternoon sun through to dawn, by way of candlelight) beautifully. It’s a film that respects Chekhov enough not to be restricted by him. It says something for Mikhalkov’s success that his adaptation has been used by theatrical productions as the most satisfactory version of the original text. The play is an interesting curiosity from a writer learning his craft; this film might well be a masterpiece. James Oliver

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Television Programmes Originally Broadcast

New Releases

Churchill and the Generals Alan Gibson

A 1979 BBC docu-drama about the relationship between Winston Churchill (Timothy West) and the generals of the Allied forces between 1940-45. Script by Ian Curteis, music by Wilfred Josephs, supporting players include Alexander Knox, Patrick Magee, Eric 3 discs. Porter, Arthur Hill and Patrick Allen. UK | 1981 | UPFRT | 180 | Cert TBC Item# 74161 | RRP £29.99 | 28th April

Our DVD Price: £22.99

Common as Muck: Series 1 The first series of the sitcom about a crew of rubbish collectors who display unusual commitment to their job. And with new management in place and privatisation encroaching, they’ll need it! Edward Woodward, Neil Dudgeon and Roy 2 discs. Hudd star.

UK | 1994 | SIMP | 300 | Cert 15 Item# 74059 | RRP £24.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £19.99

The Dark Ages: Age of Light

A landmark four-part documentary presented by art critic Waldemar Januszczak, in which he disagrees with the prevailing notion that the Fall of the Roman Empire presaged a fall into barbarism, arguing instead that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking fresh artistic adventures. UK | 2013 | IMC | 240 | Cert E Item# 73999 | RRP £14.99 | 12th May

Our DVD Price: £11.99

David Attenborough’s Natural History Museum Alive The veteran broadcaster brings to animated life the now extinct residents of London’s Natural History Museum, highlighting distinctive features of the creatures and discussing how they may have lived and died. UK | 2013 | GO-D | 110 | Cert E Item# 73887 / 73892 | RRP £17.99 | 14th April

DVD Price: £13.99 3D Blu-ray: £13.99

The David Niven Show

The debonair actor presents 12 short dramas in this popular anthology series originally broadcast in America in 1959. Each of the 12 episodes features a separate cast and a self-contained story, with actors to appear in the dramas including Dan Duryea, Fay Wray and, in 2 discs. one story, Niven himself. USA | 1959 | SIMP | 291 | Cert PG Item# 74358 | RRP £24.99 | 28th April

Our DVD Price: £19.99

Don’t Rock the Boat

The complete Thames TV sitcom from the creators of The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles. Nigel Davenport plays the handsome, young-atheart widower who runs a riverside boatyard with his two grown-up sons, Sheila White the glamorous younger woman who puts the zing back into his life. 2 discs. UK | 1983 | NWORK | 300 | Cert PG Item# 74010 | RRP £19.99 | 12th May

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Endeavour: Series 2

All four feature-length films – Trove, Nocturne, Sway and Neverland – from the second series of the Inspector Morse prequel, which follows the exploits of Endeavour Morse in 1960s Oxford. All four stories are written by Morse contributor, Russell Lewis. Shaun Evans takes the lead, with Roger Allam playing senior Detective Inspector Fred Thursday.

UK | 2014 | G-VEN | 360 | Cert 12 Item# 74235 | RRP £19.99 | 5th May

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Hemlock Grove: Season 1

The first series of the new and gripping US murder mystery set in a dilapidated Pennsylvania steel town, where there are rumours of mysterious experiments at a Bio-Technology Institute. Then two girls are brutally murdered and it falls to the accused to seek out the real killer, with his investigation revealing that very little is as it seems. Famke 4 discs. Janssen and Dougray Scott star. Canada | 2014 | KALHE | 650 | Cert 18 Item# 74238 / 74239 | RRP £29.99 | 21st April

DVD Price: £21.99 Blu-ray: £24.99

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Dr Finlay’s Casebook: Series 2 Recommended Starring: Bill Simpson, Andrew Cruickshank Released: 21st April Extras: 4 discs Item# 74186 UK | 1963-64 | SIMP | 500 | | B&W | Cert PG

While the kids succumbed to Beatlemania, their elders tuned in avidly to the reassuring stories set in the doctor’s surgery in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae. Spun-off from AJ Cronin’s novella, Country Doctor, Dr Finlay’s Casebook series eschewed the hospital melodramatics of its US counterpart, Dr Kildare, but the storylines could be sufficiently racy to garner audiences of 12 million. Alas, of the 40 episodes of the second series, broadcast between 1963-64, only the 10 contained here survived the dreaded BBC wipe. However, from the moment Trevor Duncan’s iconic theme strikes up, it’s like stepping back into a 1960s the history books have forgotten. A paternity mystery gets things off to a lively start in A Time for Laughing, while a spate of disease among the womenfolk dominates Cup, Hands or Cards. Then the focus falls on hygiene in Clean Sweep and The Red Herring, as Bill Simpson’s Dr Finlay locks horns with his backward-looking nemesis, Dr Snoddie (Eric Woodburn). DP

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RRP: £34.99 Save £7

Page 25


Television Honey West

All 30 episodes from the first weekly American TV drama to feature a female detective. Anne Francis stars as the woman who inherits the family detective business from her father. In spite of using some of Hollywood’s top scriptwriters, Honey West only lasted one season and this box set is a tribute to this stylish show which blazed a trail for female investigators. 4 discs; Episode of Burke’s Law.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan

The gardens of Heligan in Cornwall were a thriving paradise until the Great War killed most of the gardening staff and the grounds fell into decay. The 1990s saw archaeologist Tim Smit set about restoring them to their former glory, his efforts described by The Times as ‘the garden restoration of the century’. This film, based on the C4 series, charts the development of the garden over a 12 month cycle.

USA | 1965 | RENOWN | 769 | Cert PG Item# 73888 | RRP £29.99 | Out Now

UK | 1996 | DAZZL | 90 | Cert E Item# 74074 | RRP £19.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £24.99

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Return to the Lost Gardens of Heligan

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

Barbara Flynn narrates this second visit to the gardens of Heligan, two years on from the original renovation, with 1998’s wet summer bringing a threat to Heligan’s rare and precious species. New faces join the gardening team, and the fate of many of Heligan’s original gardening staff on the field of Flanders is revealed.

Every episode of the BBC detective drama starring Nathaniel Parker as the aristocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley, and Sharon Small as the feisty, working-class Sergeant Barbara Havers. Available as a complete 12 disc box set or as separate two series volumes. UK | 2007 | ACORN | 2087 | Cert 12 Item# Various | RRP £79.99 | 14th April

S1+2 DVD: £28.49 S3+4 DVD: £24.99 S5+6 DVD: £17.99 S1-6 DVD: £64.49

Simon Cellan Jones

A brand new six-part mini-series set during the 1890s gold rush. Richard Madden plays the ambitious young man desperate to leave New York and make a name for himself. He sets off for the Yukon to stake his claim on untapped gold in the hills near Dawson City. The journey is long and arduous, but the real 3 discs. danger begins when he arrives. USA / Canada | 2014 | E1 | 272 | Cert 15 Item# 74247 | RRP £24.99 | 5th May

Page 26

Five feature-length murder mysteries from series 16 of Britain’s best-loved detective series: Let us Prey, The Christmas Haunting, WIld Harvest, The Flying Club, and the 100th episode, The Killings of Copenhagen. Neil Dudgeon stars as DCI John Barnaby, with Gwilym Lee as DS Charlie Nelson.

Our DVD Price: £12.99 each

Law and Disorder: Complete

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Alex Pillai

UK | 2014 | ACORN | 90 | Cert 12 Item# Various | RRP £17.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £17.99

UK | 1994 | NWORK | 150 | Cert PG Item# 74014 | RRP £12.99 | 5th May

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Midsomer Murders: Series 16 Episodes

Klondike

Penelope Keith stars as a high-flying, no-nonsense barrister who rarely loses a case and certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly in this cleverly scripted sitcom produced by John Howard Davies. Guest stars include Philip Glenister and Tony Selby.

UK | 1998 | DAZZL | 90 | Cert E Item# 74075 | RRP £19.99 | Out Now

The Mistress: Series 1 & 2 The complete 1980s BBC sitcom starring Felicity Kendal as a carefree single woman who embarks on an affair with a married man. The man’s wife (Jane Asher), occasionally stumbles dangerously close to the 2 discs. truth.

UK | 1987 | SIMP | 340 | Cert PG Item# 74067 | RRP £29.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £24.49

Railway Journeys With series two of Great Continental Railway Journeys arriving on DVD this month, we round up the range of Michael Portillo’s highly-popular travelogues.

Great Continental Railway Journeys: Series 2 This second series features six hour-long episodes covering six different journeys: Madrid to Gibraltar, Turin to Venice, Dresden to Kiel, Copenhagen to Oslo, Prague to Munich and Bordeaux to Bilbao. 2 discs. Item# 73837 UK | 2013 | 360 | E | £24.99

DVD: £19.99 Save £5

Great Continental Railway Journeys: Series 1 Portillo traverses France, Hungary, Austria and Germany. 2 discs. Item# 71522 UK | 2012 | 300 | E | £19.99

DVD: £10.99 Save £9

Great British Railway Journeys: Series 1 All 20 episodes of the first series that sees Michael Portillo, Bradshaw’s in 4 discs. hand, traverse Britain. Item# 64377 UK | 2010 | 600 | E | £34.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £20

Great British Railway Journeys: Series 2 Twenty-five more journeys, including Brighton to Cromer, Ayr to Skye and Ledbury to Holyhead. 5 discs. Item# 66914 UK | 2011 | 725 | E | £39.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £20

Great British Railway Journeys: Series 3 All 25 episodes from the third series, with railway journeys in England, Wales and Ireland. 5 discs. Item# 70070 UK | 2012 | 725 | E | £39.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £20

Great British Railway Journeys: Series 4 Portillo travels coast to coast across Britain in twenty-five more fascinating railway journeys. 5 discs. Item# 73532 UK | 2013 | 724 | E | £39.99

DVD: £24.99 Save £15

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Acorn TV Sale Settle down on the sofa for our sale of excellent TV, old and new, from Acorn. Featuring detectives of all flavours, period dramas from around the world, a smattering of comedy, drama and even a life-changing documentary - this sale is packed with terrific series to enjoy.

Crime and food fill these Italian crime dramas, filmed in Sicily and based on the series of novels by Andrea Camilleri. Each volume contains four feature-length mysteries.

Strumpet City Tony Barry

Z Cars: Collection One

Set in Dublin during the General Strike and the Lockout of 1913, RTÉ’s excellent adaptation of James Plunkett’s novel shows life in Ireland in the turbulent years prior to the Easter Rising. 2 discs.

Six colour episodes from the classic British police drama series with the unforgettable theme tune, originally broadcast in 1972. James Ellis (1931-2014) stars. 2 discs.

Item# 34157 Ireland | 1980 | 359 | PG | £19.99

Item# 72089 UK | 1972 | 360 | 12 | £19.99

S1-6 DVD: £11.99 each Save £8 each

DVD: £8.99 Save £11

DVD: £12.99 Save £7

The Bletchley Circle

Jack Rosenthal at the BBC

North and South

Item# Various Italy | 1999-2011 | subt | 15 | £19.99

ITV drama series following a group of women WWII codebreakers as they attempt to use their skills to track down a serial killer. Item# 69816 / 73546 UK | 2012 | 150 | 15 | £17.99

The Evacuees, Bar Mitzvah Boy, Spend Spend Spend, Eskimo Day, Cold Enough for Snow. 5 discs. Item# 64779 UK | 1975-1997 | 408 | 15 | £35.99

Patrick Stewart and Rosalie Shanks star in this 1975 adaptation of the novel about the working poor by Elizabeth Gaskell. 2 discs. Item# 72032 UK | 1975 | 200 | PG | £19.99

DVD: £18.99 Save £17

DVD: £11.99 Save £8

Campion: Complete

The Power of Myth

All 16 episodes of the popular aristocratic detective series starring Peter Davison as the affable Albert 4 discs. Campion.

Joseph Campbell presents a powerful, sustained and gripping vision of the role that myth plays in our lives. Essential. 2 discs.

The Paul Temple Collection

Item# 54328 UK | 1990 | 856 | TBA | £29.99

Item# 65493 USA | 1988 | 342 | E | £19.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £15

DVD: £9.99 Save £10

The Far Pavilions

Just William: Series 1

The Politician’s Wife

A star-studded cast plays out this epic adaptation of MM Kaye’s tale of love in imperial 19th century India. 2 discs.

Martin Jarvis narrates the adventures of William Brown – schoolboy, rebel and leader of the Outlaws – in these tales from Richmal Crompton.

Juliet Stevenson plays the woman out for political and personal revenge after her MP husband (Trevor Eve) is exposed for an affair.

Item# 9725 UK | 1983 | 310 | PG | £19.99

Item# 63973 UK | 2010 | 200 | PG | £17.99

Item# 65496 UK | 1995 | 186 | 18 | £17.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

DVD: £6.99 Save £11

DVD: £11.99 Save £6

The Genius of Design

Karaoke / Cold Lazarus

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Reality and fantasy blur in this pairing of Dennis Potter’s two TV dramas starring Albert Finney. 4 discs.

Scottish TV’s satisfying adaptation of Muriel Spark’s novel, starring Geraldine McEwan. 2 discs.

Item# 61768 / 61772 UK | 1996 | 430 | 15 | £39.99

Item# 70266 UK | 1978 | 362 | 12 | £19.99

DVD: £17.99 Save £22 Karaoke DVD: £10.99

DVD: £11.99 Save £8

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

The Shell Seekers

S1 DVD: £11.99 S1&2 DVD: £17.99

The story of design from the Industrial Revolution, taking in 1920s modernism, the 1960s, the designer 80s and the present day. 2 discs. Item# 61254 UK | 2009 | 300 | E | £19.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £11

The Good Life All the episodes from the charming 1970s self-sufficiency sitcom starring Felicity Kendal, Richard Briers, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington. Item# Various UK | 1975 | 196 | PG | £19.99

S1-4: £11.99 each Complete: £27.99

Joan Plowright stars as the elegant septuagenarian widow in this heartwarming tale of an unlikely friendship. Item# 54692 UK | 2005 | 103 | PG | £16.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £9

All the surviving colour episodes from the BBC series. Francis Matthews 4 discs. and Ros Drinkwater star. Item# 59117 UK | 1971 | 546 | 12 | £34.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £20

Dir: Piers Haggard. Vanessa Redgrave takes the lead as a woman who discovers that a painting of her father’s is worth a small fortune. Item# 50925 UK | 2006 | 176 | 12 | £16.99

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Inspector Montalbano: Collections 1-6


Television

Stage

Documentaries

Outnumbered: Series 5

New Releases

New Releases

Don Quixote: Royal Ballet

The Empire’s Shield

The Brockmans return, older but no wiser, in the comedy that celebrates the daily chaos of family life. The parents (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis) face new challenges: Karen has started secondary school, Ben has grown into a huge 13 year-old grappling with pubescent lust and man-traps, while Jake 2 discs. hovers on the brink of adulthood.

Carlos Acosta’s first venture into directing one of ballet’s 19th century classics was eagerly anticipated, as was his own starring role in the production (as Basilio), opposite the Argentinian Royal Ballet principal Marianela Nuñez (Kitri), and he did not disappoint.

UK | 2014 | 2ENT | Cert 12 Item# 73896 / 73895 | RRP £19.99 | Out Now

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UK | 2013 | OPUS | 125 | Cert E Item# 74240 / 74244 | RRP £24.99 | 31st March

Stalag Luft

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Adrian Shergold A Yorkshire TV movie scripted by David Nobbs, in which a group of Allied prisoners take over a PoW camp after their German captors flee. With no Germans, some of the captives have to act as guards and some as prisoners – but will this convince the visiting SS? The cast includes Stephen Fry, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Hugh Bonneville and Geoffrey Palmer. UK | 1993 | SpiritStrawberry | 102 | Cert PG Item# 74097 | RRP £12.99 | 12th May

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Turandot

All three made-for-TV intelligence thrillers starring Bill Nighy as longserving MI5 officer Johnny Worricker – Page Eight, (2011), Turks & Caicos (2014) and Salting the Battlefield (2014). The supporting cast includes Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph 3 discs; Cast and crew interviews.

UK | 2011-14 | UPV | 290 | Cert 15 Item# 74301 | RRP £29.99 | 21st April

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The Wyvern Mystery Alex Pillai

A two-part BBC miniseries based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic gothic novel. Derek Jacobi plays Squire Fairfield, who finds himself uncontrollably attracted to a young woman (Naomi Watts) he adopted after causing her father’s death. UK | 2000 | IMC | 120 | Cert 12 Item# 73994 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

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A set featuring recent productions from leading opera houses. Contains Idomeneo (Salzburg), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (DNO), Le Nozze di Figaro (Paris National Opera), Don Giovanni (Teatro Real), La Clemenza di Tito (Paris National Opera), Così fan tutte (Gylnedourne) and Die 13 discs. Zauberflöte (La Scala).

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David Hare

Fiennes.

Mozart: The Great Operas

Italy / Germany | 2004-11 | OPUS | 1460 | Cert E Item# 73884 | RRP £69.99 | Out Now

The Worricker Trilogy

The definitive silent documentary of the contribution made by the Royal Navy during the Great War. The film was made in 1919 and this is its first release on DVD. 11 chapters take viewers from the training of naval cadets to missions at sea.

Carlos Acosta

Andrei Serban Henrik Nánási conducts the Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra in this 2013 production of Puccini’s Chinese opera that sees Prince Calaf attempt to win Princess Turandot’s heart. Lise Lindstrom and Marco Berti sing the lead roles. UK | 2013 | OPUS | 125 | Cert E Item# 74231 / 74232 | RRP £24.99 | 31st March

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Can’t find the TV series you want? We don’t only sell what we can fit in this monthly catalogue – we can supply any film or TV series on DVD or Blu-ray in print in the UK. So, if you’d like another series, or something else entirely, get in touch and we’ll try to find it for you.

UK | 1919 | C-RED | 152 | Cert E Item# 74316 | RRP £16.99 | 28th April

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A History of Dance on Screen Reiner E. Moritz

A documentary which asks how the media has influenced dance in the 20th century. Along with contemporary interviews, the film contains an impressive amount of archive footage of some of the great dancers. 2014 | ART-H | 90 | Cert E Item# 74057 | RRP £15.99 | Out Now

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Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi Godfrey Reggio

A double bill of mesmerising cinematic essays documenting human society’s shift from living in nature to living in technology: Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Powaqqatsi (1988). The first concentrates on America, contrasting its natural beauty with a technology dependent population, while the second focuses on cultures that are being eroding by 2 discs; the encroaching modern world. Booklet. Also available on DVD for £9.99 USA | 1983-88 | ARROW | 179 | Cert PG Item# 74317 | RRP £34.99 | 21st April

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Tinker

Herbert Marshall Strikingly filmed with a non-professional cast on location in the mining communities of Durham by Günther Krampf (Pandora’s Box), this 1949 docu-drama depicts the struggles of a gypsy’s son who enrols on a training scheme in the newly nationalised coal industry. A beautifully realised film long that is overdue reappraisal. UK | 1949 | RENOWN | 73 | Cert TBC Item# 74087 | RRP £12.99 | 25th April

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Celebrating Children in Cinema The Night of the Hunter

Small Change

Charles Laughton

An irresistible exploration of childhood in France. Each story takes the view from a child’s eyes, ranging from two weeks to 14 years old. A thoroughly charming tribute to the worlds of children.

A magnificent, visually ravishing southern Gothic masterpiece in which Robert Mitchum’s wicked preacher thinks a cellmate’s children know the whereabouts of his stash. Item# 6882 / 72952 USA | 1955 | 89 | B&W | 12 | £12.99

François Truffaut

Item# 14354 France | 1976 | 103 | subt | PG | £15.99

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The Cement Garden

Kes

Dir: Andrew Birkin. This adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel tells a tale of childhood survival in a moral wasteland. Charlotte Gainsbourg stars.

Dir: Ken Loach. A lonely boy trains a kestrel in this classic of British cinema, which is still Loach’s bestknown and best-loved film.

Item# 54288 UK | 1993 | 101 | 15 | £15.99

Item# 12272 UK | 1969 | 106 | B&W | PG | £15.99

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The Childhood of Maxim Gorky

Kikujiro

Dir: Mark Donskoi. The vibrant first part of Donskoi’s ‘Gorky Trilogy’, about the youth of the great novelist. Item# 68524 Russia | 1938 | 98 | B&W | | £24.99

Dir: Takeshi Kitano. A retired Yakuza is forced to help a young boy to find his mother in this comic Japanese odyssey. Item# 18499 Japan | 1998 | 117 | 12 | £15.99

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Emil and the Detectives

Moonrise Kingdom

Two adaptations of Erich Kastner’s much-loved children’s book, from Germany (1931) and England (1935). Item# 71911 Germany / UK | 1931-35 | 69 | B&W | U | £19.99

Dir: Wes Anderson. A touching coming-of-age comedy set one summer in 1965, when two precocious 12 year-olds run away together. Item# 69103 / 69104 USA | 2012 | 94 | 12 | £15.99

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Forbidden Games

My Life as a Dog

Dir: René Clément. An orphan girl and her friend create a secret world for themselves in WWII France. An exquisite study of innocence.

Dir: Lasse Hallström. An enchanting, bittersweet film set in 1950s Sweden, where a young boy is sent to spend the summer with his uncle.

Item# 70048 / 70049 1952 | 85 | subt | BW | 12 | £15.99

Item# 22574 Sweden | 1985 | 97 | subt | PG | £19.99

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Hope and Glory

Nobody Knows

Dir: John Boorman. Liberation from the ordinary marks this portrait of Boorman’s own childhood set against a background of London at war.

Dir: Hirokazu Kore-Eda. A tender film about abandoned children which highlights the richness of shared lives. An exceptional film.

Item# 23507 UK | 1987 | 108 | 15 | £12.99

Item# 22394 Japan | 2004 | 140 | subt | 12 | £19.99

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A Story of Children and Film Recommended

Director: Mark Cousins Released: 28th April

Extras: Making-of documentary Item# 73939 UK | 2013 | DOGW | 101 | Cert E

Inspired by the range of emotions on show in a short home movie of his young niece and nephew playing, Mark Cousins has created an evocative patchwork of childhood seen through the lens, narratively linked through his contagious cinephilia. It is, as the title makes clear, not ‘the’ story of children in film; instead, it is more personal and partial, a series of tones and colours on the experience of growing up. Contending that most of the best films about childhood are little-known or long-unseen, Cousins has ranged far and wide for our enjoyment. Expected favourites such as The Night of the Hunter, The Red Balloon and The Spirit of the Beehive take their place alongside some amazing clips of films from Albania, Sweden and Latvia, India, Iran and Senegal as he explores themes of shyness, stroppiness, performance, adventure, loneliness, loss and dreaming. It’s a satisfying take on a vast subject that will give you an irresistible urge to revisit the films that are available, and lament the lack of others which really should be. GH

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Inspired by the release of Mark Cousins’ enthralling new documentary about children in film, we have collected together some of the best for this special offer, which – like Cousins’ film – ranges right across the many experiences of childhood portrayed in cinema. The films are ostensibly about children, but make no mistake – they are richly rewarding for all.


Contemporary Film English Language Films, 1970 – present

New Releases All Is Lost

J.C. Chandor Robert Redford stars in this open-water thriller about one man’s battle for survival against the elements after his sailing boat is hulled in a collision with a shipping container. This is a gripping, visceral tribute to intuition, ingenuity and resilience. USA | 2013 | UPV | 106 | Cert 12 Item# 73722 / 73723 | RRP £19.99 | 28th April

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The Atom Egoyan Collection Seven films from the Armenian-Canadian filmmaker whose films often confront questions of truth, justice and ethnic and sexual identity: Next of Kin (1984), Family Viewing (1988), Speaking Parts (1989), The Adjuster (1991), Calendar (1993), Exotica (1994) and The 7 discs. Sweet Hereafter (1997).

Item# 73965 UK | 1953-85 | BFI | 182 | Cert U

Child of God James Franco

The story of a violent dispossessed man, who, successively deprived of parents and home and with few other ties, descends to the level of a cave dweller as he falls into degradation and crime. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel. USA | 2013 | SIGNA | 90 | Cert 18 Item# 74248 | RRP £14.99 | 28th April

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Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell Terence Fisher

This final film in Hammer’s Frankenstein cycle – and director Terence Fisher’s final film too – stars Peter Cushing as the Baron, who takes on an apprentice (Shane Briant) in the asylum where he continues his experiments into re-animating the 3 discs; Commentary; Featurettes. dead.

Page 30

Starring: Gary Kemp, Roy Dotrice, Sydney Tafler Extras: Illustrated booklet

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Recommended Contains: Johnny on the Run (Lewis Gilbert, 1953), Hide and Seek (David Eady, 1979) and Terry on the Fence (Frank Godwin, 1986) Released: 21st April

Canada | 1984-1997 | ART-E | Cert 18 Item# 73935 / 73910 | RRP £49.99 | 14th April

UK | 1973 | ICON | 89 | Cert 15 Item# 74111 | RRP £24.99 | 28th April

CFF Collection: Runaways

As the title suggests, the BFI’s latest forage into the archives of the Children’s Film Foundation gathers three films about junior fugitives; it shows a (slightly) harder edge to the Foundation. We begin with Johnny on the Run, about a young Polish war orphan who flees his loveless Scottish foster mother, only to encounter a criminal who drags him up to the highlands. There’s more criminality in Hide and Seek, in which a pre-Spandau Ballet Gary Kemp helps a young runaway looking for his dad and foils a bank robbery in the process. This is one of the CFF’s very best efforts, a well plotted romp with some surprisingly emotional moments. Finally, there’s Terry on the Fence in which 11 year-old Terry falls in with a gang of big boys who pressure him into committing petty crime. This was the most hard-boiled film the CFF ever made and the only one with swearing: words like ‘bloody’ and (brace yourself) ‘wally’ are employed. Don’t let the foul language deter you: this is another excellent set. JO

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The Railway Man Recommended Director: Jonathan Teplitzky Starring: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman Released: 5th May Extras: Interviews with director and actors Item# 74034 Australia / UK | 2013 | LGATE | 116 | Cert 15

If there’s one emotion Colin Firth has always played supremely well, it’s barely repressed trauma. In The Railway Man, little appears to be wrong at first. Firth’s Eric Lomax is introduced using his timetabling knowledge to woo divorcee Nicole Kidman on a train crossing the Lake District in the 1980s. We may expect the film to turn into a genteel romance – but the apparition of a Japanese PoW camp officer in the couple’s honeymoon suite hints that all isn’t well within Lomax’s psyche. Flashbacks detail the experiences of the younger Lomax (Jeremy Irvine) in a labour camp shortly after the fall of Singapore. From this point on, the film proceeds on two tracks, wondering what happened to Lomax to leave his middle-aged self in such a state, and what this older Lomax will do with the knowledge that one of his captors is still out there. Adapted from Lomax’s bestselling autobiography, the story has been told with honour and integrity, with its director navigating shifts in time, tone and genre to arrive at a convincing point of closure. MM

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April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Nymphomaniac: Vols I & II Recommended Director: Lars von Trier Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, Uma Thurman, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin Released: 28th April Extras: 2 discs. Item# 74146 | Denmark | 2013 | ART-E | 240 | Cert 18

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Item# 74147 Denmark | 2013 | 240 | 18 | £29.99

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See Also Antichrist

Lars von Trier

Item# 60454 Denmark / Germany / Sweden | 2009 | 104 | 18 | £15.99

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I Am Curious Yellow / Blue Vilgot Sjöman

Item# 30179 Sweden | 1967-8 | 220 | subt | B&W | 15 | £19.99

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Jeune & Jolie François Ozon

Item# 73741 France | 2013 | 94 | subt | 18 | £19.99

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ymphomaniac is Lars von Trier’s most complete examination of a woman yet. In part, the film(s) can be approached as a compendium of sex, structured along familiar porno lines. These are the bedtime stories of the wounded Jo (Charlotte Gainsbourg), as told to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), the bookish cove who finds her unconscious on the street one evening. Volume 1 describes the sexual awakening and first fumblings of the teenage Jo (the game Stacy Martin); Volume 2, a descent into more extreme forms of coitus. There is, inevitably, a lot of sex: good sex, bad sex, angry sex, risky sex, displacement sex, sex with unusual objects and sex with unlikelier men. The surprise is that Nymphomaniac should also penetrate further than this. There are wild, funny digressions on cake forks, mathematics and fly-fishing, while a plethora of puzzles, riddles and rhymes come to interrupt or overlay the action. Much of this is witty and engaging, something like Peter Greenaway or a Godard movie with a sense of humour, yet it’s also the project that confirms von Trier’s self-professed feminism – his claim he is his much-abused female protagonists – as problematic indeed.

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Lars von Trier’s ticklish, draining, filthy and multifaceted film True, Nymphomaniac gives Jo agency, a voice, an education, multiple orgasms, even, finally, the right to say no. Yet Volume 2 makes for a punishing experience for viewer and protagonist alike, casting the masochistic Gainsbourg out to cruise for a bruising she may or may not want, and which the film isn’t entirely unsure she might deserve. Still, even as he’s leading us up this tricky blind alley, von Trier commits to his own storytelling, and there is undeniable skill in the film’s underlying mechanisms of tension and release. For such a totemic arthouse figure, von Trier remains resolutely punk: the one thing the sex here isn’t is pretty or glossy. Stripping back the set dressing refocuses the gaze on the performers, and while most of them are allowed to retain some dignity, von Trier continues to pull unexpected things out of them all. You emerge from Nymphomaniac feeling both tickled and manipulated, drained and crushed. Just don’t anticipate simple cheap thrills. Mike McCahill Page 31


Nymphomaniac



Contemporary House of Whipcord

Paper Moon

Pete Walker

Peter Bogdanovich

An infamous exploitation classic from producer and director Pete Walker (Man of Violence, Die Screaming Marianne), in which a writer takes a beautiful French model (Penny Irving) home to meet his strict parents, who keep a dungeon for wicked young women. UK | 1974 | ODEON | 102 | Cert 18 Item# 68905 / 74280 | RRP £12.99 | 12th May

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USA | 1973 | Parovisie | 102 Item# 73873 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

Kill Your Darlings John Krokidas

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Daniel Radcliffe stars as Beat icon Allen Ginsberg in this true story of obsession and murder set during the poet’s early years at Columbia University, where his handsome classmate Lucien, who introduces him to William Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), is the unwilling love interest of an older man (Michael C. Hall). USA | 2013 | UPV | 104 | Cert 15 Item# 73700 / 73701 | RRP £15.99 | 21st April

Ben Stiller

Stiller directs and stars in this re-imagining of James Thurber’s story in which Walter Mitty escapes his mundane life by disappearing ito daydreams of heroic acts and fantastic adventures in which he always gets the girl (Kristen Wiig).

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Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Sextette

Justin Chadwick

Ken Hughes

A celebratory biopic of Nelson Mandela that follows his extraordinary journey from a childhood in a rural South African village through to his election as President of South Africa. It also explores the little-known Mandela – the lady’s man, lover of fancy cars, boxing enthusiast and skilful lawyer. Idris Elba stars. USA | 2013 | FOX | 147 | Cert 12 Item# 74117 / 74116 | RRP £19.99 | 28th April

Mae West’s 1978 musical comedy in which the legendary Hollywood figure arrives at a lavish hotel to celebrate her honeymoon with her sixth husband (Timothy Dalton) but is interrupted at every turn. Cameos include Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon. USA | 1978 | SIMP | 91 | Cert PG Item# 74064 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

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Anthony Sloman

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

USA | 2013 | FOX | 114 | Cert PG Item# 74068 / 74123 | RRP £19.99 | 21st April

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Not Tonight Darling

Limited Stocks

Real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal star as Moze and Addie – a fraudulent bible salesman and a tough little girl who could be his daughter – in this film set during the Depression. Beautifully filmed in blackand-white by Laszlo Kovacs, this is one of the Dutch great American films of the 1970s. Region 2 edition, playable in all UK DVD players; Original English with optional subtitles.

Sisters

Brian De Palma

1970s sexploitation thriller starring Luan Peters as a housewife who finds herself drawn into an underground world of orgies, pornography and blackmail when she tires of suburban mundanity and her husband’s inattention.

A 1973 suspense thriller with Hitchcock and Polanski in its DNA. Margot Kidder plays the woman who takes her boyfriend home, only to attract the fatal ire of her twin sister. A reporter witnesses the murder – but where’s the evidence? 2 discs; High Definition transfer; Booklet.

UK | 1971 | SIMP | 90 | Cert 18 Item# 74033 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

USA | 1973 | ARROW | 90 | Cert 15 Item# 74277 | RRP £24.99 | 14th April

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Page 34

That Sinking Feeling Recommended Director: Bill Forsyth Released: 21st April Extras: 2 discs; Commentary by Bill Forsyth and Mark Kermode; Interview with actor Robert Buchanan; Short films starring Bill Forsyth: KH-4 (Schorstein, 1969) and Mirror (Schorstein, 1970); Glasgow 1980 (Marzaroli, 1971): documentary edited by Bill Forsyth; Islands of the West (Forsyth, 1972); Bill Forsyth BAFTA Film (2009); Kermode Uncut with Bill Forsyth (2012); Alternative dubbed dialogue track; Booklet. Item# 73966 UK | 1979 | BFI | 93 | Cert 12

Bill Forsyth’s debut feature is a rare achievement: a feelgood crime caper set in grim surroundings, made on an unfeasibly low budget of £5,000. Unemployed teenager Ronnie and his equally directionless pals mope around a muddy-wet, late-seventies Glasgow looking for a break before hatching a plan to steal a load of stainless steel sinks from a local factory. The results play out like a comic, bargain-basement Rififi, as the hapless, harmless neds carry out their dodgy heist and figure out what to do with the spoils. Cheap and cheerful, That Sinking Feeling is alive with inventive gags and non-sequiturs and features unaffected performances from its Glasgow Youth Theatre cast. A cheeky antidote to ‘kitchen sink’ realism, there’s more infectious energy here than in many Hollywood comedies. This release restores the film’s original cut and, importantly, its Glaswegian dialogue track. JU

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April 2014 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Art Also Released... All the Way Up

James MacTaggart

Item# 73924 UK | 1970 | 94 | 12 | £9.99

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47 Ronin

American Hustle Recommended Director: David O. Russell Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner

Carl Rinsch

Item# 73861 USA | 2013 | 119 | 12 | £19.99

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Back to the Garden Jon Sanders

Item# 74310 UK | 2013 | 91 | 12 | £15.99

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The Beast Within

Released: 28th April Item# 74307 USA | 2013 | EV | 138 | Cert 15

Hollywood’s favourite mad scientist David O. Russell has ably followed his Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook with a terrifically entertaining caper based on the exploits of con artists in 1970s New York. Not since Boogie Nights has there been this much polyester and hairspray visible on screen to embellish an apparently true story: that of two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) who, in the late 1970s, found themselves recruited by an ambitious Federal agent (Bradley Cooper) to take down the corrupt mayor of New Jersey. Throwing together twin pairs of actors who’ve previously fizzed under the observance of this director – Bale and Adams from 2010’s volatile The Fighter and Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence from Playbook – makes for electric moviemaking. It isn’t enough now to say that Russell is an actor’s director: he’s a one-man Large Hadron collider, smashing stars together to tremendous effect. Some films don’t require a star rating, but a Geiger counter – and American Hustle registers as mostly off-the-scale. MM

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Philippe Mora

Item# 74278 USA | 1982 | 90 | 18 | £24.99

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The Good Man Phil Harrison

Item# 74133 UK / South Africa / Ireland | 2012 | 75 | | £15.99

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Honour

Shan Khan

Item# 74205 UK | 2013 | 104 | 15 | £12.99

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The Hills Have Eyes: Part 2 Wes Craven

Item# 74162 USA | 1984 | 90 | 18 | £14.99

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Magic Magic Sebastián Silva

Item# 73878 Chile | 2013 | 98 | 15 | £15.99

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Blu-rays Get Carter

Mike Hodges

Item# 74353 UK | 1971 | 107 | 18 | £17.99

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The Phantom of the Opera Dwight H. Little

Item# 74267 USA | 1989 | 93 | 15 | £14.99

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Theatre of Blood Douglas Hickox

Item# 74270 UK | 1973 | 100 | 15 | £24.99

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New Releases Art21: Time / Compassion

Two volumes in the Art21 series, in which artists talk about their work. Time explores the theme of temporality in the work of Martin Puryear, Paul Pfeiffer, Vija Celmins, and Tim Hawkinson, while Compassion explores the role of empathy in the work of Doris Salcedo, Carrie Mae Weems and William Kentridge. UK | 2014 | I-MIN | 55 | Cert E Item# 73876 / 73899 | RRP £17.99 | Out Now

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Art Lives: Botticelli’s Drawings for the Divine Comedy Ben McPherson

A film that explores the series of drawings Sandro Botticelli created to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy for the Medici family, an exploration that takes us through hell and purgatory to paradise. UK | 2014 | I-MIN | 60 | Cert E Item# 74213 | RRP £17.99 | Out Now

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Art Lives: The Real Rembrandt Kees van Langeraad

Scientific methods of verifying works of art have drastically reduced the number of paintings attributed to Rembrandt (1606-69). This film looks at modern verification techniques as well as providing an art historical overview of his work. UK | 2014 | I-MIN | 54 | Cert E Item# 74210 | RRP £17.99 | Out Now

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Nicky Hamlyn: Selected Works 1974–2012 A comprehensive collection of films from one of the UK’s key artist filmmakers of the past 30 years. Contains 12 of Hamlyn’s films from Silver Street (1974), That Has Been (1984) and Minutiae (1990) to Zöetrope (2008), Tobacco Shed (2010) and Transits of Venus (2012).

UK | 1974-2012 | LUX | 117 | E Item# 74026 | RRP £20.00 | Out Now

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Page 35


James Oliver’s From the Cheap Seats

Shadows in Hollywood Image from The Curse of the Cat People

I

t says something about the triumph of the Auteur theory that while directors are lionised by cineastes as the ‘authors’ of the film, the producers – who very often played a bigger role in moulding the material (and who, in Hollywood, often told the ‘auteurs’ what to do) – are relegated to the footnotes. The career of Val Lewton, though, is the fascinating exception to that dismal rule. While he worked with notable directors (Jacques Tourneur and Robert Wise ain’t exactly chopped liver), it is he, the producer, that gets most of the credit for the films they made together. Lewton came to Hollywood as story editor for David O Selznick and was elevated to producer by RKO. The studio was on the skids after allowing Orson Welles to indulge himself; they needed to make money fast and gave Lewton a specific brief. He was to produce low budget horror pictures – nothing fancy, no ‘art’ or anything like that. Just cheap fodder for the yahoos. It didn’t quite work out like that. Right from the start, Lewton showed he had his own ideas about horror. In outline, his first picture, Cat People (finally available on UK DVD) ticks all the exploitation film boxes: it concerns a woman who fears she will turn into a panther if she is ‘intimate’ with a man. The results, however, were something else again. Lewton’s was the horror of suggestion. Lacking the budget for convincing effects, he moved the monsters off-screen, allowing audiences to imagine things far worse than he could ever show. But what began as an economic decision developed into a stylistic choice. Lewton’s later films become ever more radical, eliminating overt supernatural elements such as those in Cat People

No one made pictures like Val Lewton, who perfected the cinema of suggestion until, in films such as The Seventh Victim and Isle of the Dead, any horror was located almost entirely in the human mind. In what might be his greatest film, The Curse of the Cat People (reviewed on page 6), the ‘horror’, such as it is, is explicitly the product of a troubled imagination – in this case that of an introverted little girl who’s created an imaginary friend for herself. (The title, incidentally, totally misrepresents what is, at heart, a remarkably sensitive film.) It’s worth noting that these films were made, and proved highly successful, during wartime. And yet they’re a world away from the gung-ho, ra-ra films we associate with that era. Indeed, Lewton’s films contain what might be the only negative portrayals of men in uniform Hollywood put on screen during the war – an unhinged merchant ship captain in The Ghost Ship and a progressively loopy Greek general in Isle of the Dead. OK, neither was part of the then-contemporary military hierarchy but this was still subversive stuff in the age of military

deification. Were these films, and their success, a subconscious reaction to the newsreels? Certainly their popularity dropped as the war ended: the last, Bedlam, was filming as news of the Japanese surrender came through. But that doesn’t explain why they continue to beguile. Perhaps it’s the mood: these are films where atmosphere triumphs over plot. They’re far closer to the work of Jean Cocteau (who made La Belle et la Bête in 1946, the year that Lewton left RKO) than conventional horror. No one made pictures like Lewton. That’s why he’s still remembered.

Related Films Cat People

Jacques Tourneur

Item# 73830 USA | 1942 | 70 | PG | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Isle of the Dead Mark Robson

Item# 65488 USA | 1945 | 69 |15 | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

The Leopard Man Jacques Tourneur

Item# 68759 USA | 1943 | 66 | PG | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

The Seventh Victim Mark Robson

Item# 63454 USA | 1943 | 71 | 12 | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

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New on the MovieMail Website Highlights • Coppers and Spies: The Evolution of the British Action Hero – Marking the restored release of The Professionals, Frank Collins revisits Britain’s classic crime and spy dramas in a new series • Crash Courses – David Parkinson helps you out with the lowdown on the Children’s Film Foundation and Cannes Festival • Top 10s, with clips – Trucking Movies (yes, really) and Federico Fellini • The Essentials: 21st Century Directors You Need To Know About – Mike McCahill profiles the key filmmakers of our time • New podcast – Graeme looks at the legendary influential film producer, Val Lewton, creator of poetic horror • World Tour – David Parkinson’s World Tour continues, profiling cinema-producing countries and finding out what makes each one of them unique. Next up are North Korea, Belgium and Venezuala • The A-Z of Forgotten British Film – Julian Upton continues his series, highlighting forgotten British movies • Cinema reviews – Calvary, We Are The Best!, Exhibition, Transcendence and more

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Flying Down to Rio Delight in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ first screen pairing – one of three Ginger Rogers films released this month, see page 11

Flying Down to Rio Thornton Freeland Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers began their screen partnership as the sidekicks in this glorious musical romance in which a love triangle is set up when an heiress (Dolores Del Rio) sets her cap at an aviator (Gene Raymond). The film’s non-stop visual delights include the show-stopping ‘Carioca’ in which audiences were first enchanted by the golden couple of movie dancing, and the finale in which dancers perform on aeroplanes’ wings. Item# 73848 USA | 1933 | 85 | B&W | U | £12.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £3


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