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August 2011
Monthly Film Catalogue
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Carmen
Franceso Rosi’s sumptuous and stirring adaptation
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Over 265 films Deep End Top 10 Spy Films Terence Rattigan The Power of Myth A High Wind in Jamaica
m Fi er l In m Ho si Sa lid de le a ys
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About MovieMail Moviemail Team Q. With our Summer Holidays offer on pages 16-17, our question fits the season: ‘Suggest a film that, for you, best evokes summer’
Dan Hunter Editor Stephen Speilberg’s Jaws
It’s the year of our fifteenth 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 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.
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The Monthly Film Catalogue Graeme Hobbs Writer Ingmar Bergman’s Summer with Monika
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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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
MovieMail News
A
s we were putting this catalogue together, news came through of the government’s closure of the COI – the Central Office of Information – an organisation set up in 1946 to produce public information films and government publicity campaigns. This unpromising remit nevertheless served to produce some of the most indelible images and campaigns in our national history. Unfortunately, the time for this method of communication seems to have passed, so we are left to celebrate the many great films they produced. I sometimes think that documentaries are Britain’s most distinguished and most overlooked contribution to film
Contents Film of the Month 5 Deep End Carmen
10
Classic Movies
A High Wind in Jamaica Beyond a Reasonable Doubt culture. Fortunately, the BFI is doing a grand job of making many of the best British documentaries available through their collections of, among others, British Transport Films and COI films. Enjoy your films,
13
Animation My Dog Tulip
Documentaries
16
The Power of Myth
18
Television Spiral Terence Rattigan
Gay and Lesbian 22 A. Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night
Blu-ray
22
Contemporary
26
Submarine
Contributors Alex Davidson (Alain Resnais’ Providence) Alex is a Web Producer for the BFI website. As well as contributing articles and reviews for a number of BFI publications, he is now working on the re-launch of www.bfi.org.uk, due later in 2011. He is currently working on a book focusing on gay and lesbian cinema.
From the Cheap Seats
30
Order Form
31
Special Offers New Wave Sale
Michael Bartlett (Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between) writes for close-upfilm.com and Screenonline
Vacances de M. Hulot) is a film critic and historian with a number of books on cinema to his name.
Michael Brooke (Jiri Menzel’s Capricious Summer) has a blog over at michaelbrooke.com/kinoblog/
Nick Riddle (Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock) is an editor at Bristol University.
Barry Forshaw (Bergman’s Summer with Monika) has written a number of film books and edits Crime Time.
Julian Upton (Joseph Losey’s Accident) wrote Fallen Stars. Offbeat is due out later this year.
James Oliver (Stephen Speilberg’s Jaws) is a freelance film writer
Milo Wakelin (Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man) writes on film for Gay Times
David Parkinson (Jacques Tati’s Les
6
World Cinema
Enquiries info@moviemail-online.co.uk
9
Film First
14
Tony Palmer
15
Summer Hols
16-17
Classic British TV 23 Top 10 Spy Films 25 Medieval Cinema 27 Page 3
Get more from Current Top 10 Chart MovieMail
1 Un Homme et une Femme
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Key to MovieMail Recommended Recommended by MovieMail is a collection of the very best DVDs. Visit www.moviemail-online.co.uk/ recommended for the full archive
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Dir: Claude Lelouch. A wonderful Oscar and Palme d’Or winning romantic drama, Un Homme et une Femme stars Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widowed man and woman who meet by chance. Item # 64869 France | 1966 | WHVFrance | 104 min | subt | | £15.99
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2 Deep End
Jerzy Skolimowski’s darkly poetic portrait of Britain in an era of uncertainty and changing sexual mores, Deep End sees Mike take a job at a London swimming baths where he develops an obsessive interest in the self-assured Susan (Jane Asher). A long-overdue release, beautifully restored. Item # 65809 UK | 1970 | BFI | 91 min | 15 | £19.99
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3 The Music Lovers
‘The story of the marriage between a homosexual and a nymphomaniac,’ said Ken Russell of his film about Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky. Richard Chamberlain takes the lead as the closet homosexual who, in order to obtain social acceptance, marries a sexually demanding woman (Glenda Jackson). Item # 65140 UK | 1970 | FCE | 123 min | 18 | £15.99
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4 A High Wind in Jamaica
An acclaimed pirate adventure classic for the whole family, this is based on Richard Hughes’s 1929 novel and transformed into a magnificent film adaptation by revered director Alexander Mackendrick. Item # 65623 UK | 1965 | EUREK | 104 min | PG | £15.99
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5 Carmen
8 The Clairvoyant
6 Summer Storm
9 Speech
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7
True Grit DVD: £11.99 Save £8
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The King’s
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10 Volume 2
Look at Life: DVD: £17.99 Save £12
Reader Feedback Steve Payne got in touch with a possible answer to Dan’s French film query – Étienne Chatiliez’s film Le Bonheur est dans le Pré; He says, ‘I remember it well, with the hospital scenes after a heart attack, and the helicopter ending. Oh yes, and Eric Cantona as a rugby player! Unfortunately, Dan doesn’t think that it’s the one. Any other ideas? Steve also has a query of his own: ‘It’s a contemporary (or 1980s) noir set in the NE American seaboard, probably Maine, involving a malicious old gossip who abuses the party line telephone and causes a murder (or is murdered herself). It’s called something like Party Line or The Gossip and it was screened on C4 years ago. Please email feedback@moviemail-online.co.uk or send us a postcard.
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Names of the Month: Charles McGraw, John Moulder-Brown, George Sanders
Bonus Points
August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
MovieMail’s Film of the Month
Deep End Recommended Director: Jerzy Skolimowski Starring: Jane Asher, Diana Dors, John Moulder-Brown Released: 18th July DVD Extras: 2 discs; Restoration; Starting Out: The Making of Deep End (2011, 73 mins); Deleted Scenes; Careless Love (Winham, 1977) – a rare film starring Jane Asher; Booklet. Item # 65809 | UK | 1970 | BFI | 91 min | Cert 15 |
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Limited Edition Deep End
Limited 3-disc collector’s edition, as above plus Recalling Deep End (2011, 25 mins): Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown interviewed onstage. Item # 66002 1970 | 91 min | 15 | £22.99
DVD+Blu-ray Price: £13.99
See Also Blow-Up
M Antonioni
Item # 17230 | UK | 1966 | WHV | 106 min | 15 | £12.99
Our DVD Price: £11.99
F
or the last 20 years or so, frustratingly, Deep End has been available only via bootleg video. But even on fizzy VHS, in its vivid use of primary colours and bold evocation of a run-down London, it was still a striking viewing experience. A prime example of what Robert Murphy called the ‘antiSwinging London’ film (although many of its exterior scenes were shot in Munich on account of its part-German financing), Deep End catches the grubbiness of its era with the visual absurdity and mordant humour we have come to associate with its Polish émigré director, Jerzy Skolimowski. But back in 1970 it defied categorisation somewhat. If it was intended as a ‘British sex comedy’, then it is certainly unlike anything else from that once-ubiquitous genre. The story sees wet-behind-the-ears school-leaver Mike (a hormonal John Moulder-Brown) start a job at a crummy London bath house. His co-worker is the slightly older and sexually experienced Susan (Jane Asher, at her most provocative). Susan suggests Mike swaps his male clients for her female ones, in order for
A long-overdue release of this darkly poetic portrait of Britain them both to make better tips. Mike agrees, but then develops an increasingly obsessive crush on Susan. Not surprisingly, given its premise and setting, Deep End pulsates with sexuality. But the sex here is rarely joyful; it is tawdry, unwanted or dishonest. All around Mike there are predatory or cynical attitudes to it, from the overheated, middle-aged female patrons of the bath house (cue Diana Dors, in a hilarious if now rather dodgy cameo appearance) to the (equally dodgy) antics of the ‘touchy-feely’ male swimming instructor. The real eroticism in the film radiates from Asher. She and Moulder-Brown are good together, and there is a playful chemistry to their schizoid relationship. Before it turns ugly, that is. Deep End’s release on DVD & Blu-ray has been long overdue, so it’s hats off to the BFI. Few films on their ‘Flipside’ label have been more deserving. Julian Upton
Enquiries info@moviemail-online.co.uk
Page 5
World Cinema Films in a Foreign Language
New Releases 1612
Vladimir Khotinenko A Russian historical action-adventure set in the 17th century, in which imposters lay claim to the throne after the Tsar dies. The husband of the true heir wants the throne for himself, and a bloody battle develops between Russians and Poles for control of the country. Russia | 2007 | ARROW | 144 min | subt | Cert 18 Item # 65779 | RRP £12.99 | Released 18th July
Our DVD Price: £9.99
Andrei Tarkovsky Collection All seven of Tarkovsky’s masterpieces in one set: Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalgia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986). All films except Nostalgia and The Sacrifice have been digi7 discs; tally restored. Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky (Trakovsky, 2008). Russia | 1986 | ART-E | subt | Cert 15 Item # 62620 | RRP £59.99 | Released 27th June
Our DVD Price: £42.99
Black Sheep
Sergey Chekalov Russian WWII drama. At the height of their country’s battle with the Nazi invaders, seven prisoners escape from a brutal Soviet penitentiary – and taking shelter in a village, soon find themselves defending the country that had left them to rot. Ru | 2010 | AB | 119 min | sub | 15 Item # 65546-47 | RRP £12.99 | Released 11th July
DVD Price: £9.99 Blu-ray: £12.99
Szindbád
Zoltán Huszárik One of the great ‘lost’ masterpieces of international cinema, Huszárik’s 1971 film is a surreal, stylized film depicting the life and loves of traveller and womanizer Szindbád as he contemplates his life of hedonism. A filmic elegy that evokes time and memory to extraordinary effect.
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Recommended
Elegy.
Love Like Poison Recommended
Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
Director: Katell Quillévéré
Starring: Vincent Gallo, Emmanuelle Seigner
Starring: Clara Augarde, Michel Galabru
Released: 11th July
Released: 25th July
Item # 65480/78 Poland | 2010 | ART-E | 84 min | Cert 15
Item # 65486 | France | 2010 | ART-E | 92 min | subt | Cert 15
It’s always been hard to pigeonhole Polish maverick Jerzy Skolimowski (Deep End), and his latest film sees him breaking new ground yet again. Almost dialogue-free, it’s about a man plucked from his native country – possibly Afghanistan, certainly hot and dry – and plunged into the middle of wintry Poland and forced to survive on his own wits, barefoot in sub-zero temperatures. Despite not uttering a coherent sound, a heavily bearded Vincent Gallo is mesmerising in the lead, reducing himself to the purest animal instincts as he ruthlessly does whatever it takes to stay alive. Skolimowski stresses the physicality of his situation, the snow and ice beautiful in long shot but potentially deadly up close. As it progresses, Adam Sikora’s ravishing images and Pawel Mykietyn’s haunting score turn the film into something increasingly surreal. The climactic shot of a white horse stained with fresh blood owes as much to painting as cinema, while an encounter with a female cyclist is positively Buñuelesque – few other directors would have dared bring off something so audacious, and yet so psychologically convincing. MB
Director Katell Quillévéré and actress Clara Augarde both make their feature debuts in this hugely impressive feature following a summer in the life of Anna, a 14 year-old girl home from boarding school. She discovers her father has left for another woman, and her mother has an infatuation with the local priest who prepares Anna for confirmation. Meanwhile, she develops a strong bond with her ailing grandfather and a teenage boy from her village. Quillévéré’s portrait of adolescence is far more than a simple coming-ofage story. As well as the advent of sexual maturity, approached with a frankness one would never see outside of European cinema, Love Like Poison (named after a Serge Gainsbourg song) also follows the development – or disillusionment? – of Anna’s relationship with religion. But the film’s heart is in the often lovely, occasionally shocking scenes between Anna and her grandfather, played by veteran actor Michel Galabru. The intimate love between the pair is beautifully portrayed. The film bears comparison with the work of Maurice Pialat, with which it shares themes of religion, burgeoning sexuality and small-town life. AD
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Hungary | 1971 | 2RUN | 90 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 64819 | RRP £12.99 | Released 11th July
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Essential Killing
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
Carmen Recommended Director: Francesco Rosi Starring: Plácido Domingo, Julia Migenes Released: 18th July DVD Extras: 2 discs; Extensively restored; Carmen: A Shooting Diary; A Propos de Carmen. Item # 65551 | France / Italy | 1984 | 2ND | 149 min | subt | Cert PG
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Also on Blu-ray Carmen
Item # 65550 | France / Italy | 1984 | 2ND | 149 min | subt | PG | £19.99
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See Also Carmen Jones Otto Preminger
Item # 17227 | USA | 1954 | BFI | 105 min | U | £19.99
Our DVD Price: £14.99
Carmen (Glyndebourne) David McVicar
Item # 32418 OPUS | 220 min | E | £29.99
Our DVD Price: £23.99
Don Giovanni Joseph Losey
Item # 52717 | Italy | 1979 | 2ND | 169 min | 12 | £24.99
Our DVD Price: £9.99
he combination of the director of some of the grittiest political dramas of the 1960s and 70s and one of the best-loved of all great 19th century operas seems wildly counterintuitive, but it works like a dream on screen. The polar opposite of Ingmar Bergman’s theatrically stylised The Magic Flute in all respects save artistic and musical merit, Francesco Rosi’s Carmen is mainly shot outdoors in sun-bleached Spanish locations (by Pasqualino De Santis, who also shot Visconti’s Death in Venice), returning the opera to its roots in Andalusian folklore by way of Prosper Mérimée’s novella. It remains true to Bizet’s then-controversial stipulation that it include spoken dialogue in between the arias, duets and choruses. The composer, like Rosi, intended to bring then-unprecedented realism to the normally rarefied world of opera, and one feels that he would have thoroughly approved of this treatment. Disconcertingly, there’s no music at all in the first four minutes. Instead, we watch toreador Escamillo (Ruggero Raimondi, Losey’s Don Giovanni) preparing for the kill in slow motion, the overture exploding into coruscating life as the bull collapses, in the process supplying a powerful metaphor
Newly restored, Rosi’s accessible opera film is a real tour de force that runs through the rest of the film. A natural soprano, Julia Migenes retrained her voice to tackle a demanding mezzo part in order to snare the title role, and turned out to be perfectly cast: her Carmen is feisty, fiercely independent and unforgettably sensual, never more so than when she sings and dances the famous Habanera. It’s easy to see why Plácido Domingo’s hapless Don José (a part he knew inside out thanks to having already performed it 150 times) falls head over heels for her, and also why she has no difficulty spurning his advances: naturally, she prefers the dashing Escamillo, with inevitably tragic consequences. As one would expect, Rosi is acutely alert to the piece’s sociological aspects, but he also knows when to foreground Bizet’s contribution, and the cast, the Orchestre National de France and Le Choeur de Radio France under conductor Lorin Maazel rise magnificently to the occasion. Michael Brooke
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Page 7
World Cinema Hiroshima Mon Amour
Police Story
Alain Resnais
Jackie Chan
A story of love and memory set in Hiroshima in the late 1950s where a French film actress (Emmanuelle Riva), shamed by her treatment as a collaborator, meets a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada), devastated by the Bomb. They struggle to find a place to inhabit between the shifts of history and their own impulses. A truly amazing debut feature.
HK | 1987 | SB | 96 min | subt | 15 Item # 65667 | RRP £17.99 | Released 1st August
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France | 1959 | OPTIM | 86 min | subt | Cert PG Item # 65750 | RRP £15.99 | Released 25th July
The Silent House
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Kolya
Jan Sverák Moving and beautiful, this Oscar-winning comedy drama set in Prague stars Zdenek Sverák as a middle-aged philandering cellist who is forced into a marriage of convenience. Then his Russian wife leaves him, and he is left with her 5 year-old son, with whom he shares no common language. Czech Republic | 1996 | LGATE | 101 min | subt | Cert 12 Item # 65373 | RRP £19.99 | Released 9th May
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Night and Fog Resnais’ evocation of the Holocaust was commissioned by the French Committee for the History of WWII. A combination of footage shot by Allied troops as they liberated the camps and colour footage of a 1950s tour of Auschwitz, it features images beyond words. France | 1955 | OPTIM | 30 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 65760 | RRP £15.99 | Released 25th July
Hailed as one of the most groundbreaking horror films since The Blair Witch Project, this Uruguayan movie, filmed entirely on a hand-held camera in an uninterrupted single take, promises ‘real fear in real time’ and shows the disturbing events that befall a father and daughter in a remote house.
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, Kenichi Matsuyama
Uruguay | 2010 | OPTIM | 86 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 65904 / 65897 | RRP £17.99 | Out 1st August
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The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell Quincas Wateryell may have been an embarrassment to his middle-class family but he was a hero to the poor in the Bahia slums. After his death, two ‘families’ battle to pay him final tribute. A Brazilian film based on Jorge Amado’s 1959 novella. Brazil | 2010 | OPTIM | 97 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 65784 / 65950 | RRP £17.99 | Out 1st August
Ward No.6
Patagonia
Alex Gornovsky
Marc Evans A road movie for romantics which follows the journeys of two women – one travelling south to north through the Welsh springtime and the other east to west through the Argentine autumn. It is a film of intimate moments played out against sweeping landscapes, complemented by a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. Argentina / UK | 2010 | VER | 118 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 65477 / 79 | RRP £15.99 | Out 11th July
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Recommended Director: Tran Anh Hung
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Norwegian Wood
Gustavo Hernandez
Sérgio Machado
Alain Resnais
Page 8
Jackie Chan’s breakthrough movie is simply one of the best streetfighting and martial arts movies around. It sees him play an incorruptible cop who is assigned to protect a key witness in a drugs trial. Features breathtaking fights and incredible stunts.
On the outskirts of Moscow, Dr. Ragin presides over a mental hospital where his intellectual stimulation comes from philosophical debates with a highly intelligent but deeply disturbed patient. In time, however, Gromov’s madness begins to rub off on Dr. Ragin. A bold new take on Chekhov’s short story, which updates its 19th century setting to the present. Russia | 2009 | ART-E | 83 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 65578 | RRP £15.99 | Released 11th July
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Released: 4th July Item # 65725 / 27 Japan | 2010 | Soda | 133 min | subt | 15
Haruki Murakami’s wildly popular 1987 novel is a poignant tale of longing, loss and literature set during the student unrest of 1960s Japan. This hauntingly beautiful adaptation by Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya) distils its essence into a series of vignettes, with dreamlike cinematography by Ping Bin Lee and an evocative score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Shaken by the death of his best friend, Kizuki, Toru embarks on an uncertain relationhip with Kuzuki’s troubled former girlfriend, Naoko. When Naoko retreats to recover in rural sanitorum, Toru befriends a fellow student, the vivacious Midori. With sensitive lead performances from Matsuyama and Kikuchi (who was Oscar-nominated for her role in Babel), the film stays true to the novel’s melancholy spirit. Completists may mourn missing material, but Hung has chosen to bring Murakami’s words to life through visual poetry which includes Tarkovsky-like shots of landscapes and nature, and the film’s immaculate period detail underscores its themes of nostalgia and regret. AB
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
World Cinema DVD Sale
Father
First class international cinema from the boutique publisher
Starring: András Bálint, Miklós Gábor Released: 25th July DVD Extras: Director Interview. Item # 65202 Hung | 1966 | 2RUN | 99 min | subt | B&W | 15
The Hungarian New Wave must be the least known of the great 1960s film revolutions, thanks to inadequate distribution rather than lack of merit. A case in point: István Szabó’s superb second feature, a major prizewinner at the time, but unfairly forgotten in the wake of the director’s post-Mephisto international success. Shot and edited with all the effervescent brio of early Truffaut, it’s essentially a more politicised Hungarian take on Billy Liar. Young Bence Takó has few genuine memories of his surgeon father following the latter’s unexpected death, but is more than happy to reinvent him as a heroic political activist, partisan fighter and even proto-Schindler. He clings to this myth into adulthood, not because he truly believes it, but because he hopes that even this fictionalised glory will somehow rub off on him. Although he denies that his film is autobiographical, Szabó is the same age, his own father died young, and his recreation of 1940s-50s Hungary is peppered with imaginative touches clearly drawn from vivid experience, making this poignant story both intimate and powerful. MB
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A Christmas Tale Arnaud Desplechin A dysfunctional French family gathers for Christmas in this quick-witted, wild and impressionistic film, brimming with life and laughter. Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric headline a strong cast. Item # 57856 Fra | 2008 | NW | 153 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
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35 Shots of Rum Dir: Claire Denis. A beautifully crafted dissection of familial ties in which a father and daughter’s bond is threatened by a young man’s arrival. Item # 59501 France | 2008 | NW | 100 min | subt | 12 | £19.99
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Alamar Dir: Pedro González-Rubio. A beautiful film set on the Banco Chinchorro off the Mexican coast, where a father and young son spend the summer. Item # 64079 Mexico | 2009 | NW | 73 min | subt | U | £15.99
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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives A Weerasethakul A beautiful, mysterious film from an ingenious director, which sees a dying man cared for by the ghost of his deceased wife and his long lost son. Item # 63968 Thai | 2010 | NW | 114 min | subt | 12 | £15.99
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Three Films by Straub and Huillet Contains The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), Sicilia! (1999), Une Visite au Louvre (2004). Item # 60569 Var | 2004 | NW | 219 min | subt | 12 | £19.99
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The Time That Remains Dir: Elia Suleiman. A film based on Suleiman’s father’s memoirs, presided over by the spirits of Keaton and Tati. Item # 62875 UK / It | 2009 | NW | 110 min | subt | 15 | £15.99
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The Headless Woman
Tulpan
Dir: Lucrecia Martel. An intriguing and mysterious tale of a woman who is obsessed with the thought that she may have committed a crime.
Dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy. A lovely Kazakh comedy film which will appeal to anyone who was charmed by The Story of the Weeping Camel.
Item # 62012 Argentina | 2008 | NW | 87 min | subt | 12 | £19.99
Item # 61161 2008 | NW | 103 min | subt | 12 | £15.99
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The Silence of Lorna
Unrelated
Dir: Luc Dardenne. A realist psychological drama in which an Albanian woman is stuck in a marriage of convenience with a Belgian junkie.
A woman is forced to confront inner sadness when she holidays in Tuscany with an old friend’s family. By Joanna Hogg, the director of Archipelago.
Item # 57828 Belgium | 2008 | NW | 105 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
Item # 57152 UK | 2007 | NW | 100 min | 15 | £14.99
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Still Walking
Wild Grass
Beautiful cinema distilled to its essentials, channelling the spirit of Ozu, in which a family’s protective layers are slowly peeled away.
Dir: Alain Resnais. A wallet lost and found opens the door just a crack to an unpredictable romantic adventure in Resnais’ dextrous film.
Item # 61441 Japan | 2008 | NW | 114 min | subt | PG | £15.99
Item # 63162 France | 2009 | NW | 104 min | subt | 12 | £15.99
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Page 9
Offer ends 25th August or while stocks last
Recommended Director: Istvan Szabo
Classic Movies English Language Films, 1930 - 1969
A Damsel in Distress
New Releases 5th Avenue Girl Gregory La Cava
A sparkling screwball comedy starring Ginger Rogers as an unemployed young lady befriended by a lonely millionaire (Walter Connolly) who invites her into his family home, asking her to pretend to be his mistress so that his family will take notice of him again. Do they ever! USA | 1939 | ODEON | 83 min | Cert PG Item # 65654 | RRP £9.99 | Released 25th July
Classic 1952 Preminger thriller which sees Robert Mitchum’s ambulance driver ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but wilful Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons). When he tries to get away, she implicates him so deeply he’ll never escape.
USA | 1946 | RENOWN | 76 min | Cert U Item # 65647 | RRP £12.99 | Released 25th July
USA | 1952 | ODEON | 91 min | Cert PG Item # 65626 | RRP £9.99 | Released 11th July
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Deanna Durbin: Box Set 1
Armored Car Robbery Richard Fleischer
A brisk RKO movie that sees William Talman play a crook with a retirement scheme: rob an armoured car full of money and fly to the sun. He’s out of luck – the cops swing past, guns are fired, a policeman dies and the dead man’s friend (Charles McGraw) vows revenge.
Robert Wise
Based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story, ‘the screen’s last word in shock sensation’ sees Boris Karloff in one of his most chilling roles as the sinister ‘resurrection man’ of old Edinburgh. The movie also marked his final screen appearance with Bela Lugosi. USA | 1945 | ODEON | 79 min | PG Item # 65653 | RRP £9.99 | Released 11th July
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Page 10
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A 1941 musical starring Ann Todd as a successful singer who returns to Britain during the Blitz to find her ex-husband and son who have fallen on hard times. Features plenty of traditional songs, including Love’s Old Sweet Song, If Tears Could Bring You Back and Abide With Me.
Otto Preminger
The Body Snatcher
USA | 1937 | ODEON | 96 min | Cert U Item # 65631 | RRP £9.99 | Released 18th July
Oswald Mitchell
Angel Face
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A 1937 musical comedy from RKO in which Fred Astaire plays a dancing star who finds himself falling in love when he shares a cab with a beautiful young English woman (Joan Fontaine) – the daughter of an aristocrat who does not reveal her background. Real life husband-and-wife team George Burns and Gracie Allen also star.
Danny Boy
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USA | 1950 | ODEON | 65 min | Cert PG Item # 65646 | RRP £9.99 | Released 11th July
George Stevens
Five of Durbin’s most wellloved films: Three Smart Girls (Koster, 1936), One Hundred Men and a Girl (Koster, 1937), Mad About Music (Taurog, 1938), Because of Him (Wallace, 1946), and Christmas Holiday (Siodmak, 1944), in which she and Gene Kelly play against type as, respectively, a sleazy night-club chanteuse and 5 discs. convicted murderer. USA | 1936-46 | SIMP | 427 min | Cert PG Item # 65410 | RRP £34.99 | Released 1st August
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The Falcon in San Francisco Joseph H. Lewis
Debonair detective Tom ‘The Falcon’ Lawrence (Tom Conway) and his sidekick ‘Goldie’ Lock are back to face one of their most challenging cases, involving kidnapping, killing and a network of illegal silk smugglers. An explosive climax awaits their pleasure. USA | 1945 | ODEON | 66 min | Cert PG Item # 65637 | RRP £9.99 | Released 18th July
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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Recommended
Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Joan Fontaine, Dana Andrews Released: 18th July DVD Extras: Art card; Original trailer; Gallery. Item # 65847 | USA | 1956 | EXP-C | 80 min | | B&W | Cert PG
A terrific thriller with an ingenious twist, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt succeeds despite (or is it because of?) its rather far-fetched plot. Successful novelist Tom Garrett deliberately plants evidence to frame himself for a murder, so that he can expose the flaws in the capital punishment system. But his plan goes awry, and soon he’s facing the electric chair himself. Now, we’re used to seeing Lang’s protagonists as victims of cruel fate, but the fascination of this film lies in watching a man walk into a trap of his own making. The complicated narrative flows smoothly because Lang is at his most stripped-down aesthetically, reducing the story to basic elements with few directorial flourishes, the pieces locking into place as in a fiendish logic puzzle, a far cry from the florid excesses he’ll soon indulge in his Indian Epic. There’s an intriguing cast too, with Dana Andrews – Hollywood’s most underrated leading man – as Garrett, and Joan Fontaine, of all people, as his bewildered fiancee. MBa
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
A High Wind in Jamaica Recommended Director: Alexander Mackendrick Starring: Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Gert Fröbe, Nigel Davenport, Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova Released: 25th July DVD Extras: New high-definition transfer; Trailers. Item # 65623 | UK | 1965 | EUREK | 104 min | Cert PG
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See Also Mutiny on the Bounty Frank Lloyd
Item # 16248 | USA | 1935 | WHV | 132 min | B&W | 15 | £19.99
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Sammy Going South A Mackendrick
Item # 60742 | UK | 1963 | OPTIM | 118 min | PG | £15.99
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Swiss Family Robinson Ken Annakin
Item # 17456 | USA | 1960 | BUENA | 126 min | U | £15.99
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A
fter a hurricane hits their plantation in Jamaica, the Thornton family decide it would be best if their children were returned to Britain for a safer (and more decorous) upbringing. However, soon out of port, the ship they are travelling on is boarded by pirates who mean to make off with the ship’s cargo. But the pirates – headed by Cap’n Chavez (Anthony Quinn) – take on more than they realise. The children have managed to get themselves aboard the buccaneers' boat and must journey with the crew until they can be safely disposed of. As they sail further with the children, the crew starts to be affected by their presence and, moreover, Cap’n Chavez starts losing his appetite for plunder... This film adaptation of Richard Hughes’ classic novel of childhood dials back some of the harsher elements of the original book but skilfully avoids the syrup and sentimentality that too often blights films with kids. The film is much more than the simple adventure it initially promises to be – it sails into choppier waters and concludes with real pathos and heartbreak. Which is not to say it stints on the fun – how could it, with Anthony Quinn on such excellent form as Cap’n Chavez? Chewing
A magnificent family adventure adapted from a classic novel on a dodgy accent (his character claims to be from Columbia), Quinn dominates the film as only cinema’s greatest force of nature could. Always a generous actor, the mighty Quinn makes sure to leave room for the children to shine – notably little Deborah Baxter as Emily, the feisty lass who does most to change Chavez. (Trivia fans will be thrilled to know that one of the nippers is played by future novelist Martin Amis.) Alexander Mackendrick, of course, was a superlative director of children, as he had previously demonstrated in both Mandy (1952) and Sammy Going South (1963). A High Wind To Jamaica was the last film he made before retiring from frontline filmmaking and it has the same command of characterisation and tone that distinguishes his best work (The Man In The White Suit, The Maggie, Sweet Smell of Success). It looks gorgeous too, with Douglas Slocombe’s photography perfectly capturing the balmy Caribbean. James Oliver
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Page 11
Classic Movies Helter Skelter
Vampire Circus
Ralph Thomas
Robert W. Young
Chaotic comedy ensues when Carol Marsh’s heiress tries to rid herself of the hiccups! She is alternately aided and hindered in her quest by two guardian uncles and radio man Nick Martin (David Tomlinson). The film is notable for its many cameos from British comedy greats such as Terry-Thomas, Jon Pertwee, Jimmy Edwards and Mister Pastry.
UK | 1971 | SPIRT | 83 min | Cert 18 Item # 64348 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now
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USA | 1949 | SPIRT | 71 min | Cert U Item # 65177 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now
Went the Day Well?
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Alberto Cavalcanti
The Lavender Hill Mob Charles Crichton
One of the most affectionately remembered Ealing comedies, which sees Alec Guinness’s unassuming bank teller front a plan to turn gold bullion into Eiffel Tower paperweights. A beautiful crime beautifully played out. Tibby Clarke deservedly won an Oscar for the screenplay. Introduction by Martin Scorsese.
Thorley Walters, Adrienne Corri, Dave Prowse, John Moulder-Brown. A Hammer horror set in early 19th century Serbia, where an itinerant circus arrives in a small village. Rejoicing at their arrival turns to dread when the village’s children start to die mysteriously.
Restored;
UK | 1951 | OPTIM | 77 min | Cert U Item # 65768-67 | RRP £15.99 | Released 1st August
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The Narrow Margin
This classic propaganda thriller, based on a short story by Graham Greene, sees an undercover German platoon arrive in an English village to prepare for an invasion. A brilliant evocation of a nation at war and the at times brutal measures Restored; needed to overcome an enemy. Yellow Caesar (Cavalcanti, 1941); BBC Radio 3’s The Essay: British Cinema of the 1940s. UK | 1942 | OPTIM | 93 min | Cert PG Item # 65769-70 | RRP £15.99 | Released 25th July
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Stage
Richard Fleischer
One of the best hardboiled thrillers to come out of Hollywood. Charles McGraw plays the cop who has to escort a mobster’s wife on a train to the LA courtroom where she will testify against her late husband’s colleagues. But the mob don’t want her to spill the beans and they’ve planted men on the train... USA | 1952 | ODEON | 71 min | Cert PG Item # 65740 | RRP £9.99 | Released 25th July
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The Saint Strikes Back John Farrow
In his first shot at the role, George stars as ace crime-fighter Simon Templar. Here he gets mixed up with an investigation into a major crime syndicate – who is the mysterious ‘Waldeman’ who is terrorising San Francisco? USA | 1939 | ODEON | 64 min | Cert PG Item # 65639 | RRP £9.99 | Released 25th July
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Page 12
Last Night of the Proms 2010 A film of the magical evening, where tradition met high-jinks as Jirí Belohlávek conducted and the spirit of Henry Wood presided, as always, over the grand finale. Renée Fleming lent her lustrous soprano to music by Strauss and Dvorák, a new piece by Jonathan Dove opened the evening and traces of the season’s Wood, Parry, Wagner and Rodgers and Hammerstein themes ran throughout. UK | 2010 | 2ENT | Cert E Item # 65776 | RRP £19.99 | Released 18th July
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Pre-ordering from MovieMail If you see a DVD listed here that is due for release in the future you’re welcome to pre-order it from us. It will be delivered around the release date and your card only charged on despatch.
Kitty Foyle Recommended Director: Sam Wood Starring: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan Released: 18th July Item # 65648 | USA | 1940 | ODEON | 103 min | B&W | Cert PG
Ginger Rogers had never been entirely happy as the junior in a partnership with Fred Astaire and had always insisted on taking assignments away from their legendary RKO musicals. In 1941, she won the Academy Award for Sam Wood’s adaptation of Christopher Morley’s racy feminist novel, Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman, and finally convinced Hollywood of her worth as a legitimate actress. Rogers exudes the spirit of modern womanhood as she bounces back from her marital disappointment to forge a career at Odette Myrtil’s New York fashion house and win the heart of suave doctor James Craig. The Production Code forced screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to tone down some of the book’s more controversial incidents, but he still has Rogers face the prospect of being both a single mother and an adulteress. But this isn’t all about Ginger. The underrated Dennis Morgan also impresses as the spineless charmer whose offer of an escape to South America sparks the flashback that takes Rogers back to the early 1930s, when her father warned her about getting carried away with her fantasies. DP
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
Animation A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventure (3D) Ben Stassen
They Met in the Dark Recommended Director: Karel Lamac Starring: James Mason, David Farrar, Tom Walls, Joyce Howard, Finlay Currie
My Dog Tulip Recommended Director: Paul Fierlinger, Sandra Fierlinger
Belgium | 2010 | OPTIM | 85 min | Cert U Item # 65917 / 29 | RRP £17.99 | Out 18th July
Starring: Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave
DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £15.99
Released: 11th July DVD Extras: Making-of; Booklet; Stills gallery.
Released: 6th June
Item # 65483 | USA | 2009 | Axiom | 83 min | Cert 12
DVD Extras: Booklet; Best of British trailers.
Voiced by Christopher Plummer, with contributions from Isabella Rossellini and Lynn Redgrave, My Dog Tulip – based on JR Ackerley’s 1956 memoir about his 15-year relationship with his beloved Alsatian bitch – is an exquisite animation, an evocative time-capsule of postwar life, and a celebration of man’s best friend. Above all, it’s the most grown-up love story you’ll see all year. Like Chomet’s The Illusionist, it relates a story that would be moving in any medium, and whose characters feel as real as any live-action performance. Rich in emotional honesty but entirely shorn of sentiment, it is a world away from animated tropes of fantasy, fairytales and anthropomorphic animals. With its lonely protagonist and keen eye for period detail, it is a fine companion piece to The Illusionist, with Ackerley’s writing the antithesis of Tati’s bittersweet sentimentalism. The animation is impressive, with an expressive style moving between meticulous recreation of postwar Britain to sketchbook-style doodles, but when one discovers it was entirely drawn by a husband and wife team, it’s sensational. MW
Item # 65501 | UK | 1944 | ODEON | 91 min | B&W | Cert PG
This is the stuff! They Met in the Dark is a witty wartime espionage thriller setting James Mason on the trail of a fiendish Nazi fifth-column. Really, can one ask for more? Mason is Commander Richard Heritage; when a ship is lost as a result of his actions, he tells the court martial he followed the orders he was given and that they must have been tampered with. But since those ‘orders’ have now gone missing, he is found guilty. Busted down to civvy street, Heritage sets out to find out what really happened. With the help – and frequent hindrance – of Laura Verity (Joyce Howard), he discovers that the Hun are up to their old tricks and sets about putting a stop to their nonsense. This really is an uncommonly entertaining film, a sub-Hitchcockian romp that bounces along with such verve and good humour that it’s tempting to describe it as a minor classic. The semi-screwball romance of Howard and Mason is a pure delight, showing that there was much more to Mason than brooding. Quite charming. JO
A children’s adventure in which a sea-turtle’s quest for his lost love takes him on a voyage across the seas in a world under threat from human environmental pollution, where the oceans are a battleground between forces of nature and mankind. A top-class British cast 3D & 2D Versions. gives voice to characters.
Rango
Gore Verbinski Johnny Depp gives voice to the pet chameleon who dreams of being a hero. When he ends up in a gun-slinging town in the Mojave desert, he gets the chance to find out if he has what it takes! Bill Nighy and Ray Winstone also lend their voices. USA | 2011 | PARAH | 107 min | Cert PG Item # 65538 / 36 | RRP £19.99 | Released 25th July
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Art Body of Work: Five Films by Jo Ann Kaplan
A selection of Kaplan’s most personal films, including her authoritative biography of the filmmaker Maya Deren, narrated by Helen Mirren. Contains Invocation: Maya Deren, Story of I, Anatomy of Melancholy, OneTwoThree and Watching Paint Dry.
UK | 1986-2010 | LUX | 119 min | Cert E Item # 65575 | RRP £21.00 | Out Now
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Sarah Pucill: Selected Films Contain seven films spanning two decades of Pucill’s art: You Be Mother, Backcomb, Swollen Stigma, Cast, Stages of Mourning, Taking My Skin, and Phantom Rhapsody. Booklet.
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UK | 1990-2010 | LUX | 121 min | Item # 65574 | RRP £21.00 | Out Now
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Page 13
Documentaries “The Creative Interpretation of Actuality”
Camp Victory, Afghanistan
40s Britain: Fishermen at War
Four WWII documentaries from the Imperial War Museum Archive about the dangers faced by merchant seamen and the contribution to the war effort made by all civilian seamen. Contains Sailors Without Uniform (1940), Merchant Seamen (1941), Cornwall and Grimsby, Fishermen in Exile, Atlantic Trawler (1944). UK | 1940s | PANA | 63 min | Cert E Item # 65652 | RRP £19.99 | Released 23rd May
Britain in Colour in the 1930s A DVD collecting all the hand-coloured 1930s shorts from the Pathé Pictorial archive, films that showcase the natural beauty of Great Britain before the advent of colour film in Pathé newsreels. Bonus features: Around Britain 1930-59; Hometown – a series about various town centres in the 1950s. UK | 2011 | SFE | 74 min | Cert E Item # 65820 | RRP £14.99 | Released 25th July
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Highlighting great British cars, these DVDS – one for each decade, available separately – provide a nostalgic look at the years when the British motor industry was competitive in the world arena, with its wares on show at Earl’s Court, in Paris, Geneva, New York and Tokyo.
UK | 1950s | SFE | 72 min | Cert E Item # 65569-70 | RRP £14.99 | Released 31st May
Julia Bacha A film about the ongoing non-violent protest movement on the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. Showing the protests and the military response, the film shines a light on people choosing non-violence to confront a threat. Israel / USA | 2009 | DOGW | 82 min | subt | Cert E Item # 64032 | RRP £14.99 | Released 16th May
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Page 14
USA | 2010 | SAFEC | 90 min | Cert 15 Item # 65804 | RRP £19.99 | Released 15th August
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Neil Sean
A collection of fascinating, never-before-seen interviews by previous Doctors, actors, writers and contributors to Doctor Who, giving an intimate insight into the thoughts and ideas of the people who helped shape one of the most successful sci-fi series in the world. UK | 2011 | WIENR | 60 min | Cert E Item # 65838 | RRP £12.99 | Released 25th July
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British Motor Shows of the 1950s / 1960s
Budrus
Drawing on 300 hours of footage shot over three years, this documentary follows a battle-hardened Afghan Brigadier and the friendship he develops with an American Colonel enlisted to help him turn ragtag groups of uncertain men into the Afghan National Army. An intimate account of cultural and professional conflicts.
Doctor Who: Tales Lost in Time
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Carol Dysinger
Home Front Britain with Jim Carter
The complete six-part documentary series, born of a collaboration between the Discovery Channel and the British Film Institute, which looks at the British home front during WWII through archives of British wartime films and documentaries. 3 discs.
UK | 2009 | DEMAND | 270 min | Cert E Item # 65307 | RRP £19.99 | Released 18th April
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Set the Piano Stool on Fire Mark Kidel
A documentary hailed as one of the best films about pianists ever made, detailing the relationship between Alfred Brendel, one of the world’s great classical pianists, and his pupil, the brilliant and eccentric young BritishTaiwanese prodigy Kit Armstrong. A moving film about apprenticeship, in which a master passes on a life’s experience. 2010 | ART-E | 77 min | Cert U Item # 65492 | RRP £15.99 | Released 11th July
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– DVD SALE A rare chance to enjoy films from MovieMail’s publishing arm at bargain prices. Whether documentary or fiction, we liked them all so much that we wanted to make them available for others to enjoy.
I Was a Fireman Humphrey Jennings Three films from one of the great, poetic talents of British documentary film: Listen to Britain, I Was a Fireman, and Diary for Timothy. The Man Who Listened to Britain (Macdonald, 50 mins). Item # 54122 UK | 1942-44 | FILM | 184 min | E | RRP £15.99
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Betty’s Bath A fun, innocent collection of eight short films shot in Hollywood in the early 1920s featuring wannabe starlets with their clothes off. Item # 60453 USA | 1920s | 36 min | B&W | 18 | RRP £12.99
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Juno and the Paycock Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch’s powerful film, adapted from Sean O’Casey’s play, stars members of the original theatre production. Restored. Item # 63140 UK | 1930 | FF | 91 min | B&W | PG | RRP £12.99
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It Happened Here Dir: Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo. A remarkable re-creation of wartime Britain – under Nazi occupation. The film’s attention to detail is rigorous. Item # 25453 UK | 1964 | FF | 97 min | B&W | PG | RRP £12.99
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On the Black Hill Dir: Andrew Grieve. A superbly evocative adaptation of Bruce Chatwin’s novel set in the hills of the Welsh border country. Peter and Ben. Item # 52818 UK | 1987 | FILM | 110 min | 15 | RRP £12.99
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The Alcohol Years Dir: Carol Morley. A BAFTAnominated film about period in the 1980s that Morley spent in Manchester in a blur of inebriation. Item # 53009 UK | 2000-2004 | FILM | 79 min | 15 | RRP £9.99
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New Releases
August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
The Films of
Tony Palmer
Recommended Starring: Joseph Campbell Released: 20th June DVD Extras: 2 discs. Item # 65493 | USA | 1988 | ACORN | 342 min | Cert E
It was said that teacher and mythologist Joseph Campbell ‘could make the bones of folklore and anthropology live’, and this is exactly what he does in these interviews with journalist Bill Moyers, filmed during the last two summers of Campbell’s life. They find him eloquently presenting his ideas about the ongoing role of myths in human society. His desire for the subject stemmed from a deep need to understand the power of the legends of the human race and the recurrent themes that energize our imaginations. Indeed, he shows how a primal spiritual force is expressed in many manifestations across different cultures and religions. He also contends that people are stuck with old metaphors and myths that don’t fit their needs any more, and that as the world changes, new mythologies need to be created so that people can better interact with a changed world. Campbell maintained that ‘myths are clues to the rapture of being alive.’ Punctuated with insights born of deep learning and empathy, these life-enhancing discussions are also filled with such clues. GH
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Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was An in-depth film portrait of Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest English composers of the 20th century, including extracts from his works. Essential viewing for anyone interested in Britten’s music. Item # 55465 UK | 1979 | TONYP | 103 min | E | RRP £14.99
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Oh Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams Featuring newly discovered interviews with Williams, this is the first ever full-length biography of the great man. Item # 52827 UK | 2008 | TONYP | 129 min | E | RRP £14.99
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Brahms and the Little Singing Girls
Maria Callas: La Divina
A controversial portrait of Brahms that exploded the composer’s familiar image. Warren Mitchell stars.
The definitive documentary portrait of the operatic diva Maria Callas, the greatest singing actress of our time.
Item # 61189 UK | 1996 | TONYP | 90 min | E | RRP £13.99
Item # 51552 UK | 1987 | VOICE | 84 min | Cert E | RRP £14.99
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England, My England
Puccini
John Osborne and Charles Wood’s story of composer Henry Purcell. Simon Callow plays King Charles. Features the Monteverdi Choir.
Robert Stephens, Rupert Graves and Virginia McKenna star in the tragic story of the relationship between Giacomo Puccini and Doria Manfredi.
Item # 58531 UK | 1995 | TONYP | 153 min | 12 | RRP £14.99
Item # 54447 UK | 1984 | TONYP | 115 min | E | RRP £14.99
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The Harvest of Sorrow
Stravinsky: Once at a Border
The life story of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov, featuring John Gielgud reading from his journals.
A film about one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, including much unseen material.
Item # 59350 UK | 1998 | TONYP | 102 min | E | RRP £14.99
Item # 56287 UK | VOICE | 166 min | Cert E | RRP £14.99
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I, Berlioz
Testimony
One of Palmer’s personal favourites of his films, this film reawakens us to what an astonishingly fresh composer Hector Berlioz was.
Ben Kingsley turns in a superb performance in this dramatised account of the life of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich.
Item # 61183 UK | 1992 | TONYP | 88 min | E | RRP £13.99
Item # 57390 UK | 1987 | TONYP | 150 min | PG | RRP £14.99
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Margot
The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Filled with stunning archive footage, this film explores the grim reality behind this popular and beautiful ballerina’s extraordinary life. Item # 55464 UK | 2005 | TONYP | 163 min | E | RRP £14.99
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A complete, uninterrupted performance of Henryck Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony by the London Sinfonietta. Item # 51553 UK | 2007 | VOICE | 53 min | Cert E | RRP £13.99
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Page 15
Offer ends 25th August or while stocks last
The Power of Myth
Essential portrait films and documentaries of key composers, dancers and singers from the multi-award winning director
France
The UK
La Gloire de Mon Père
Heartbreaker
Tamara Drewe
Pascal Chaumeil
Stephen Frears
Yves Robert
A romantic comedy set in the glamorous environs of Monaco and starring Romain Duris as a handsome professional relationship breaker. Then, along comes love... Vanessa Paradis co-stars.
An idyllic Dorset village is set alight by the return of ugly duckling turned sex kitten Tamara in this darkly comic film based on Posy Simmonds’ Guardian comic strip. Gemma Arterton and Roger Allam star.
One of cinema’s finest evocations of childhood, from Marcel Pagnol’s memoirs in which he recalls a Provençal summer with warmth, humour and a love for lost youth.
Item # 63430 / 32 2010 | REV | 105 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
Item # 63954 UK | 2010 | MOMET | 111 min | 15 | RRP £17.99
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Coco Before Chanel
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday
The Bargee
Item # 17284 Fra | 1990 | SECND | 106 min | subt | U | £19.99
Dir: Anne Fontaine. A lavish biopic recounting the life and humble beginnings of legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel. Audrey Tautou stars. Item # 59856 Fra | 2009 | OPTIM | 110 min | subt | 12 | £19.99
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Eric Rohmer: Tales of the Four Seasons Four lovely French dramas: A Tale of Springtime, Winter’s Tale, Summer’s Tale, Autumn Tale. 4 discs.
Dir: Jacques Tati. A gentle, charming, languorous celebration of the yearly summer seaside holiday. Item # 63302 Fra | 1952 | BFI | 114 min | B&W | U | £19.99
Dir: Duncan Wood. Harry H. Corbett plays the self-styled ‘Casanova of the canals’ in this Galton & Simpson comedy set on English waterways. Item # 60781 UK | 1964 | OPTIM | 102 min | PG | RRP £15.99
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Paris
Bright Star
Dir: Cédric Klapisch. A beautiful film, full of ideas and humanity, that is both a study of a city and some of its inhabitants. Romain Duris stars.
Dir: Jane Campion. Ben Whishaw plays poet John Keats in this lovely film about his romance with Fanny Brawne in Hampstead Village.
Item # 55868 France | 2008 | OPT | 125 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
Item # 61078 UK | 2009 | FOX | 114 min | Cert PG | RRP £15.99
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The Greengage Summer
Pauline at the Beach
The Camomile Lawn
Dir: Eric Rohmer. 15 year-old Pauline joins her cousin for a seaside holiday, where her eyes are opened to the hypocrisy of adult sexual politics.
Dir: Peter Hall. Classic Cornish-set adaptation of Mary Wesley’s novel in which the coming of war brings cousins a heady sense of freedom.
Item # 26164 France | 1990-98 | ART | subt | 15 | £39.99
Dir: Lewis Gilbert. Susannah York plays the child who takes charge of her siblings adrift in France.
Item # 18744 Fra | 1982 | ARROW | 90 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
Item # 53492 UK | 1992 | 4DVD | 258 min | 15 | RRP £19.99
DVD: £5.99 Save £13
DVD: £6.99 Save £13
DVD: £7.99 Save £12
The Horseman on the Roof
Séraphine
Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island
Item # 59556 UK | 1961 | SPHE | 95 min | PG | RRP £12.99
Dir: Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Juliette Binoche stars in this sumptuous romantic adventure set in Provence. Item # 27090 Fra | 1995 | SECND | 130 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
Dir: Martin Provost. Award-winning French drama about the painter Séraphine de Senlis, notable for its beautiful filming of her landscape. Item # 60911 Fra | 2008 | MET-D | 126 min | subt | 12 | £15.99
Dir: Gerald Landau. Enid Blyton’s ripping tale of adventure, made on location on the Dorset coast. Item # 62344 UK | 1957 | BFI | 121 min | B&W | U | RRP £17.99
DVD: £7.99 Save £12
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Lourdes
A Year in Provence
sleep furiously
Dir: Jessica Hausner. Sylvie Testud stars in this award-wining minimalist satire about the recipient of an apparent miracle cure at Lourdes.
Dir: David Tucker. John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan play the couple who leave the rat race and head to the sunlight and food of southern France.
Dir: Gideon Koppel. A subtle, poetically-rendered portrait of a small farming community in mid-Wales where old ways of life are threatened.
Item # 62031 France | 2009 | ART-E | 99 min | U | RRP £15.99
Item # 54889 UK | 1993 | 2ND | 238 min | PG | RRP £15.99
Item # 60027 UK | 2008 | NW | 94 min | Cert U | RRP £19.99
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Asia
Y Tu Mamá También
Stealing Beauty
Blissfully Yours
Bernardo Bertolucci
A Weerasethakul
Alfonso Cuarón
Liv Tyler plays the virginal young American girl looking for love in Tuscany one summer in this subtle and highly sensuous film. Watching it is like taking an holiday in the Tuscan hills!
A beautiful, impressionist rendering of a lazy afternoon spent by a factory worker and an illegal Burmese immigrant beside a tropical river in the border region between Thailand and Burma.
Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Maribel Verdú star in this fresh, brazen and sexy film in which two teenage boys go on a summer road trip with an older, beautiful cousin.
Item # 18748 Italy | 1996 | 20CFX | 113 min | 18 | RRP £12.99
Item # 27827 Thai | 2002 | 2RUN | 122 min | subt | 18 | £12.99
DVD: £5.99 Save £7 Blu-ray: £7.99
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Easy Rider
La Dolce Vita
Dir: Dennis Hopper. The legendary road movie starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as the bikers who set out to find America.
A universally acclaimed morality play filled with gloriously memorable images in which Mastroianni plays a disillusioned journalist in Rome.
At the Height of Summer
# 4739 / 59315 USA | 1969 | COL | 91 min | 18 | £19.99
Item # 20041 Italy | 1960 | 174 min | subt | B&W | 15 | £19.99
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Journey to Italy
Mid-August Lunch
Black Narcissus
Dir: Roberto Rossellini. An English couple on the verge of divorce travel round Naples. Quietly absorbing, and a key work of modern cinema.
Dir: Gianni Di Gregorio. A charming, slice of life Italian comedy, in which a middle aged man looks after four elderly women in midsummer Rome.
Dir: Powell & Pressburger. The Himalayas work their mysterious magic on a group of Anglican nuns. Shot entirely at Pinewood, amazingly.
Item # 14960 Italy | 1953 | BFI | 80 min | B&W | PG | £19.99
Item # 60156 Italy | 2008 | ART-E | 75 min | subt | U | £15.99
Item # 23880 UK | 1947 | NWORK | 101 min | PG | RRP £19.99
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The Motorcycle Diaries
Summertime
Early Summer
Dir: David Lean. Katharine Hepburn plays the lonely American woman who finds romance on the trip of a lifetime to Venice.
Dir: Yasujiro Ozu. The second film in Ozu’s famed Noriko Trilogy as well as a bonus Ozu film – What Did the Lady Forget? (1937). 2 discs.
Item # 50960 / 62716 Mex | 2001 | 101 min | 18 | £12.99
Dir: Walter Salles. The gorgeouslyfilmed story of Che Guevara’s 1952 road-trip through Latin America.
Dir: Tran Anh Hung. A languorous, sensual Vietnamese family drama that is both evocative and tender. Item # 9316 Vietnam | 2000 | ART | 112 min | subt | PG | £19.99
DVD: £6.99 Save £13
Item # 50426 UK | 1955 | SECND | 116 min | U | RRP £19.99
Item # 60978 Jap | 1951 | BFI | 125 min | B&W | U | £19.99
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DVD: £7.99 Save £12
DVD+Blu-ray: £9.99 Save £10
Stand By Me
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Sinbad the Sailor
Item # 50879 / 57933 Arg | 2004 | 120 min | 15 | £19.99
Dir: Rob Reiner. Coming-of-age drama set in 1959 in which four friends go on an overnight camping trip to find a missing teenager’s body. Item # 8970 / 65582 US | 1986 | COL | 85 min | 15 | £12.99
DVD: £5.99 Save £7 Blu-ray: £12.99
Dir: Ermanno Olmi. An elegaic, Palme d’Or-winning portrait of peasant life in turn-of-the-century Lombardy. Item # 33019 Italy | 1978 | ARR | 179 min | subt | 12 | £19.99
Dir: Richard Wallace. Classic Arabian Nights swashbuckler. Douglas Fairbanks Jr plays Sinbad, Maureen O’Hara the beautiful Shireen. Item # 62770 USA | 1947 | ODEON | 116 min | PG | RRP £9.99
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The Straight Story
Under the Tuscan Sun
Tropical Malady
Dir: David Lynch. The true story of a pensioner who drives his lawnmower 300 miles across Iowa and Wisconsin to visit his ailing brother.
Dir: Audrey Wells. A feelgood romantic drama in which a blocked writer heads to Tuscany on a whim after her marriage breaks down.
Dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A mysterious and beautiful film of a love affair that takes us into the leafy depths of a Thai jungle.
Item # 53486 USA | 1999 | 4DVD | 107 min | U | RRP £15.99
Item # 19655 USA | 2003 | BUE | 108 min | 12 | RRP £15.99
Item # 55141 Thai | 2004 | 2RUN | 114 min | subt | 12 | £12.99
DVD: £5.99 Save £10
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DVD: £8.99 Save £4
Offer ends 25th August or while stocks last
Road Trip Italy
Television Programmes Originally Broadcast
New Releases
Doctor Who: Paradise Towers Nicholas Mallett
Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy and his assistant Bonnie Langford find themselves in a run-down 22nd century high-rise managed by dictatorial caretakers, its hallways roamed by girl gangs, and its apartments inhabited by cannibalistic old ladies. Featurettes.
Camelot: Season 1
A new dramatisation of the Arthurian legends starring Jamie Campbell Bower as King Arthur, Joseph Fiennes as the wizard Merlin, Tamsin Egerton as Guinevere and Eva Green as the sorceress Morgan. From the producers of The 3 discs. Tudors.
Ireland / USA / UK / Canada | 2011 | E1 | 500 min | Cert 15 Item # 65872 | RRP £29.99 | Released 1st August
Our DVD Price: £26.49
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Doctor Who: The Sun Makers Pennant Roberts
Case Histories
The TARDIS arrives on the now-inhabitable planet of Pluto where the omnipresent ‘Company’ exploits workers, pays them a pittance and taxes them on everything imaginable. The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) join forces with an underground band of rebels.
A character-driven crime drama series, adapted from three Kate Atkinson’s novels – Case Histories, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News? Jason Isaacs stars as Jackson Brodie, an ex-policeman turned private detective who is troubled by events in his personal life.
Featurettes.
Our DVD Price: £13.99
Doctor Who: Earth Story
Our DVD Price: £17.99
Rex Tucker
Coast: Series 6
The complete sixth series of the popular BBC documentary strand exploring the nature and history of all 9,000 miles of the British coastline. In this series, as well as exploring the British coast, the programme also travels to Scandinavia and 2 discs. Holland.
UK | 2011 | ACORN | 360 min | Cert E Item # 65777-78 | RRP £19.99 | Out 18th July
DVD Price: £13.99 Blu-ray: £17.99
Doctor Who - The New Series: 6, Part 1
Fifth and first Doctors Peter Davison and William Hartnell star in two stories – Awakening (1984), in which the Doctor finds himself in an English village in 1984 where an alien war machine is energy gathering, and The Gunfighters (1966), set in the wild west town of Tombstone, where the Doctor pays a visit to 2 discs; Featurettes. dentist Doc Holliday. UK | 1966; 1984 | 2ENT | Cert PG Item # 65801 | RRP £30.63 | Released 20th June
Our DVD Price: £22.99
The Doctor (Matt Smith) returns with newlyweds Amy and Rory to face monsters and mysteries across time and space in this new series, which finds them in 60s America, on a pirate ship and in a bubble universe at the edge of reality. 2 discs; Monster Files; Behind the scenes; Cast & crew interviews. UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 210 min | Cert 12 Item # 65366-67 | RRP £24.99 | Out 11th July
DVD Price: £17.99 Blu-ray: £22.99
Justified: Season 1 & 2 US crime drama starring Timothy Olyphant as Marshal Givens, consigned to a post in his childhood home of rural Kentucky after leaving Miami under a cloud of controversy. In the second season, two criminal factions go headto-head in a battle for 3 discs each. supremacy.
USA | 2011 | COL-T | 540 min | 15 Item # 64201 / 65597 | RRP £34.99 | 18th July
Our DVD Price: £29.49 each
Recommended Starring: Caroline Proust, Gregory Fitoussi Released: 1st August DVD Extras: 3 discs. Item # 65581 | France | 2010 | 2ENT | 624 min | subt | Cert 18
UK | 1977 | 2ENT | 99 min | Cert TBC Item # 65354 | RRP £19.99 | Released 1st August
UK | 2011 | G-VEN | 348 min | Cert 15 Item # 65605 | RRP £24.99 | Released 27th June
Page 18
UK | 1987 | 2ENT | 98 min | Cert PG Item # 65353 | RRP £19.99 | Released 18th July
Spiral: Series 3
After the unprecedented success of the Danish series The Killing, there has been a scramble to find something similar – a foreign detective series which treats its audience with intelligence and offers texture and complexity. In fact, that show was already around – Spiral (Engrenages). The release of the third season is a welcome chance to discover what is so special about this French drama. Spiral has been gradually building up a reputation over several wellreceived seasons. At the centre of this gritty, authentic show is police captain Laure Bethaud (Caroline Proust), uninterested in conventional feminine virtues, driving herself and her team with unsparing energy. And as the increasingly hard-edged episodes here show, this is a series written and cast from strength, with the tenacious female protagonist surrounded by flintily-characterised dramatis personae. This latest series sees Laure leading the hunt for a sadistic killer by delving into the unsavoury depths of the Paris underworld. If you’re feeling deprived of the fix you used to get from Sarah Lund, Spiral will be right up your alley. BF
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
The Terence Rattigan Collection Recommended Contains: Adventure Story (1961), Heart to Heart (1962), A Touch of Venus (1968), Separate Tables (1970), French Without Tears (1976), The Winslow Boy (1977), The Browning Version (1985), After The Dance (1992), The Deep Blue Sea (1994). Starring: Colin Firth, Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Ian Holm, Sean Connery, Alan Badel, Ralph Richardson Released: 4th July DVD Extras: 5 discs; Extracts from Separate Tables at The Apollo and Cause Célèbre at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Item # 65382 | UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 827 min | Cert 12
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See Also The Noel Coward Collection Item # 52754 | UK | 1969-1991 | BBC | 1200 min | 15 | £49.99
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T
heatre history tells us that the work of Terence Rattigan, feted in its mid-century heyday, became old hat by the late 1950s, when John Osborne and the Royal Court crowd burst bad-temperedly onto the stage and made Rattigan’s milieu of buttoned-down bourgeoisie seem quaintly irrelevant. Well, fair enough: punk had to happen, too, but just as disco and prog rock have had a resurgence, so Rattigan’s work is now viewed with respect again, and the centenary of his birth has seen several revivals of his plays in the West End, not to mention Terence Davies’ upcoming film adaptation of The Deep Blue Sea. This box set gives the lie to the notion that Rattigan’s plays dropped out of sight between the 1960s and their recent ‘rediscovery’. The BBC mounted at least two productions of his work per decade – even in the 1990s, when filmed plays were vanishing from the schedules – and each one in this this set bristles with the great and the good of British acting, from Kenneth More, Ralph Richardson and Judi Dench to Imogen Stubbs and a youthful Colin Firth.
A star-studded tour through four decades of superb BBC television The strongest outings here deal with darker stuff: The Browning Version, a concise display of repressed fireworks with a classic Ian Holm performance as a cuckolded classics master, and After the Dance, in which Gemma Jones, as a poised hostess deserted by her husband, unravels in spectacular fashion. The hallmarks for which Rattigan was often ridiculed – restraint, self-denial, drawing-room manners – are certainly in evidence in these productions, but the undercurrents are what animate the plays: the relentless and ungovernable messiness of human emotions. Nobody showed the fury beneath British politeness so well as Rattigan, and there are moments of cruelty that wouldn’t seem out of place in something by Pinter. This set is a terrific roundup of his major work, and a star-studded tour through four decades of television. Nick Riddle
Enquiries info@moviemail-online.co.uk
Page 19
Television Inside Nature’s Giants
The award-winning series that gets under the skin of the largest animals on the planet. Veterinary scientist Mark Evans is joined by a team of experts on anatomy, evolution and animal behaviour in a bid to understand how evolution has overcome all obstacles. The team get under the skin of an elephant, a crocodile, dissect a 65-foot, 50-ton fin whale, and investigate the world’s tallest animal, the giraffe. UK | 2011 | 4DVD | 192 min | Cert PG Item # 64868 | RRP £19.99 | Released 18th July
Love Thy Neighbour
The first three series, available separately, of the 1970s comedy favourite which gives racist bigot Eddie Booth (Jack Smethurst) new neighbours in the form of West Indians Bill Reynolds (Rudolph Walker) and his wife Barbie (Nina BadenSemper). Attracted over 17 million viewers at the height of its success. UK | 1972 | PNE | 196 min | Cert 12 Item # 64394-95 / 64951 | RRP £15.99 | Out Now
Our DVD Price: £13.99 each
Luther: Series 2
The complete second season of the BBC crime thriller starring Idris Elba as detective John Luther, whose personal crusade is to track down the depraved killers it is his job to identify. However, his strong moral code cannot always protect him from the dangerous 2 discs; Also violence of his own emotions. available: Series 1&2 Box Set. UK | 2011 | 2ENT | Cert 15 Item # 65455-56 | RRP £20.42 | Out 11th July
Midsomer Murders: Ten Investigations - 8
Our DVD Price: £74.99
Page 20
USA | 1961 | REV | 1500 min | Cert PG Item # 65314 | RRP £39.99 | Released 11th July
Our DVD Price: £32.49
A series presented by Richard Hammond, exploring the geology of our planet and the way it affects human lives in an ever changing way. It combines stunning CGI with dramatic shots of some of the most extreme natural environments on our planet.
UK | 2011 | 2ENT | Cert E Item # 65658 | RRP £15.99 | Released 1st August
Our DVD Price: £11.99
Rosemary and Thyme: Complete Series 1-3
All three series of the popular ITV drama starring Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as the keen gardeners who put their green fingers to good use in solving crime. This set contains all three series, in which our roving sleuths journey from the gardens of England to Italy, France 6 discs; Interviews with Kendal and Spain. and Ferris; Behind the scenes. UK | 2003-6 | ACORN | 1109 min | Cert 12 Item # 65787 | RRP £64.99 | Released 4th July
Our DVD Price: £48.99
S2 DVD Price: £15.31 S1&2: £23.99
UK | 2011 | ACORN | 837 min | Cert 15 Item # 65794 | RRP £99.99 | Released 4th July
Clint Eastwood is back in the saddle as Rowdy Yates in the third series of the classic TV western, which sees Gil Favor (Eric Fleming), Rowdy and their harddriving gang of drovers take on crooked ranchers, murderous outlaws and renegade soldiers. 8 discs.
Richard Hammond’s Journey to the Centre of the Planet
Our DVD Price: £13.99
Ten cases from Midsomer, including the final episode starring John Nettles: Talking to the Dead, The Great and the Good, The Made-to-Measure Murders, The Sword of Guillaume, Blood on the Saddle, The Silent Land, Master Class, The Noble Art, Not in My Back Yard 9 discs. and Fit for Murder.
Rawhide: Series 3
Single-Handed
Owen McDonnell plays Jack Driscoll, a Sergeant with the Irish police, whose patch stretches from the Atlantic coast in the West to the glacial lakes in the East, from Galway City in the South to Killary harbour in the North. He’s on call 24-hours a day and, more often than not, he’s single-handed. The job has taught him one invaluable lesson – when the going gets tough, the only person you can rely on is yourself. 3 discs. UK | 2007 | ACORN | 278 min | Cert 15 Item # 61819 | RRP £24.99 | Released 11th July
Our DVD Price: £17.99
Tales Out of School: Four Plays by David Leland Recommended
Director: Mike Newell, Alan Clarke, Jane Howell & Edward Bennett Starring: Tim Roth, Jim Broadbent Released: 4th July DVD Extras: 2 discs. Item # 64123 | UK | 1982 | NWORK | 300 min | Cert 18
Hard to believe now that these 1982 TV films by David Leland, which look at the buckling, Thatcher-era education system (and those abandoned by it), were a product of Central Television. By poaching BBC producer Margaret Matheson, the newly-appointed ITV franchise clearly had ‘quality’ high on its drama agenda. Shame it wasn’t to last, as these four films are as challenging as anything from BBC’s Play for Today. Made in Britain features an explosive performance from Tim Roth as an unruly teenage racist barking at the system, while RHINO depicts the enforced truancy of a black girl; Flying into the Wind broaches the neglected topic of home education, and Birth of a Nation is an unflinching look at violence at a comprehensive. As disturbing as they are (particularly in their jarring relevance to the cash-strapped Britain of 2011), these films are not without humour – and the acting is sublime. JU
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
Spiral: Series 1-3
All the episodes from all three series of this authentically gritty and critically acclaimed French crime drama which sees police captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) and her team investigating murky crimes in and 7 discs. around Paris.
France | 2010 | 2ENT | subt | 18 Item # 65580 | RRP £45.95 | Released 1st August
Our DVD Price: £33.99
Sworn to Secrecy
Charlton Heston narrates this comprehensive study of the conspiracies and espionage at the heart of the wars of the 20th century, uncovering the stories of cunning, deception and sabotage that changed the course of history. Stalin’s Spies, Nazi propaganda, atomic secrets and Cambridge spies all feature in 10 discs. these 39 hour-long programmes. USA | 1998-2002 | Meridian | 2340 min | Cert E Item # 65824 | RRP £59.99 | Released 18th July
The Time Tunnel: Complete
All the episodes from the popular 1960s sci-fi adventure in which two scientists, Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) and Tony Newman (James Darren), become trapped in time, catapulted from one historical event to another and barely escaping with their lives after testing 9 discs. their new invention too soon.
USA | 1967 | REVEL | 1399 min | Cert PG Item # 64161 | RRP £39.99 | Released 13th June
Our DVD Price: £31.49
The Two Ronnies: Series 11 More news, word play, skits and sketches from the infrangible comic duo of Messrs Barker and Corbett, here in the penultimate series of their long-running show. ‘And in a packed programme 2 discs. tonight...’ UK | 1985 | 2ENT | Cert 12 Item # 65525 | RRP £16.33 | Released 25th July
Twenty Twelve
Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes, Amelia Bullmore and Olivia Colman and narrated by David Tennant, this new BBC mockumentary series follows the people paddling hard to make the Olympics happen in London in 2012.
UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 180 min | TBC Item # 65861 | RRP £19.99 | Released 1st August
Our DVD Price: £13.99
Twilight Zone: Season 3
The complete third season of the classic US sci-fi series created by Rod Serling in which an ordinary person finds himself in an extraordinary situation, where the laws of reality are suspended. Charles Bronson, Peter Falk, Dean Stockwell, Robert Redford, Veronica Cartwright and Donald Pleasence are among 5 discs. the guest stars. USA | 1962 | PNE | 795 min | Cert 12 Item # 65099-100 | RRP £34.99 | Out 1st August
Our DVD Price: £12.24
Our DVD Price: £53.99
DVD Price: £29.99 Blu-ray: £41.49
Teachers. Pupils.
Tales Out of School. Four Films written by BAFTA & Emmy award-winning writer-director DAVID LELAND, digitally restored and featuring two brand-new documentaries. Packaging design © 2011 Network
ON DVD AND BLU-RAY 4 JULY
Enquiries info@moviemail-online.co.uk
Page 21
Television
Gay & Lesbian Blu-ray
Two in Clover: Complete
Claire of the Moon
The complete series of the classic British TV comedy starring Sid James and Victor Spinetti as colleagues in the city, who, tired of the rat-race, retreat to a farm in the country, where they discover that life is a lot more difficult than they 2 discs. first thought!
UK | 1970 | NWORK | 335 min | Cert PG Item # 65919 | RRP £24.99 | Released 30th April
Our DVD Price: £22.99
Two women share a remote cabin and fight the urge to become intimate in this lesbian romantic drama in which a celebrated author (Trisha Todd) attends a women’s writers retreat, and is assigned the same room as an uptight psychiatrist (Karen Trumbo), with whom she grows close as the days pass.
Deep End
Jerzy Skolimowski
Item # 65809 | UK | 1970 | BFI | 91 min | 15 | £19.99
Our DVD+Blu-ray Price: £11.99
Animal Kingdom David Michôd
Item # 65885 | Australia | 2010 | OPTIM | 113 min | 18 | £22.99
Our Blu-ray Price: £14.99
USA | 1992 | PECCA | 108 min | Cert 18 Item # 65836 | RRP £9.99 | Released 11th July
Wagner
Carmen
Our DVD Price: £7.99
Tony Palmer Digitally remastered, widescreen and now edited as it was originally intended, Palmer’s biopic, described in Opera News as ‘one of the most beautiful motion pictures in history’, stars Richard Burton, in his last major role, as the composer. A stellar cast – Olivier, Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, the list is endless – assemble around him. Wagner’s music, which underscores the action, is conducted by Sir 3 discs. George Solti. UK | 1984 | TONYP | 460 min | Cert 15 Item # 65825 | RRP £22.99 | Released 18th July
Francesco Rosi
Item # 65550 | France / Italy | 1984 | 2ND | 149 min |
House of Boys
subt | PG | £19.99
J-C Schlim
Our Blu-ray Price: £12.99
A gay coming-of-age drama set in 1984 and featuring much music from the period. Teenager Frank (Layke Anderson) heads to Amsterdam in search of adventure and finds a home and a job at a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame (Udo Kier). However, the first intimations of AIDS cast a shadow over Frank’s new friends.
Essential Killing Jerzy Skolimowski
Item # 65478 | Poland / Norway / Ireland | 2010 | ART-E | 84 min | 15 | £19.99
Our Blu-ray Price: £12.99
The Lavender Hill Mob Charles Crichton
Item # 65767 | UK | 1951 | OPTIM | 77 min | B&W | U | £19.99
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Luxembourg / Germany | 2009 | PECCA | Cert 18 Item # 65954 | RRP £16.99 | Released 1st August
Obsession
Our DVD Price: £12.74
Our DVD Price: £17.24
Brian De Palma
My Friend from Faro
Item # 65237 | USA | 1976 | ARROW | 94 min | 15 | £24.99
Nana Neul
Our Blu-ray Price: £15.99
An assured directorial debut that has drawn comparisons with Boys Don’t Cry and which comes to DVD on a wave of film festival acclaim. It sees a couple of girls fall in love – but daydreamer Mel is a tomboy and attempts to disguise her true gender at every turn, with her journey to being an out lesbian fraught with life-defining dilemmas and sweet surprises.
Richard Ayoade
Item # 65731 | UK / USA | 2010 | OPTIM | 97 min | 15 | £22.99
Our Blu-ray Price: £14.99
Went the Day Well? Alberto Cavalcanti
Item # 65770 | UK | 1942 | OPTIM | 93 min | B&W | PG | £19.99
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Germany | 2008 | PECCA | 90 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 64011 | RRP £14.99 | Released 16th May
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Rock Hudson’s Home Movies Mark Rappaport
We don’t only sell what we can fit in this monthly catalogue – we can supply any DVD or Blu-ray currently in print in the UK. So, if you’d like another series, or even something else entirely, just get in touch and we’ll try and find it for you. Page 22
Submarine
A dizzying, rule-breaking assortment of clips from Hudson’s Hollywood career, which employs a narrative commentary from beyond the grave, and sheds a provocative new light on one of Hollywood’s legends. Short film: Blue Streak. USA | 1992 | EUREK | 63 min | Cert E Item # 65865 | RRP £15.32 | Released 1st August
Our DVD Price: £9.99
Image from Went the Day Well?
Image of Richard Burton in Tony Palmer’s Wagner
Highlights
Nicole Conn
Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk
Classic British TV Sale
Network have done a great job delving into the archives, making a hugely impressive selection of classic British TV available for all to enjoy once again. This sale includes many fondly-remembered classics spanning a range of genres, from adventure with Callan and The Prisoner to period dramas with Clayhanger and Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Lovers of British TV will find many hours of happiness here!
Edward Woodward gives an electrifying performance as a reluctant professional killer working for British Intelligence. Contains series 1 & 2 plus the pilot.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
4 discs.
Series 1 and 2, available separately, of the BAFTA-winning detective series based on the best-selling anthologies of Victorian detective fiction. Boasts an incredible array of acting talent.
Will Shakespeare
4 discs.
Written by Rumpole creator John Mortimer, this six-part dramatisation remains one of the most impressive biographical portraits of the Bard to date. Tim Curry takes the lead with a performance of sensitivity and breadth.
Item # 57299/60806 UK | 1971 | 650 min | 12 | RRP £39.99
DVD: £16.99 Save £13
DVD: £17.99 each Save £22
DVD: £8.99 Save £11
Armchair Theatre: Volume 1
Clayhanger
Just William: Series 1 & 2
8 quality plays from ITV’s flagship drama series, initially screened between 1970-1973. 2 discs. Item # 60692 UK | 1970-73 | NWORK | 400 min | 12 | £19.99
Janet Suzman, Peter McEnery and a host of other famous faces star in this major 1970s adaptation from Arnold Bennett’s novels. 7 discs. Item # 62072 UK | 1976 | NWORK | 1300 min | 12 | RRP £59.99
The definitive 1978 production of Richmal Crompton’s stories of the scruffy schoolboy. 4 discs. Item # 59869 UK | 1978 | NWORK | 690 min | PG | £29.99
DVD: £10.99 Save £9
DVD: £39.99 Save £20
The Blackheath Poisonings
Department S
The Prisoner
Peter Wyngarde, Joel Fabiani and Rosemary Nicols play the trio who solve cases too baffling for the police. The complete series. 8 discs.
All the episodes from THE cult 60s series starring Patrick McGoohan as No. 6. Prime enigmatic, surrealist, paranoiac televison. 7 discs.
A suspenseful Victorian murder mystery, based on the novel by Julian Symons and featuring a top cast.
2 discs.
Item # 57459 UK | 1978 | NWORK | 300 min | PG | RRP £19.99
Item # 60843 UK | 1969 | NWORK | B&W | 12 | RRP £29.99
Box: £14.99 Series 1&2: £9.99 each
Item # 53844 UK | 1968 | NWORK | Cert PG | RRP £59.99
Item # 50274 UK | 1967 -69 | NWORK | 850 min | PG | £49.99
DVD: £8.99 Save £6
DVD: £28.99 Save £31
DVD: £27.99 Save £22
Callan: Colour Years
The Galton and Simpson Playhouse
Scoop
Item # 61296 UK | 1992 | NWORK | 150 min | 15 | RRP £14.99
All 22 colour episodes from Thames TV’s series 3 and 4, with Edward Woodward playing the reluctant 6 discs; professional killer. Item # 61936 UK | 1972 | NWORK | 1100 min | 15 | £79.99
Seven individual comedy plays from Britain’s most successful comedy writing partnership. Item # 56935 UK | 1977 | NWORK | 175 min | 12 | RRP £14.99
Dir: Gavin Millar. ITV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, starring Michael Maloney as the junior hack mistakenly sent to the frontline. Item # 59196 UK | 1986 | NWORK | 120 min | PG | RRP £12.99
DVD: £45.99 Save £34
DVD: £6.99 Save £8
DVD: £0.00 Save £12.99
Casting the Runes
Jason King
South Riding
Peter Wyngarde stars as the flamboyant author and bon vivant in this jaw-dropping 1970s spy spoof. Contains all the episodes. 8 discs.
Dorothy Tutin plays the feminist teacher to Nigel Davenport’s Tory landowner in this 1974 adaptation of Winifred Holtby’s novel. 4 discs.
Item # 51170 UK | 1979 | NWORK | 48 min | PG | RRP £9.99
Item # 61043 UK | 1972 | NWORK | 1300 min | PG | £59.99
Item # 33694 UK | 1974 | NWORK | 650 min | PG | RRP £29.99
DVD: £6.99 Save £3
DVD: £34.99 Save £25
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A Choice of Coward
Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill
Wycliffe: Series 1-4
Dir: Lawrence Gordon Clark. Iain Cuthbertson plays the malevolent Karswell in this ITV Playhouse version of MR James’s classic story.
Four Noel Coward plays, as seen on ITV’s Play of the Week in 1964: Present Laughter, Blithe Spirit, The Vortex, Design for Living. 2 discs.
Dir: James Cellan Jones. Lee Remick stars as the vivacious Jennie Jerome, mother of Churchill. 2 discs.
Item # 59519 UK | 1964 | NW | 290 min | B&W | PG | £19.99
Item # 59206 UK | 1974 | NWORK | 420 min | 12 | £19.99
DVD: £10.99 Save £9
DVD: £9.99 Save £10
The first four series, available separately, of the Cornwall-set series starring Jack Shepherd as DS Wycliffe. 2 discs each series. Item # 59168 UK | 1994 | NWORK | 395 min | 12 | £19.99
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Callan: The Monochrome Years
Image left from Notorious, image right from Spione
The Top 10 Spy Films Martin Ritt A perfectly judged film of Le Carré’s novel. Ritt’s persuasive adaptation channelled all the key ingredients of the original, aided immeasurably by Paul Dehn’s impeccable screenplay. The film’s success, however, rested with Richard Burton as spy Alex Leamas, and he delivered one of his most truthful performances. Item # 31162 UK | 1965 | PARAH | 112 min | B&W | PG | £9.99
DVD: £5.99 Save £4
Inspired by the release of The Kremlin Letter, we delve into the murky world of spies. Like their battered protagonists, spy films are relatively few in number. A rarefied breed, they combine the darkness and ambiguous morality of film noir with the gunplay of the action thriller. Of course, Bond is the most visible agent of the genre, but he wasn’t the first and, though he’s recently had some introspective moments, others go far deeper into their heroes’ troubled psyche. Here we present ten of the best.
2 From Russia with Love
3 Notorious
4 Army of Shadows
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Pierre Melville
Terence Young
Praise for Notorious, one of Hitchcock’s key masterpieces, is of course unnecessary, but there are always compelling reasons for revisiting Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in this morally queasy espionage classic. Claude Rains is impeccable as ever as the enemy agent Grant’s conflicted spy forces the unhappy Bergman into a relationship with.
Time has not dimmed the visceral power of Melville’s uncompromising classic about the high price paid by undercover Resistance agents in Nazi-occupied France. It features strikingly etched performances throughout, not least from Simone Signoret. One of the great, authentic portrayals of the French Resistance.
Bond’s second outing cemented the perfect formula for a series as indestructible as its hero, interpolating colourful locales, diverting sex, violence and gracious living into pulse-accelerating action. The Hitchcockian elements are a piquant reminder that Hitch was once talked about as director for the series.
Item # 55237 USA | 1946 | FHE | 98 min | B&W | U | RRP £5.99
Item # 57283 ra | 1969 | OPTIM | 145 min | subt | 12 | £17.99
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5 The Ipcress File
6 Spione
7 The Deadly Affair
Sidney J. Furie
Fritz Lang
Sidney Lumet
A striking reworking of Len Deighton’s novel, with Michael Caine perfectly cast as the bolshie, haute-cuisine loving agent, Harry Palmer. With sets by Ken Adam and Bond composer John Barry also doing duty, top quality is assured. However, perhaps the key ingredient is the late Nigel Green as Palmer’s fussy military boss. 2 discs.
The menacing and dark world of espionage has rarely been so memorably created on film as in this consummate piece of cinema, with Fritz Lang’s mastery of expressionist technique at the service of a murky and complex tale of deception and death. The sinister masterspy Haghi is memorably incarnated by Rudolf Klein-Rogge.
A film that persuasively conjures the moral quicksands of modern espionage. George Smiley (here, ‘Charles Dobbs’ for rights reasons) is played impeccably by James Mason as the ultimate real-life spy, low-key and inconspicuous. An exemplary Harry Andrews plays the retired police inspector helping Dobbs out.
Item # 26411 / 55930 UK | 1965 | 103 min | PG | £15.99
Item # 21144 Ger | 1928 | EUR | 143 min | subt | PG | £19.99
Item # 31234 UK | 1966 | SPHE | 102 min | Cert 12 | RRP £12.99
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8 Kremlin Letter
9 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy / Smiley’s People
10 The Bourne Identity
Le Carré’s ‘Karla’ trilogy was a key literary document of the Cold War. Tinker, Tailor was subsequently transformed into one of the glories of modern TV when it was adapted for the medium with Alec Guinness as Smiley. He returned three years later in Smiley’s People, an equally riveting drama. 2 discs each.
Forget about the workaday Richard Chamberlain adaptation; this pared-to the bone, kinetic piece reinvented Robert Ludlum’s novel, with a low-key Matt Damon as the toughas-nails, cut-adrift agent. The film launched a barnstorming new franchise, which also made its mark on Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale.
Item # 13837 / 18071 UK | 1979/82 | BBC | PG | £15.99
Item # 50167 / 57781 USA | 2002 | 118 min | 12 | £11.49
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Item # 33058 UK | 1963 | MGM | 110 min | Cert PG | RRP £9.99
John Huston Huston’s film is crammed with cult interest, not least for its astonishing cast, including Max Von Sydow, Bibi Andersson (whose taste for sadomasochism is her undoing), a terrifyingly avuncular Richard Boone, a menacing Orson Welles, and even George Sanders in drag. In Huston’s hands, Noel Behn’s novel made for a truly unique movie. Item # 65614 USA | 1970 | EUREK | 116 min | 18 | RRP £15.99
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Doug Liman
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1 Spy Who Came In From the Cold
By Barry Forshaw
Contemporary Film English Language Films, 1970 – present
Country Strong
New Releases The Adjustment Bureau George Nolfi
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt star in this romantic sci-fi thriller based on a Philip K. Dick short story and set in modern-day New York, where Damon’s young politician falls in love with a ballet dancer. However, shadowy agents of destiny are intent on sabotaging their love. USA | 2010 | UPV | 106 min | Cert 12 Item # 65509-10 | RRP £19.99 | Released 4th July
DVD: £13.99 DVD+Blu-ray: £24.49
Animal Kingdom David Michod
A brooding Australian crime drama that opened to rave reviews, even generating favourable comparisons to The Godfather. It sees a teenager go to live with his estranged grandmother – who turns out to be a fearsome crime matriarch.
DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £14.99
Black Widow Bob Rafelson
A femme fatale lures men into marriage and then murders them for their money. Debra Winger is the Agent obsessed with cornering her and solving the crime, but she too comes under the seductive spell of the murderess (Theresa Russell). A steamy crime drama.
Our DVD Price: £10.99
Bran Nue Dae Rachel Perkins
A charming Australian road movie, filled with foot-stomping tunes and set in the late 1960s. It stars Geoffrey Rush as a priest on the trail of an aboriginal boy who runs away from his school and is befriended by the streetwise Uncle Tadpole. Australia | 2009 | ARROW | 81 min | Cert 12 Item # 65802 | RRP £12.99 | Released 4th July
Our DVD Price: £9.99
Page 26
An uplifting story about a fallen star of the country music scene. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a washed-up singer in rehab where she meets a young singer-songwriter who helps to get a comeback tour together. Once on the road, stardom beckons again, but romantic complications take centre stage. USA | 2010 | COL-T | 117 min | Cert 12 Item # 65949 / 65874 | RRP £15.99 | Out 18th July
DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £13.99
Danny Boyle Collection Four films directed by Danny Boyle: trapped hiker adventure 127 Hours, rage virus thriller 28 Days Later, futuristic dying sun epic Sunshine, and Slumdog Millionaire, in which a Mumbai street kid finds that fate takes a hand when he makes it on to Who Wants to Be a 4 discs. Millionaire?
UK | 2002-10 | FOX | 415 min | Cert 18 Item # 65527 / 65559 | RRP £34.99 | Out Now
Australia | 2010 | OPTIM | 113 min | Cert 18 Item # 65881 / 85 | RRP £17.99 | Released 11th July
USA | 1987 | OPTIM | 97 min | Cert 15 Item # 65979 | RRP £15.99 | Released 1st August
Shana Feste
DVD Price: £29.49 Blu-ray: £44.49
The Eagle
Kevin Macdonald
A lavish historical action adventure based on Rosemary Sutcliff’s children’s novel The Eagle of the Ninth. Channing Tatum stars as the young Roman soldier who, accompanied only by his British slave (Jamie Bell), heads into the uncharted highlands of Caledonia to retrieve the lost golden emblem of his father’s Making-of; Alternate Ending. legion. UK / USA | 2010 | UPV | 114 min | Cert 12 Item # 65535 / 37 | RRP £19.99 | Released 25th July
DVD Price: £13.99 Blu-ray: £15.99
Fair Game
Doug Liman A political thriller based on real events. Sean Penn stars as Ambassador Joe Wilson and Naomi Watts as his wife, a CIA agent leading a covert investigation into the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Then her husband accuses the administration of manipulating intelligence and all hell breaks loose. USA | 2010 | E1 | 108 min | Cert 12 Item # 65671 / 73 | RRP £17.99 | Released 11th July
DVD Price: £12.99 Blu-ray: £17.24
The Kremlin Letter Recommended Director: John Huston Starring: Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Niall MacGinnis, Richard Boone, George Sanders, Orson Welles, Nigel Green, Patrick O’Neal Released: 25th July DVD Extras: New high-definition transfer. Item # 65614 | USA | 1970 | EUREK | 116 min | Cert 18
John Huston never could resist a shaggy dog story and this convoluted Cold War caper is one of his most elaborate. The titular epistle is a top secret document that could start WWIII; Western intelligence thinks the Soviets have it and dispatch a team of ace agents to grab it; once ensconced in Moscow, the spies go to elaborate – and morally dubious – lengths to discover its whereabouts. Like so much of Huston’s greatest work, this is an uneven film: the plot is labyrinthine and the tone fluctuates wildly, beginning as a modish espionage romp before diving into deeper water. With its emphasis on the darker side of the spy game, it can be seen as a counterweight to the popular fantasies peddled by James Bond: our cheerful heroes are cheerfully unheroic, indulging in blackmail, drug peddling and prostitution. The Kremlin Letter is not one of Huston’s best-known films but it deserves praise both for its ambition and cynicism. It’s also well worth it for the improbable sight of George Sanders in drag! JO
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The Best in
Medieval Cinema Step back in time and enjoy thrilling adventures from the Medieval age. Lasting 10 centuries, the Middle Ages saw many empires rise and fall in spectacular fashion, which provides a vivid historical backdrop for the films featured here. Whether dealing with noblemen and royalty or the lives of ordinary people, the setting is a marked contrast with our softer-edged times and makes for great cinema. So, muddy your boots and saddle up for 18 of the best. The Adventures of Robin Hood
Jeanne La Pucelle
Ivanhoe
Jacques Rivette
Douglas Camfield
Michael Curtiz
Both parts – The Battles and The Prisons – of Rivette’s magnificent, richly-detailed six-hour drama based on the life of Joan of Arc. Sandrine Bonnaire stars as the Maid of Orleans.
A great cast – Ronald Pickup, James Mason, Michael Hordern, Anthony Andrews, Sam Neill, Olivia Hussey – great costumes, scenery and pageantry make this the best adaptation of Walter Scott’s tale.
Item # 59356-57 France | 1994 | 160 min | subt | 15 | £15.99
Item # 58552 UK | 1982 | SPHE | 150 min | PG | RRP £14.99
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Arthur of the Britons
Hamlet
A quality ITV series that re-imagined the Arthurian legend as historical fact. Oliver Tobias stars. Contains both complete series. 4 discs.
Dir: Laurence Olivier. A five Oscarwinner, with Olivier’s central performance both haunting and intriguing. Definitive.
The Return of Martin Guerre
Item # 52911 UK | 1972-73 | NWORK | 600 min | PG | £39.99
Item # 4364 UK | 1948 | CRLTN | 155 min | B&W | U | RRP £9.99
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Beowulf
Ironclad
Robin Hood Box Set
Dir: Robert Zemeckis. A fresh, bawdy and visually impressive adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Scripted by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary.
Dir: Jonathan English. A medieval Magnificent Seven mixing visceral, stylized action with impassioned heroism. Paul Giamatti stars.
Contains The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950). 3 discs.
Item # 52638 UK | 2007 | WHV | 110 min | Cert 12 | RRP £18.99
Item # 65423 / 32 USA | 2011 | WHV | 121 min | 15 | £16.33
Item # 59552 USA | 1960 | SPHE | 224 min | PG | RRP £14.99
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Black Death
Marketa Lazarová
The Seventh Seal
Dir: Christopher Smith. An effective British horror set during the plague in England in the Middle Ages. Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne star.
Dir: Frantisek Vlácil. Set in the 13th century, this ambitious, multi-layered medieval epic is a stunning work of cinema. Voted best Czech film.
Bergman’s brilliant allegory of Man’s search for meaning in which a knight, after returning from the Crusades, plays a game of chess with Death.
Item # 63071-70 UK | 2010 | COL-T | 101 min | 15 | £15.99
Item # 32128 Cz | 1967 | 2RUN | 173 min | subt | 15 | £12.99
Item # 50782 Swe | 1957 | 92 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99
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The Canterbury Tales
The Pillars of the Earth
The Valley of the Bees
Item # 15842 USA | 1938 | WHV | 98 min | 12 | RRP £19.99
Dir: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini himself takes the role of Chaucer in his scandalous and bawdy adaptation of Chaucer’s tales. Item # 57881 Ita | 1971 | BFI | 107 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
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An adaptation of Ken Follett’s historical novel, set in the turmoil of 12th century England. 3 discs. Item # 63478 Can | 2010 | COL-T | 428 min | 15 | RRP £29.99
Gérard Depardieu stars as the man who returns to his village after years away. But is he an imposter? Item # 17551 Fr | 1982 | ARROW | 106 min | subt | 15 | £19.99
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Dir: Frantisek Vlácil. A powerfully haunting medieval fable of corruption and fundamentalism from the director of Marketa Lazarová. Item # 60973 Cz | 1968 | 2R | 97 min | subt | B&W | 15 | £12.99
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Excalibur
The Princess Bride
Les Visiteurs
Dir: John Boorman. A sweeping and visually spellbinding reworking of the Arthurian legend. Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren star.
Dir: Rob Reiner. A comical fantasy tale of beautiful princesses, foul villains and dashing heroes starring Robin Wright Penn and Cary Elwes.
This hilarious time-travelling romp is one of the most successful French films ever. Imagine Monty Python meets Black Adder!
Item # 5205 USA | 1981 | WHV | 140 min | 15 | RRP £19.99
Item # 55940 / 49 USA | 1987 | LGATE | 94 min | PG | £19.99
Item # 5029 France | 1993 | AVD | 105 min | subt | 15 | £15.99
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Errol Flynn is dashing in the lead, Basil Rathbone is suavely villainous as Guy of Gisbourne and you will find some of the most rousing swordfights ever filmed. Irresisitible.
Contemporary Giallo
The Lincoln Lawyer
Dario Argento
Brad Furman
A serial killer known only as ‘Giallo’ abducts foreign women in his unlicensed taxi cab before drugging them and photographing their mutilated bodies. Emmanuelle Seigner’s flight attendant fears the worst and teams up with an Italian-American detective (Adrien Brody), to find her younger sister Celine. Hailed as something of a return to form by Argento. USA | 2009 | LGATE | 88 min | Cert 18 Item # 64228 | RRP £12.99 | Released 11th July
Recommended Director: Peter Smith
Our DVD Price: £9.99
Starring: Joanne Whalley, Ray McAnally, Bernard Hill, James Ellis, Elvis Costello
Ironclad
Released: 25th July
Jonathan English A Medieval Magnificent Seven that combines the visceral, stylized action of 300 with the impassioned heroism and romance of Braveheart. It sees a courageous group of Knights Templar facing the army of the treacherous King John (Paul Giamatti). Jason Flemyng, James Purefoy and Charles Dance co-star. UK / USA | 2011 | WHV | 121 min | Cert 15 Item # 65423 / 32 | RRP £16.33 | Released 11th July
DVD Price: £12.24 Blu-ray: £17.60
Island
Elizabeth Mitchell
A psychological drama starring Natalie Press as a young woman abandoned at birth who tracks down her reclusive birth-mother (Janet McTeer) to a remote Hebridean island, where she plans to kill her for the life she has had to suffer. Then she discovers she has a half-brother who shares her passion for storytelling. UK | 2011 | SodaElev | 96 min | Cert 15 Item # 65756 | RRP £15.99 | Released 25th July
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Limitless
Neil Burger A techno-thriller starring Bradley Cooper as a man whose discovery of a new drug makes him powerful and justly paranoid when he discovers that the world of high-powered finance, led by Robert De Niro’s businessman, is out to get him.
DVD Extras: Making-of featurette, featuring interviews with Director Peter Smith and Producer Mamoun Hassan. Item # 65842 | UK | 1985 | 2ND | 100 min | Cert 15
Alan Bleasdale’s sole cinematic outing, subtitled A Deadpan Farce, got a bit of a kicking on its 1985 release. A black comedy that was thought of as too dark, it quickly vanished into obscurity. But it attracted a cult following, not least in its native Liverpool, and the film’s value has since been contextualised by the success of bleak workingclass satires like Shameless. The premise is a scorcher. In an act of revenge, the outgoing manager of the Charleston Club has leased it out to both the local Irish Catholic and Ulster Protestant communities for New Year’s Eve. But, as he is being pulped by the mobsters he’s gypped, an escaped terrorist shows up, along with three of the worst turns in the history of clubland. Among the performances, Ray McAnally’s impenitent bigot and James Ellis’s blind boxer stand out. But Boys from the Blackstuff Michael Angelis and Bernard Hill amuse as the harassed new boss and the ex-Legionnaire bouncer, while Elvis Costello’s inept magician simply has to be seen to be disbelieved. DP
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USA | 2011 | MOMET | 105 min | Cert 15 Item # 65883 / 87 | RRP £17.99 | Out 1st August
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Page 28
No Surrender
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An intricately-plotted legal thriller based on the bestseller by acclaimed crime novelist Michael Connelly, and starring Matthew McConaughey as a criminal defence lawyer who finds himself being played like a pro in a seemingly cut and dried case – but to what end? Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy co-star. USA | 2011 | EV | 118 min | Cert 15 Item # 65544 / 48 | RRP £19.99 | Released 25th July
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Requiem for a Village David Gladwell
The rural past of a Suffolk village rises to life through the memories of an old man who tends a country graveyard in this lyrical film which explores Britain’s rural traditions and the undying power of memory. Also includes four of Gladwell’s rare 2 discs; A Summer Discord (1955), shorts. Miss Thompson Goes Shopping (1958), The Great Steam Fair (1964), Untitled Film (1964). UK | 1975 | BFI | 68 min | Cert 18 Item # 65826 | RRP £19.99 | Released 18th July
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Resurrected
Paul Greengrass This powerful debut feature from director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Identity) features a superb central performance from David Thewlis as a soldier in the Falklands who reappears after going missing. He returns home a hero – but then insinuations of desertion emerge. UK | 1989 | 2ND | 88 min | Cert 15 Item # 65827 | RRP £15.99 | Released 25th July
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You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody Allen
A fine collection of character actors meet in this bittersweet comedy drama of love and infatuation among London couples. Stars Anna Friel, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Gemma Jones and Pauline Collins. USA / Spain | 2010 | WHV | 98 min | Cert 12 Item # 65957 | RRP £20.41 | Released 11th July
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August 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue
Also Released... Across the Universe Julie Taymor
Item # 65572 USA | 2007 | 128 min | 12 | £9.99
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Submarine Recommended
An Englishman Who Went Up a Hill... Christopher Monger
Item # 65958 | UK | 1995 | MIRAM | 99 min | PG | £19.99
Our DVD Price: £13.99
Director: Richard Ayoade
Battle: Los Angeles
Starring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine
Item # 65464 | USA | 2011 | COL-T | 116 min | 12 |
Released: 1st August DVD Extras: Commentary, Deleted scenes Item # 65732/31 | UK | 2010 | OPTIM | 97 min | Cert 15
On paper Submarine may sound unpromising – a coming-of-age story about a Welsh teenager’s infatuation with a girl at his school, directed by a comedian best known as a star of The IT Crowd. Yet Submarine is set to be one of the British movies of the year. Director Richard Ayoade infuses the film with moments of cinematic beauty and chutzpah, while his script is packed with brilliant comic sequences. A host of fine character actors fill the supporting roles, including Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins and Paddy Considine. The film follows Oliver, a permanently deadpan schoolboy as he attempts to stop his mother from leaving his father for a motivational speaker and woo Jordana, a quirky girl in his year. Neither character is especially sympathetic – she bullies another girl, he attempts to poison her dog – which makes them intriguing and different compared with the unbelievable saps and wisecrackers who usually populate such dramas. Touching and bittersweet, it’s an enormously impressive debut. AD
Jonathan Liebesman £19.99
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Cadillac Records Darnell Martin
Item # 65573 USA | 2008 | 109 min | 15 | £9.99
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Lake Mungo Joel Anderson
Item # 65557 Aus | 2008 | 87 min | 15 | £15.99
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Middle Men George Gallo
Item # 65996 | USA | 2009 | PARAH | 101 min | 18 | £15.99
DVD: £11.99 Blu-ray: £13.99
Slaughter High
Peter Mackenzie Litten
Item # 65892 USA | 1986 | 77 min | 18 | £15.99
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They Call Him Bulldozer Michele Lupo
Item # 63867 Italy | 1978 | Jeff | 111 min | PG | £12.99
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Blu-rays American Graffiti George Lucas
Item # 65411USA | 1973 | 107 min | PG | £19.99
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Cry Baby
John Waters
Item # 65361 USA | 1990 | 81 min | 15 | £19.99
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Obsession
Brian De Palma
Item # 65237 | USA | 1976 | ARROW | 94 min | 15 | £24.99
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Image from No Surrender
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Page 29
James Oliver’s From the Cheap Seats
The Forgotten, part 2
Image from Deep End
C
ast your mind back to the early days of DVD; no doubt you’ll remember the seductive blandishments of the electronics manufacturers tempting us with their product. They promised this new format would revolutionise film viewing, offering much improved A/V quality and contextualising extras. True enough, those things are still much appreciated (even if we never quite find the time to listen to all those commentaries or watch every featurette... sorry). But in retrospect, I think the most significant benefit of DVD has been something few predicted: the way it’s broadened our understanding of movies. Let’s not pretend VHS was a wasteland. There were many fine films available on tape (some of which have yet to show up on disc). But VHS concentrated on the ‘classics’; the economics of DVD allows for many more releases. Coupled with the parallel revolution in retailing – MovieMail offers you many thousands more titles than even the most comprehensive high street shop – this has massively expanded the number of movies that film fans can watch. This column is preoccupied – unkind souls might even say obsessed – with the deficiencies of orthodox film history. The cinematic canon is, after all, derived from what was available. Now we can easily access so many more films, that canon must be revised, excluding some oncecompulsory films and including former obscurities. But let’s not be complacent. The DVD revolution is far from complete, as a couple of new releases show us. Take Deep End, for example. This is probably the most important title yet released by the BFI’s Flipside imprint (a label dedicated to excavating neglected films).
The most significant benefit of DVD has been to broaden our understanding of movies Although much acclaimed on first release, Deep End has been hard to see since then (which gave bragging rights to those of us who managed to see it). That it’s finally available, restored and lavishly appended with extras, is fantastic news, even if it does mean I can’t swank about having seen it any more. Deep End, of course, is a British film. The problem becomes even more acute when you consider films made in languages other than English. That’s why we should be grateful to Second Run, the DVD label most committed to expanding our perceptions of cinema. By happy coincidence, they’re also putting out an essential and much anticipated release this month: Szindbád (see page 6). Not to be confused with the sailor from the Arabian Nights, this Hungarian classic is eulogised by those who’ve seen it. A rapturous meditation on life and love (and one of the most ravishing colour films ever made), it’s been hailed as one of the great ‘lost’ masterpieces of world cinema. And
because of Second Run, it might now finally penetrate the consciousness of international cineastes in the same way that one of their earlier releases, Marketa Lazarová, did. So, thanks BFI, thanks Second Run. And thanks DVD. The past ten years or so have been a golden age for those of us who love movies and, as Deep End and Szindbád show, the good times ain’t over yet. However, these releases should remind us just how incomplete our knowledge of cinema is and how many films are still unavailable. As you enjoy Szindbád and Deep End, consider how such films could go AWOL for so long. How many more masterpieces are there, mouldering in the vaults? If you have any unavailable personal favourites, send MovieMail a postcard or comment on the blog.
Related Films Deep End
Jerzy Skolimowski
Item # 65809 UK | 1970 | 91 min | 15 | £19.99
Our DVD+Blu-ray Price: £11.99
Marketa Lazarová Frantisek Vlácil
Item # 32128 1967 | 173 min | subt | 15 | £12.99
Our DVD Price: £6.99
Szindbád
Zoltán Huszárik
Item # 64819 1971 | 90 min | subt | 15 | £12.99
Our DVD Price: £9.99
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‘Sexy, haunting, disturbing, compelling... one of the best films of the 70s’ Kim Newman
Deep End Jerzy Skolimowski’s darkly poetic portrait of Britain in an era of uncertainty and changing sexual mores, Deep End sees Mike take a job at a London swimming baths where he develops an obsessive interest in the self-assured Susan (Jane Asher). A long-overdue release, beautifully restored. Item # 65809 UK | 1970 | BFI | 91 min | 15 | £19.99
DVD: £11.99 Save £8
MovieMail’s Film of the Month – See page 5