MovieMail October 09 Film Catalogue by MovieMail

About MovieMail Moviemail Team Q. Inspired by Patricia Gozzi’s amazing performance in Sundays and Cybele (see next month’s catalogue for a review) – what’s your favourite performance in a film by a child?

Dan Hunter Editor Enzo Staiola in Bicycle Thieves

Graeme Hobbs Writer Ana Torrent in Spirit of the Beehive

Becky Smith

It’s our twelfth 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.

The Monthly Film Catalogue Here we present the best new DVD 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 and directors we particularly recommend are highlighted with longer reviews and features.

Buyer

Published from wood-free pulp grown in sustainable forests. Please recycle, and let us know if you’d rather not receive it.

Salvatore Cascio in Cinema Paradiso

How to Order

Peter Curtis Customer Services Manager

Order online for the cheapest prices on over 14,000 films at www.moviemail-online.co.uk

Haley Joel Osment in AI

Call us on 0844 776 0900 to speak to one of our friendly staff. Calls are charged at 5p/min or less from landlines. Customers outside the UK should call 0208 099 7084

Rena Markogiannaki Assistant Buyer Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows

Send your order and payment details to: MovieMail Direct, PO Box 267, Letchworth, SG6 9BS

Sarah Wong Customer Services Assistant A.Lina Leandersson in Let the Right One In

Plus Alan Hunter Harvey Stephens in The Omen

MovieMail HQ

For all enquiries give us a call on 0844 776 0900 or email us at info@moviemail-online.co.uk or write to MovieMail Direct, 5 Stucley Place, London NW1 8NS

All prices in this catalogue are valid until 25th October or while stocks last

www.moviemail-online.co.uk Our website presents many more great films than we could ever fit in a printed publication. Better prices too! Published by Moviemail Direct Limited, Palm Chambers, 197 Main Street, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Page 2

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

MovieMail News

his is a genre-busting month. We have Joseph Losey’s The Damned – one of three exciting exclusive releases from Hammer Studios (see page 17) – which mixes teen gang drama and science fiction, and The Wrecker, a newly-discovered British silent film which makes a light comedy out of train wrecks – something that would be beyond consideration today. Both titles have far more than curiosity value though, and are well worth checking out. I also want to put in a word for Ken Loach’s latest film – and our Film of the Month – Looking for Eric, just in case anyone is put off by its nominal footballing theme. Don’t be, it’s a complete and

Film of the Month 5 Looking for Eric

World Cinema Katyn Tony Manero

Blu-ray Releases 12 14

Classic Movies

thoroughly enjoyable film for everyone that touches on a range of important issues, but which leaves you smiling. I recommend it highly. Oh, and lastly, please watch Katyn. Enjoy your films,

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Exclusive Hammer DVDs!

Silent Film The Wrecker

Documentaries NCB Film Unit Vol 1 sleep furiously

Television Wuthering Heights A.Lina Leandersson in Let the Right One In

Contemporary Synecdoche, New York

Contributors Barry Forshaw (Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker) Barry’s books include The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, Italian Cinema: Arthouse to Exploitation and British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia; he contributed to The Rough Guide to Film Noir. He has written for The Independent, The Times and The Express, edits Crime Time, and features on the ITV Crime Thriller profiles. Michael Brooke (Eamonn Owens in The Butcher Boy) is Screenonline Curator, BFI National Archive.

James Oliver (Martin Stephens in Village of the Damned) is a freelance film writer.

Rick Burin (Layne Tom Jr. in Charlie Chan at the Olympics) has written on film for The Guardian.

David Parkinson (Enzo Staiola in Bicycle Thieves) is a film critic and historian.

Alex Davidson (Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker) is a content developer for the BFI mediatheque.

Emma Paterson (Victoire Thivisol in Ponette) is a freelance film writer.

Mike McCahill (Salvatore Cascio in Cinema Paradiso) writes on film for The Sunday Telegraph.

Contents

Nick Riddle (Catinca Untaru in The Fall) is an editor at Bristol University.

From the Cheap Seats

Order Form

Special Offers Universal Classics 13 World Cinema Sale 16 Richard Burton

British films of the 1930s

Julian Upton (Alan Barnes in Whistle Down the Wind) wrote Fallen Stars.

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 3

Get more from MovieMail

1 Looking for Eric

‘He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six.’Ken Loach directs this upbeat comedy set in Manchester, about a football-mad postman who receives life coaching from his idol, the enigmatic footballing legend, Eric Cantona.

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

Service Charter MovieMail does not charge your credit or debit card until the goods are ready for despatch. Any item purchased from us may be returned for a full refund. If the item proves faulty on our equipment we will also refund your postage. We do retain the right not to fulfil any order for any reason whatsoever. None of the above affects your statutory rights. We will not release any of your details to any third party or mailing list. Ever.

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

B Bonus Points Within the Highlighted films’ Buying Details you’ll find the number of points awarded for your purchase.

DVD Extras Following the DVD icon, we list details of the supplementary materials found in the package.

UK | 2009 | ICON | 116 min | Cert 15 | # 59654 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £11.99 Save £8 Blu-ray: £17.99 Save £7

2 The Damned

‘Come At Your Own Risk ... If You Come Alone!’ A Hammer production directed by Joseph Losey, in which a story of adolescent thugs, led by Oliver Reed, combines with a disturbing science fiction tale about the government raising radioactive children to populate the earth after the bomb. UK | 1963 | SPHE | 91 min | B&W | Cert | # 59714 | RRP £12.99

DVD: £11.99 Save £1

3 Encounters at the End of the World

Filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica accompanied only by his cinematographer to explore the unique landscape and history of the world’s most southerly continent, and to meet some of the people who live and work there. USA | 2007 | REV | 100 min | Cert U | # 58816 | RRP £17.99

DVD: £15.99 Save £2 Blu-ray: £16.99 Save £8

4 Katyn

Andrzej Wajda grew up with what he calls ‘the Katyn lie’ - the cover-up of the massacre of 20,000 polish officers, intellectuals and professionals by the Soviet army at the outset of WWII. His father was one of the executed officers, and this is the film that he never thought he would be able to make. Poland | 2007 | ART-E | 121 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 59641 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £6

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? DVD: £7.99 Save £2

Fireman’s Ball 6 The DVD: £10.99 Save £5

7 Crichton

The Admirable DVD: £11.99 Save £1

8 In the Loop

DVD: £10.99 Save £9

9 Summer

The Greengage DVD: £11.99 Save £1

Orders to Kill DVD: £10.99 Save £5

Reader Feedback Another ‘what’s that film?’ query. Mr Hicks asks: “In the mid-seventies (I think) I saw a French comedy film at the Curzon cinema, about three men who occasionally went out on a bar crawl, leaving wives/girlfriends at home. Whilst on the spree the men got into various escapades, including one uproarious episode when one of the trio, making out he was blind, knocked over a large pyramid of glasses built up on the bar. The film had several funny scenes but ended with a touch of pathos. I have never been able to identify the film and I would be pleased to hear any suggestions.” As ever, if you have any idea what the film might be, do email us at feedback@moviemail-online.co.uk so we can pass on the news.

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

Names of the Month: Soumitra Chatterjee, Edward Judd, John Gregson

Bonus Points

Page 4

Current Top 10 Chart

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

MovieMail’s Film of the Month

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£11.99

RRP: £19.99 Save £8 (40%)

B 55 Bonus Points If purchased for £11.99

Also on Blu-ray Looking for Eric UK | 2009 | ICON | 116 min | Cert 15 | # 59652 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £16.99

Great prices on Ken Loach DVDs My Name Is Joe UK | 1998 | 4DVD | 100 min | Cert 15 | # 53184 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £5.99

Raining Stones UK | 1993 | 4DVD | 87 min | Cert 15 | # 53195 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £5.99

Poor Cow UK | 1967 | OPTIM | 97 min | Cert 15 | # 55839 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £8.49

n his fifth decade of filmmaking, Ken Loach continues to surprise. After winning the Palme d’Or with The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Loach’s latest is a comedy-drama that boasts not only the presence of a footballing megastar, but cover art set out in a way that traditionally denotes heart-warming triumph over intimidating odds. Looking for Eric eventually delivers on that promise, but long-time followers of this director can rest assured: this being a Loach film, the odds are better observed than most. Our hero Eric (Steve Evets) is in the throes of a deep depression: his second wife has just walked out, leaving behind two stepsons drifting into crime and indolence respectively. After writing off his car in an apparent suicide bid, Eric’s namesake and idol, the Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, appears to him, the consequence of either self-medication or mild concussion. A French Jiminy Cricket, prone to trumpeting La Marseillaise from the balconies of Manchester tower blocks, Big Eric is all self-belief, where our Eric has only self-doubt. Despite the fantasy-football elements, what follows is still recognisably ‘a Ken

Ken Loach’s latest will send you away wearing a big grin Loach film’: the handiwork of the Bath City fan who gave us Brian Glover hassling schoolboy defenders in Kes, the same Loach whose Raining Stones similarly juxtaposed its blokey badinage with sometimes brutal realities. The tone may be lighter here, but the characters remain vulnerable souls: for all Cantona’s formidable presence, it is through Evets’ unsentimentalised portrayal of careworn resignation that the film asserts its own identity. While it’s not Loach’s most political work, Looking For Eric might well be used as a primer on the importance of solidarity in the modern world: the direct community action of the finale is almost guaranteed to send you away wearing a big, daft grin. You don’t have to be a Red Devil to cheer our Eric’s recovery, nor do you have to be a football fan to connect with the film’s underlying social and emotional truths. From end to end, it’s a genuine crowdpleaser. Mike McCahill

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 5

World Cinema Films in a Foreign Language

New Releases Amsterdamned Dick Maas

A serial killer uses the vast network of Amsterdam’s canals to escape; detective Visser is assigned to the case. This suspenseful cult thriller boasts a rich vein of black humour and some memorable setpieces, including a speedboat chase through the Making-of. waterways. Netherlands | 1988 | NOUVE | 109 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59631 | RRP £19.99 | Released 28th Sept

Our DVD Price: £12.99

The Blood

Everlasting Moments Recommended

Director: Georges Franju

Starring: Maria Heiskanen, Jesper Christensen

Starring: Jean-Pierre Mocky, Pierre Brasseur, Anouk Aimée, Paul Meurisse, Jean Ozenne

Pedro Costa

DVD Extras: 2 featurettes.

With echoes of Jacques Tourneur and Robert Bresson, this amazing film explores the plight of two brothers as they attempt to come to terms with their father’s legacy. Shot in startling monochrome, this is a stylized fable, shot through with a deep Costa interview. knowledge of cinema.

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Blood Rain

Kim Dae-seung Korean historical mystery drama in which a detective encounters strange and superstitious tales from island locals when he uncovers a series of grisly murders there. He must somehow convince the islanders that they were committed by a man, and not a ghost. South Korea | 2005 | PALIS | 110 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59743 | RRP £15.99 | Released 28th Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Cherry Blossoms Doris Dörrie

A subtle drama exploring themes of love, death and quiet longing in which, after his wife dies, a man learns that she had always longed to go to Japan, so he heads there during the cherry blossom season to fulfil her wishes and take stock of his life. Germany / France | 2008 | DOGW | 127 min | subt | Cert TBC Item # 60012 | RRP £14.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Page 6

Recommended

Director: Jan Troell Released: 28th September

Portugal | 1989 | 2RUN | 95 min | subt | Cert TBC Item # 59971 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

La Tête Contre Les Murs

Undoubtedly one of the great Swedish directors, best known for his epic The Emigrants (1970-72), Jan Troell has dropped off the international map of late. The all-round excellence of his latest film comes as a refreshing reminder of a gift for period detail so convincing that you can almost smell it, and rich, complex portrayals of flawed but all too recognisable individuals. In early 1900s Malmö, Finnish immigrant Maria Larsson is married to a violent, jealous drunk (a magnificent, cliché-banishing performance by Mikael Persbrandt), for whom she has borne numerous children. While searching for pawnable goods to buy food, she finds a camera won in a lottery many years earlier – but instead of buying it off her, local photographer Pedersen encourages her to develop what turns out to be a genuine creative gift. And then they fall in love, right? Yes, but in a chaste, low-key way that recalls Brief Encounter and In the Mood for Love – one of many subtle pleasures offered by this poignant, masterly film. MB

While Franju’s masterpiece Les Yeux sans Visage has recently enjoyed a definitive, uncut DVD transfer, much of his remarkable output remains virtually unseeable, but after the recent welcome issue of Judex/Les Nuits Rouges here’s another sign that things are changing: Masters of Cinema have put us in their debt with this beautifully crisp transfer of the director’s first feature film, La Tête Contre les Murs. A lacerating picture of a psychiatric clinic in 1950s France, it concerns a rebellious young man, François (Jean-Pierre Mocky, who also wrote the screenplay), incarcerated in an asylum by his stiff-necked father, who blocks his release – leading François to try and escape along with a fellow inmate (Charles Aznavour). The film’s striking imagery was filmed by Eugen Schüfftan, famed for his work on Lang’s Metropolis. Pierre Brasseur’s coldblooded psychiatrist is a dry run for his murderous doctor in the following year’s Les Yeux sans Visage. BF

Buying Details

Our DVD Price:

RRP: £17.99 Save £6 (33%)

RRP: £19.99 Save £8 (40%)

£11.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£9.99

RRP: £15.99 Save £6 (38%)

B 45 Bonus Points If purchased for £9.99

See Alsos The Andzrej Wajda War Trilogy Poland | 1958 | ARROW | 313 min | subt | 12 | # 54084 | RRP £29.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

The Pianist

Roman Polanski 2002 | OPTIM | 142 min | Cert 15 | # 32135 | RRP £17.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

Shoah (MoC)

Claude Lanzmann France | 1985 | EUREK | 550 min | subt | Cert E | # 31717 | RRP £49.99

Our DVD Price: £44.99

ormally when a filmmaker succeeds in making a film after literally decades of trying to get it off the ground, the end result is often referred to as a dream project. This would be grossly misplaced in the case of Andrzej Wajda’s sombre, moving celluloid memorial, as it was inspired both by the real-life murder of his father and his mother’s agonising (and never resolved) wait for confirmation of what she already knew was his near-certain fate. The reason Wajda had to wait so long is explored by one of the film’s key themes: that the massacre of anything up to 20,000 members of the Polish military and intellectual elite in the Katyn forest in early 1940 became an absolutely taboo subject between 1945 and 1990, when Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted that Stalin was responsible. Even something as ostensibly straightforward as recording a time and place of death as ‘Katyn, 1940’ on a tombstone or even a CV became a subversive political act, since the official line was that it was the Nazis that committed the murders after their invasion of the USSR in 1941. In trying to convey the magnitude of the Katyn atrocity and its far-reaching effects on the Polish psyche, numerous stories are

An immensely powerful masterpiece from Andrzej Wajda intertwined, some drawn from real life, others from great creative works such as Sophocles’ Antigone or Wajda’s own early masterpiece Ashes and Diamonds. Particular attention is paid to the people left behind: mothers, wives and children, or the soldiers whose lives were fortuitously spared by something as trivial as a swapped scarf, and who find themselves permanently scarred by feelings of guilt. The film is bookended by two immensely powerful scenes (ordinary Poles trapped on a bridge while fleeing Nazi and Soviet invaders on either side, and a restaging of the Katyn massacre itself), but the most quietly poignant moment comes on Christmas Eve 1939 in a Soviet-run POW camp, when a Polish general addresses his men not with empty patriotic slogans but a simple exhortation to endure whatever happens, as there won’t be a free Poland without them. As indeed there wasn’t, for another fifty years. Michael Brooke

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 7

World Cinema Fanny and Alexander Ingmar Bergman

‘Fanny and Alexander is the sum total of my life as a filmmaker’ said Bergman, and this is a grand, fitting monument to his celebrated career. It is masterful, life-affirming, flawlessly photographed by Sven Nykvist, and shot through with happiness, humanity and magic. Sweden | 1982 | PALIS | 301 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 60014 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Recommended

The French Collection: Vol. 3 Isabelle Huppert

Features three films: Merci Pour le Chocolat (Chabrol, 2000), in which Huppert plays a villanous spider at the centre of an intricate and murderous web of deception, The Piano Teacher (Haneke, 2001), in which she is a sexually repressed Viennese Conservatory professor and Gabrielle (Chereau, 2005), a period adapta3 discs. tion of Joseph Conrad novella. France | 2001 | ART-E | subt | Cert 18 Item # 59428 | RRP £22.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £14.99

The French Collection: Vol. 4 Emmanuel Beart

Three films featuring the beautiful French actress: Jacques Rivette’s Belle Noiseuse: Divertimento (1992), the enigmatic romantic mystery Histoire de Marie et Julien (2003) and AIDS drama The Witnesses (Téchiné, 2007). 3 discs.

Fr | 1992-07 | ART-E | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59429 | RRP £22.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Inside

Alexandre Bustillo Unforgettably gruesome horror film in which, four months after pregnant Sarah loses her husband, she is visited on Christmas Eve by a madwoman (Béatrice Dalle). Alone and desperate to save her unborn child, Sarah fights to stay alive as each of her potential rescuers dies at the disturbed woman’s sadistic hands. France | 2007 | MOMET | 80 min | subt | Cert 18 Item # 59978 | RRP £12.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Page 8

After the captivating Apu Trilogy and other films describing contemporary Bengali life, Goddess (1960) finds renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray delving into Carl Theodor Dreyer territory, in which a religious mystery highlights human behaviour. In the 19th century, an ageing patriarch is convinced his doting daughter-in-law Doya, happily married to a Christian convert studying English, is the goddess Kali in human form, thrusting her into a collision of ancient Hindu and modern western cultures. Stunned by her deification, the young Doya slowly accepts her new role in spite of her husband’s passionate protests, and a public miracle seals the fate of everyone involved. Empowered by its characterizations, the drama avoids abstract speculation and emphasizes the power and danger of blind faith in everyday life. Ray’s acclaimed visual lyricism is on ample display: an endless procession queueing across a windswept beach, softly illuminated figures reclining in intimate chambers. In its gentle, tragic power, Goddess crystallizes the human cost of religious fervour. DC

Ninety minutes fly by in this pulsequickening feature debut from photographer-turned-director, Fred Cavayé. It follows couple Lisa and Julien, whose middle-class domestic idyll is shattered when Lisa is falsely convicted of murder and sent to prison to serve a twenty-year sentence. After an abortive attempt to have the case re-opened, Julien seeks out the guidance of a former jail-breaking savant and resolves to break his wife out of confinement. In a clever counter-intuitive gesture against the film’s title, the real focus here is Julien, whose mental chaos and desperate vigilantism unfold with absolute plausibility. From his early gauche encounters with a subterranean crime world, to a level of surveillance expertise worthy of competition with Gene Hackman in The Conversation, our engagement with his determination never falters and it is his journey by which we are ultimately moved. Appropriately muted hues and crisp cinematography afford this taut thriller a visual sleekness that gives it just invitation to the upper echelons of the surveillance thriller genre. EP

Buying Details

Our DVD Price:

RRP: £12.99 Save £3 (23%)

RRP: £19.99 Save £8 (40%)

£9.99

£11.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£12.99

RRP: £19.99 Save £7 (34%)

B 60 Bonus Points If purchased for £1299

See Alsos Saturday Night Fever John Badham

USA | 1977 | PARA | 114 min | Cert 18 | # 50522 | RRP £12.99

Our DVD Price: £8.49

Borat

Larry Charles USA | 2006 | FOX | 83 min | Cert 15 | # 32481 | RRP £22.99

Our DVD Price: £20.99

Missing

Costa-Gavras USA | 1982 | UPV | 117 min Cert 15 | # 21502 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £5.99

ony Manero, you will remember, was the character played by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever: the coolest cat in the disco. Like many in the late-1970s, Raúl Peralta aspires to be like Tony – that he’s middle-aged, impotent and lives in Chile are but minor impediments to his dream. Raúl watches the film obsessively, practises the moves, and even enters Chile’s top TV talent show. But our ‘Tony’ has a secret: he is a prolific murderer, killing mainly for profit but occasionally on a whim. A film about a Travolta-idolising serial killer might sound gimmicky but rest assured, this is no mere novelty. Director Pablo Larrain keeps a tight grip on proceedings; although never avoiding the absurdity of his main character, he works hard to prevent his film becoming ridiculous. ‘Tony’ – brilliantly played by Alfredo Castro – is a fascinating, blank-faced monster. He cuts a ludicrous figure on the dance floor but he is far too dangerous to not take seriously. His dedication to his favourite film becomes frightening. There’s a wonderfully disturbing sequence when he discovers that Saturday Night Fever has been removed from cinemas and replaced by – the horror! – Grease. Incensed by this

This Chilean political satire is one of the films of the year so far betrayal, he murders the projectionist. The film is about much more than its deranged main character though. Our ‘Tony’ is a product of his environment and the late 1970s in Chile were dominated by the murderous Pinochet regime. Pinochet’s thugs are a persistent, lurking menace in the film – although they are less interested in Raul’s murders than in political subversion. Infatuated with US imports, ‘Tony’ reflects the culture Pinochet was constructing, a cheap shabby imitation of the regional superpower. It is a potent commentary on the cultural colonisation that has only got worse since then. It does the film no disservice at all to say it would make an absolutely terrible double bill with Saturday Night Fever. Larrain’s film is far more intelligent, subversive and (frankly) entertaining than the grandstanding of John Travolta. It’s one of the best films of the year, so slip on your dancing shoes and get on down. James Oliver

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 9

“Disco delirium as you’ve never seen it before” INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

“Compulsive viewing”

★★★★ UNCUT

“Humorous vision shines out”

★★★★ TIME OUT

A sociopathic dancer will stop at nothing to win a talent contest and national exposure in one of the darkest chapters in Chile’s modern history. Chilean director Pablo Larrain shows an astonishing use of cinematic technique in only his second film. Critics raved about both the film and its star, Alfredo Castro, with Uncut calling the film “a highly original portrait of a sociopath in a corrupt, festering, morally bankrupt society... compulsive viewing.” Tony Manero is a brave, multi-layered thriller that is tragic, blackly humorous, and utterly compelling.

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

World Cinema Just Another Love Story Ole Bornedal

Red Cliff

John Woo

Nikolaj Lie Kaas. Identityswitch thriller in which a family man with a good job feels something is lacking in his life. Then he sees a girl narrowly survive a serious accident for which he may have been responsible, and feels compelled to visit her in hospital. Her family assume he is her boyfriend, and not wanting to add to their worries, Jonas plays along...

Historical action epic set in the final days of the Han dynasty, as tyrannical warlord Cao Cao invades Wu’s kingdom with a one million strong army. However, Wu’s military strategist Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) devises a plan to challenge the invaders at sea, culminating in the Available as legendary ‘Battle of Red Cliffs’. standard or special edition DVD and Blu-rays.

Denmark | 2007 | REV | 99 min | Cert 18 Item # 59745 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

China | 2008 | EV | 148 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 60050 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

DVD Price: £13.99 DVD SE Price: £16.49 Blu-ray Price: £17.99 BR SE Price: £26.99

Oasis

Chang-Dong Lee Love knows no boundaries for two social misfits in this Korean drama. Released from prison on manslaughter charges, Jong-Do visits his victim’s home, only to be turned away. Before he leaves he sees a young woman with cerebral palsy, and over time, a relationship develops between them, as he helps her to lead as normal a life as possible, hindered at every turn by their families. South Korea | 2002 | 3RDW | 132 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59163 | RRP £14.99 | Released 10th August

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Piedras

Schoolgirl Hitchhikers Jean Rollin

Lesbian schoolgirls get mixed up with a gang of jewel thieves in this sexploitation film. Spurred on by the popularity of sex scenes in his horror films, Rollin experimented with softcore films, the first of which was the S&Mthemed Schoolgirl Hitchhikers, starring the stunning Joëlle Coeur. France | 1973 | SALV | 74 min | subt | Cert 18 Item # 59989 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Shirin

Abbas Kiarostami

Ramon Salazar Angela Molina. ‘The story of five women ... told from the point of view of their shoes’ said the director of his film in which five quirky Madrid women, all looking for a new start, struggle to scrape through life, stay happy, and remove the stones that appear in their path (and shoes).

Juliette Binoche. Boundary-pushing cinema from Kiarostami as he trains his camera on the faces of an audience of 114 actresses as they watch one of his own films. As the narrative unfolds, remaining unseen to the viewer throughout, it prompts rapt attention, smiles, sidelong glances, and tears.

Iran | 2008 | BFI | 90 min | subt | Cert PG Item # 59746 | RRP £19.99 | Released 28th Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Our DVD Price: £13.99

The Red Baron

Nikolai Müllerschön The story of celebrated German WWI Air Force Ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen – The Red Baron – as he struggles to deal with his conflicting feelings of disgust for the war, responsibility to his peers, and love for a woman.

Two Daughters Satyajit Ray

Two tales from one of the great auteurs of cinema. The first sees a young man leave Calcutta to work in an isolated village where his only solace is in teaching his host to read and write. The second story sees a young man marry a tomboy.

DVD Price: £12.99 Blu-ray Price: £17.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Agnès Varda is the godmother of the nouvelle vague and this is a superb introduction to her extraordinary 55-year career. La Pointe Courte (1954) is widely acknowledged as the first film of the French new wave. Its debt to neorealism is evident, but it is also jarringly filmic as its candid footage of Mediterranean fishermen is juxtaposed with Philippe Noiret’s naive bid to rescue his marriage. Varda proved equally experimental with Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962), which rigorously avoided narrative linearity as a woman whiles away the time awaiting some medical results. There’s even a film-within-the film starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. Vagabond (1985) is something of a companion piece, employing flashbacks and interviews to explain why teenager Sandrine Bonnaire has frozen to death in a ditch. The callous, alienating environment that betrayed her is further indicted in the exceptional documentary, Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (2000), which imparts a dignity to the age-old practice of salvaging discarded items. DP

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£28.99

RRP: £39.99 Save £11 (28%)

Page 11

This Month in Blu-ray

Rounding up all the Blu-rays from this month’s film catalogue in one place. Looking for Eric Ken Loach

UK | 2009 | ICON | 116 min | Cert 15 | # 59652 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £16.99 Save £8

Synecdoche, New York Charlie Kaufman

USA | 2008 | REV | 124 min | 15 | # 59767 | £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £8

Wuthering Heights Coky Giedroyc

UK | 2009 | G-VEN | 142 min | 15 | # 59417 | £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £16.99 Save £8

The Black Shield of Falworth Rudolph Maté

USA | 1954 | EUREK | 99 min | Cert U | # 59737 | RRP £15.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £14.99

Coraline

Henry Selick USA | 2009 | UPV | 101 min | Cert PG | # 59608 | £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £22.49

Dead Man’s Shoes Shane Meadows

Studio Canal Blu-ray Collection With deluxe hardback book-style packaging and accompanying booklets, these Blu-ray releases will look beautiful on the shelf as well as the screen. The collection commences with some of the finest works in world cinema, with all including a plethora of additonal material.

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Volker Schlöndorff

A ordinary woman becomes the subject of a media circus when a man she takes home is a terror suspect. This nuanced social satire, based on the novel by Heinrich Böll, is as relevant now as in 1975. Only on Blu-ray. Ger | 1975 | OPT | 106 min | subt | 12 Item # 59093 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

Much-loved Classic Movies come to Blu-ray The 39 Steps (1935) Alfred Hitchcock

Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll. Richard Hannay goes on the run to foil a spy ring. Classic, archetypal Hitchcock, with famous scenes such as Hannay handcuffed to a Hitchcock: The blonde. Early Years. UK | 1935 | G-VEN | 106 min | Cert U Item # 59771 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th October

Our Blu-ray Price: £13.99 Save £6

All Quiet on the Western Front Delbert Mann

A second film version of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war story about a group of idealistic young Germans recruited to fight on the Western Front in 1914.

Belle de Jour

Our Blu-ray Price: £14.99

Luis Bunuel

USA | 1978 | G-VEN | 123 min | Cert U Item # 59763 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th October

Dances With Wolves

France | 1967 | OPTIM | 102 min | subt | 18 Item # 59110 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £17.99

UK | 2004 | OPTIM | 86 min | 18 | # 59088 | RRP £15.99

Kevin Costner

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

USA | 1990 | WHV | 173 min | 15 | # 59570 | RRP £18.99

The Deer Hunter

Our Blu-ray Price: £17.99

Import/Export Ulrich Seidl

Austria | 2008 | 141 min | subt | 18 | # 59647 | £19.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £17.99

The Prisoner: Complete UK | 1967-69 | NWORK | Cert PG | # 57560 | £59.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £53.99

Sunrise (MoC) F.W. Murnau

USA | 1927 | EUREK | 95 min | B&W | Cert U | # 59732 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £22.49

An American Werewolf in London John Landis

USA / UK | 1981 | UPV | 98 min | Cert 18 | # 59904 | RRP £19.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £17.99

Rome: Seasons 1 and 2 Michael Apted

UK / USA | 2007 | WHV | 18 | # 59509 | £69.99

Michael Cimino

USA | 1978 | OPTIM | 176 min | Cert 18 Item # 59121 | RRP £24.99

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

The Elephant Man David Lynch

USA | 1980 | OPTIM | 118 min | Cert PG Item # 59122 | RRP £24.99

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

Last Year in Marienbad Alain Resnais

France | 1961 | OPTIM | 90 min | subt | U Item # 59095 | RRP £24.99

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

Le Mépris

Jean-Luc Godard France | 1963 | OPTIM | 100 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59098 | RRP £24.99

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

Ran

Our Blu-ray Price: £62.99

Akira Kurosawa

State of Play

Japan | 1985 | OPTIM | 155 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 59104 | RRP £24.99

Kevin Macdonald USA | 2009 | UPV | 127 min | 12 | # 59331 | RRP £24.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £17.99

Page 12

Blu-ray Price: £15.99 Save £9

Released 28th September

The Dam Busters Michael Anderson

The story of Dr Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb and the RAF teams trained to use it on the Ruhr dams in 1943. Michael Redgrave stars as the inventor. UK | 1954 | OPTIM | 123 min | Cert U Item # 58892 | RRP £15.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our Blu-ray Price: £14.99

Hamlet

Laurence Olivier Olivier’s famous film version of Shakespeare’s tragedy of the vacillating Danish Prince. A five Oscar winner, including Best Actor for Olivier and Best Film. UK | 1948 | G-VEN | 155 min | Cert U Item # 59769 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th October

Our Blu-ray Price: £13.99 Save £6

Henry V

Laurence Olivier Aka The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France. As fine a piece of propaganda as was ever made. UK | 1944 | G-VEN | 137 min | Cert U Item # 59770 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th Oct

Our Blu-ray Price: £13.99 Save £6

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

Excellent Prices on

Universal Classics The DVDs below are a small selection of the filmic delights that this Hollywood Studio produced last century. From classic horror to melodrama, there’s much to enjoy! Cary Grant (21 Film Box Set)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Touch of Evil

Massive collection starring the handsome and witty actor including Gunga Din; Indiscreet; Father Goose; Bringing Up Baby; Sylvia Scarlett; Charade; I'm No Angel; She Done Him Wrong; Blonde Venus.

Don Siegel The quintessential fifties paranoid sci-fi movie in which the town of Santa Mira is invaded by alien pods. Widely interpreted as an allegory of Communist infiltration.

A squalid Mexican border town hosts sordid deeds. Welles plays the crooked police chief, Heston the upright narcotics investigator, Dietrich the enigmatic gypsy. An undoubted influence on Psycho.

USA | 1932-1964 | UN | Cert PG | # 33516 | RRP £149.99

USA | 1956 | UN | 80 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 32093 | RRP £9.99

USA | 1958 | UPV | 105 min | B&W | Cert 12 | # 33641 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £49.99 Save £100

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

The Bride of Frankenstein

Going My Way / The Bells of St Mary’s

The Mummy (1932)

Dir: James Whale. Boris Karloff. Great sequel to the original in which Frankenstein creates – a woman!

Dir: Leo McCarey. A pairing of Bing Crosby films in which he plays the youthful Father Chuck O’Malley.

USA | 1935 | UPV | 75 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 12177 | RRP £19.99

USA | 1944-45 | UPV | B&W | Cert U | # 28577 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £14

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

Crossfire

High Noon

Scarface (1932)

Dir: Edward Dmytryk. A tense thriller notable for style and experimentation and for being the first Hollywood film to hit out at racial bigotry.

Dir: Fred Zinnemann. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’, ‘Do not forsake me, oh my darling’. Classic western.

Dir: Howard Hawks. The best, and most brutal, of the classic gangster films. Tony Camonte is the hood with a Napoloeonic urge to become #1.

USA | 1947 | UPV | 86 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 32357 | RRP £9.99

USA / | 1952 | UPV | 85 min | B&W | Cert U | # 55880 | RRP £9.99

USA | 1932 | UN | 89 min | B&W | Cert 15 | # 25768 | RRP £9.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

The Day of the Jackal

Imitation of Life

Dir: Fred Zinnemann. Edward Fox is superb as the chillingly efficient killer hired to assassinate De Gaulle. Based on Frederick Forsyth’s book.

Dir: Douglas Sirk. Racism and the class divide infiltrate the lives of an actress, her maid and their two children in this superb melodrama.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

UK / France | 1973 | UCA | 136 min | Cert 15 | # 14645 | RRP £9.99

USA | 1959 | UPV | 125 min | Cert 12 | # 31224 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Laurel & Hardy Box

Top Hat

21 discs of features and shorts from the team’s best period, the Hal Roach Years. Includes colourised versions. 68 hours of viewing!

Dir: Mark Sandrich. Anyone not already a Fred & Ginger fan will surely be won over by this film. Has the song ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’.

Dir: Karl Freund. Boris Karloff plays mummified priest Im-Ho-Tep who goes in search of his former love when he is brought back to life. USA | 1932 | UPV | 73 min | B&W | Cert 15 | # 55349 | RRP £9.99

Dir: John Ford. John Wayne. The second of Ford’s trilogy of films focusing on the US Cavalry. USA | 1949 | UPV | 99 min | Cert PG | # 28360 | RRP £9.99

DVD: £4.99 Save £4

USA | 1930s | UPV | 999 min | Cert U | # 18340 | RRP £199.99

USA | 1935 | UPV | 96 min | B&W | Cert U | # 21321 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £15.99 Save £54

DVD: £49.99 Save £150

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

Frenzy

Morocco

WC Fields Collection

Hitchcock returned to the UK, and he was on top form with this twisted, elegantly scripted, blackly comic serial killer thriller. Deliciously sleazy.

Dir: Josef von Sternberg. Marlene Dietrich is a cabaret singer who tries to escape her past, but who falls in love with Gary Cooper’s legionnaire.

Fields’ hard-drinking, lugubrious misanthrope was one of the great personas of American comedy. Here are 17 of his best films. 10 discs.

UK | 1972 | UPV | 110 min | Cert 18 | # 24478 | RRP £9.99

USA | 1930 | UPV | 92 min | B&W | Cert U | # 55881 | RRP £9.99

USA | 1932-1941 | UN | B&W | Cert PG | # 50451 | RRP £69.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

DVD: £17.99 Save £52

USA | 1952-59 | UPV | 653 min | Cert PG | # 31006 | RRP £69.99

Order now from MovieMail!

Offer ends 25th October or while stocks last

Seven films from the master of melodrama, including his masterpiece, All That Heaven Allows. 7 discs.

Orson Welles

Classic Movies English Language Films, 1930 - 1969

New Releases Barbary Coast

EXCLUSIVE!

Howard Hawks

Set in the anything-goes atmosphere of San Francisco during the Gold Rush, this rip-roaring tale of greed and love triangles climaxes in a thrilling chase through the goldfields, where bar owner Edward G. Robinson goes after Joel McCrea and Miriam Hopkins. USA | 1935 | PALL | 91 min | Cert PG Item # 59543 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

The Battle of Neretva Veljko Bulajic

Yugoslavia | 1969 | ARROW | 158 min | Cert 15 Item # 59993 | RRP £15.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

The Day the Earth Caught Fire Val Guest

Classic British sci-fi. Hardbitten hack with a heart Leo McKern, along with boozing colleague Edward Judd and his deliciously gamine girlfriend Janet Munro, aim to find out why the earth’s weather has gone haywire. Simultaneous nuclear tests seem the cause. UK | 1961 | NWORK | 96 min | Cert 15 Item # 59492 | RRP £5.99 | Released 28th September

Our DVD Price: £5.99

Lambert Hillyer

A strange young woman arrives to claim and burn the body of the dead Count, and reveals her desire to be rid of his curse. A genuine sequel to Browning’s original, with lesbian undertones giving the film a gloriously B-movie edge. USA | 1936 | UN | 71 min | Cert PG Item # 54029 | RRP £9.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £6.49

Page 14

Recommended EXCLUSIVE!

Rider on the Rain Recommended

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Director: Rene Clément

Starring: Kenneth More, Susannah York, Jane Asher, Danielle Darrieux

Starring: Charles Bronson, Marlène Jobert

Released: 7th September

DVD Extras: French and English versions.

Yul Brynner, Orson Welles, Hardy Krüger, Sylva Koscina, Franco Nero. Star-studded, epic WWII movie in which the Yugoslav Partisans trek northwards, aiming to cross the treacherous Neretva gorge over the one remaining bridge in order to get to safety.

Dracula’s Daughter

The Greengage Summer

Many of Rumer Godden’s novels have been adapted for the big screen, most famously Black Narcissus and The River. Now, the excellent, previously unavailable The Greengage Summer can join their estimable company on DVD. Like much of Godden’s work, it portrays the sexual awakening of a British girl in a foreign land (it was retitled Loss of Innocence in the US). Susannah York plays Joss, a sixteen year-old who looks after her younger siblings in a French hotel while her mother recuperates in hospital. Here she meets a suave Englishman (Kenneth More), who takes her under his wing to the disapproval of the proprietress (a superb Danielle Darrieux). Épernay, in France’s Champagne country, is lavishly photographed by Freddie Young, and the film launched the careers of both York and Jane Asher as her sister. York is particularly strong. More, who said this was his favourite of his films, suggests a dark side to the male protagonist which is gradually revealed as the picture develops to its tense conclusion. AD

A stranger arrives in an off-season Riviera resort; he stalks and rapes a local woman, Mélancolie ‘Mellie’ Mau (Marlène Jobert), who shoots him and disposes of his body. Enter Charles Bronson as Harry Dobbs, another stranger, who makes it clear to Mellie that he knows what she did. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, with the gamine Jobert holding her own against Bronson at his most sphinx-like and menacing. The surfeit of Death Wish sequels has rather obscured the quality of Bronson’s earlier work; Rider on the Rain – a tale as slippery as its title suggests and full of carefully placed visual detail – came only two years after his career-topping performance in Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. In both films, it’s Bronson’s unreadability that gives his presence such an edge: we have no idea whether or not to root for him. This great-looking release gives you both the English and the French-language version, and it’s worth checking out both to see how the different languages affect the atmosphere of the film. NR

Buying Details

Our DVD Price:

RRP: £12.99 Save £1 (7%)

RRP: £15.99 Save £6 (38%)

£11.99

£9.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Recommended Director: Mike Nichols Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis Released: 5th October DVD Extras: TBC USA | 1966 | WHV | 124 mins | B&W | Cert 15 | Item # 59966

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£7.99

RRP: £9.99 Save £2 (20%)

B 35 Bonus Points B

If purchased for £7.99

See Alsos Abigail’s Party Mike Leigh

UK | 1984 | BBC-DD | 102 min | Cert PG | # 13759 RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Nous Ne Vieillirons Pas Ensemble Maurice Pialat

France | 1972 | EUREK | 102 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 59542 | RRP £19.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

The Taming of the Shrew Franco Zeffirelli

UK | 1967 | COL-T | 117 min | U | # 7392 | RRP £19.99

Our DVD Price: £8.99

his superlative film adaptation of Edward Albee’s devastating, booze-soaked tragicomedy of love and hate (mainly hate) in a failed middle class marriage is memorable for a number of reasons. It was the first of Mike Nichols’ many stylish and sophisticated contributions to grown-up American cinema; it helped pave the way for the welcome excesses of ‘New Hollywood’ in its groundbreaking use of bad language (tame today, words like ‘bugger’, ‘screw’ and ‘hump’ had Middle America gasping in the aisles in 1966); and it’s the only one of 11 movies off-screen couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor made together that can feasibly be called a classic. Taylor, in particular, is at her career-best as Martha, the acid-tongued and blondebleached wife of George, a weary, dissatisfied professor of history at the Ivy League university where Martha’s father is president. The couple have long ago traded hope and aspiration for the volatile comforts of the liquor bottle; their home life has descended to a continuous stream of verbal sparring that ranges from the brutally vindictive to the waspishly affectionate. Into this destructive domesticity one night they

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were born to play these roles invite George’s young colleague, biology professor Nick (George Segal), and his highly-strung wife Honey (Sandy Dennis). Needless to say, the fireworks intensify as the drink begins to flow; by the end of the stormy soiree, no-one is left unscathed. Creatively bankrupt writers often seem to believe that loud and histrionic argument equals intense drama (think EastEnders). But Edward Albee knew that a marathon slanging match needs poetry and imagination if it’s really to draw us in. Who’s Afraid of Viriginia Woolf? succeeds because it respects Albee’s original text, and because Burton and Taylor, even though they didn’t create the roles onstage, look born to play George and Martha. The film bagged five Oscars: Taylor won Best Actress (for the second time); Burton, in probably his most effectively realised screen performance, narrowly missed out on Best Actor. Neither star was as good in anything else again. Julian Upton

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 15

A wonderfully varied

World Cinema

This fine selection of films from around the globe includes many very recent releases and is aimed to please the di from Sweden to Romainia, Finland to France...

The BaaderMeinhof Complex

Black Book

Festen

Paul Verhoeven

Thomas Vinterberg

Uli Edel

Rip-roaring action, intrigue, betrayal, lust, lasciviousness and greed characterise this WWII drama about a Jewish girl who gets entangled in a deadly web of double-dealing and betrayal.

Dogme Film 1. A birthday party gathering for a 60 year-old man brings some unpleasant family truths into the light. A brilliant film about love, hate, and the icy charm of the bourgeoisie.

A powerful, controversial and suspenseful dramatisation of the inner workings of 1970s radical left-wing German terrorist group, The Red Army Faction.

Netherlands | 2006 | TARTN | 145 min | Cert 15 | # 33298 | RRP £19.99

Denmark | 1998 | MET-D | 106 min | subt | 15 | # 55561 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £111

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

36 Quai des Orfèvres

California Dreamin’

Downfall

Dir: Olivier Marchal. A hugely entertaining thriller in which Auteil and Depardieu play competing department heads in the Paris police force.

Dir: Cristian Nemescu. Awardwinning satirical Romanian comedy set against the backdrop of the Kosovan war of 1999.

Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel. Controversial, award-winning drama about the final days of Hitler and the Nazi regime. Bruno Ganz stars.

France | 2004 | TARTN | 100 min | subt | 15 | # 30032 | RRP £19.99

Romania | 2007 | ART-E | 150 min | subt | 15 | # 55615 | RRP £19.99

Germany | 2004 | MOMET | 155 min | Cert 15 | # 29427 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

The Aki Kaurismäki Collection: Vol 1

Les Choses Secrètes

The Edge of Heaven

Dir: Jean-Claude Brisseau. An erotic tale centring on two penniless young women who set out to better their lot in life by manipulating men.

Dir: Fatih Akin. Family and politics collide as a young German professor seeks out the daughter of his father’s mistress in this rich ensemble piece.

Germany | 2008 | MOMET | 150 min | subt | 18 | # 57018 | RRP £17.99

The characteristically deadpan ‘workers trilogy’: Shadows in Paradise, 3 discs. Ariel, Match Factory Girl.

France | 2002 | TARTN | 112 min | subt | 18 | # 23244 | RRP £19.99

Germany | 2007 | ART-E | 121 min | subt | 15 | # 53871 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £15

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

The Apu Trilogy

Chungking Express

Dir: Satyajit Ray. Ray’s finest achievement in film; each film is a masterpiece. Pather Panchali, Aparajito and The World of Apu. 3 discs.

Wong Kar-Wai’s celebrated portrait of a neon-lit city populated by love-lorn cops, dangerous drug smugglers and California dreamers.

Les Enfants du Paradis

India | 1955-59 | ART-E | subt | B&W | U | # 12274 | RRP £49.99

Hong Kong | 1994 | ART-E | 100 min | subt | 12 | # 56894 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £24.99 Save £25

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Atomised

The Counterfeiters

Être et Avoir

Dir: Oskar Roehler. Drama based on Michel Houellebecq’s controversial bestseller about half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality.

Dir: Stefan Ruzowitzky. The true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history. Best Foreign Language film at the 2008 Oscars.

Dir: Nicolas Philibert. The documentary sensation that followed a year in the life of a rural French village school, its children and their teacher.

Germany | 2006 | MOMET | 105 min | subt | 15 | # 30578 | RRP £19.99

Germany | 2007 | MET-D | 95 min | subt | 15 | # 53257 | RRP £19.99

France | 2002 | ART-E | 94 min | subt | PG | # 58463 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £14

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Couscous

Gardens in Autumn

Dir: Abdel Kechiche. A richly-characterised and affectionate film in which a sixty year old man dreams of founding his own restaurant.

Dir: Otar Iosseliani. A typically meandering, bittersweet comedy about a minister’s fall from grace, featuring an 81 year-old Michel Piccoli in drag.

France | 2007 | ART-E | 151 min | subt | 15 | # 56136 | RRP £19.99

France | 2006 | ART-E | 115 min | subt | PG | # 57730 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Finland | 1986-90 | ART-E | 211 min | Cert 15 | # 50238 | RRP £29.99

Dir: Jacques Audiard. A superb character study of a young man torn between crime and classical music. France | 2005 | ART-E | 102 min | subt | 15 | # 31392 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Dir: Marcel Carné. A richly romantic masterpiece voted ‘Best French Film Ever’ by the French Film Academy. France | 1945 | SECND | 181 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 407 | £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Order now at www.moviemail-onlin

From £5.99!

a DVD Sale

iscerning armchair traveller, with film from Japan to the West Bank,

Béla Tarr A Georges Simenon novel is the source for this brooding drama in which a dock worker finds a suitcase full of money. Characterised by stunning monochrome photography. France | 2007 | ART-E | 132 min | subt | B&W | 12 | # 57732 | £15.99

Satyajit Ray: Vol 1 Three classics from the revered Bengali filmmaker: Mahanagar (The Big City) (1963), Charulata (The Lonely Wife) (1964) and the beautifully observed character study Nayak (The Hero) (1966). 3 discs. India | 1963-66 | ART-E | subt | B&W | Cert PG | # 53725 | RRP £29.99

Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow Theo Angelopoulos An epic film of exile, separation and wandering, as the Greek population of Odessa become refugees, and the love story between Alexis and Eleni begins.

DVD: £14.99 Save £15

Greece | 2003 | ART-E | 162 min | subt | PG | # 22529 | RRP £19.99

Gospel According to St. Matthew

Let’s Talk About the Rain

Rien Ne Va Plus

Dir: Pier Paolo Pasolini. A respectful, passionate and moving adaptation of the biblical text.

Dir: Agnès Jaoui. Comedy drama, set one wet August, about the fault lines in French middle-class life.

Italy | 1964 | PALIS | 127 min | subt | B&W | U | # 11558 | RRP £14.99

France | 2008 | ART-E | 98 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 57250 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £8

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Herzog / Kinski

Life is a Long Quiet River

Summer Hours

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

A magnificent six film set. Features Aguirre, Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and My Best Fiend. 6 discs. Ger | 1972-99 | ANBAY | 648 min | subt | 15 | # 16692 | RRP £39.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £25

Dir: Etienne Chatiliez. A wicked comedy about the radiantly bourgeois Quesnoys and the grubby Groseilles. France | 1988 | ART-E | 90 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 58107 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Dir: Claude Chabrol. Two small time con artists get caught up in a money laundering scam in this typically elegant and playful film. France | 1997 | SECND | 101 min | subt | 15 | # 27574 | RRP £19.99

Dir: Olivier Assayas. The divergent paths of three adult siblings (Juliette Binoche, Edith Scob, Jérémie Renier) collide in this inheritance drama. France | 2008 | ART-E | 99 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 56342 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

The Life of Oharu

Times and Winds

Dir: Vilgot Sjöman. A cinematic landmark that caused a sensation for its explicit sexual content. 2 discs.

Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. A tragic richesto-rags fable set in 17th century Kyoto, characterised by unflinching realism and atmospheric detail.

Dir: Reha Erdem. An intimate portrait of life in a poor Turkish village, where villagers live according to the cycle of the seasons and the call to prayer.

Sweden | 1967-8 | 2ND | 220 min | subt | B&W | 15 | # 30179 | £19.99

Japan | 1952 | ART-E | 130 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 17297 | £19.99

Turkey | 2006 | ART-E | 110 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 56344 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Jamón, Jamón

The Patrice Leconte Collection

The Wind Will Carry Us

I Am Curious Yellow & I Am Curious Blue

Dir: Bigas Luna. A hot, sexy and outrageously funny farce set in a world of man-eating women and ham-eating men. Spain | 1992 | TARTN | 90 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 6029 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

Lemon Tree Dir: Eran Riklis. Drama based on the true story of a Palestinian widow on the Israel/ West Bank border, whose lemon grove ‘threatens security’.

Five films: The Hairdresser’s Husband, Ridicule, Monsieur Hire, Le Parfum d’Yvonne, Tango. 5 discs.

Dir: Abbas Kiarostami. A poetic interpretation of issues of life and death, tradition and modernity. 2 discs.

France | 1996 | 2ND | 424 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 54886 | RRP £49.99

Iran | 1999 | ART-E | 118 min | subt | Cert U | # 57252 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £29.99 Save £20

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

The Red Squirrel

You, the Living

Dir: Julio Medem. A passionate, cryptic, endlessly fascinating love story in which a man invents a shared history for an amnesiac girl.

Dir: Roy Andersson. A tragicomic exploration of life, existence and even happiness of sorts, in fifty funny, deadpan scenes.

Israel | 2008 | UNANI | 106 min | subt | Cert PG | # 57731 | RRP £19.99

Spain | 1993 | TARTN | 109 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 10786 | RRP £19.99

Sweden | 2007 | ART-E | 89 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 54840 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

ne.co.uk or 0844 776 0900

Offer ends 25th October or while stocks last

The Man from London

Classic Movies First Men in the Moon

John Wayne Westerns

Nathan Juran

Screen version of H.G. Wells’s science-fiction, adapted by Nigel Kneale and with special effects by Ray Harryhausen in his only Dynamation movie in CinemaScope. A team of UN astronauts planning a trip to the moon meet a man (Edward Judd) who claims that he landed there many years previously, where he and his This colleagues were attacked by Selenites. is Dynamation Documentary; The Harryhausen Chronicles. UK | 1964 | COL-T | 99 min | Cert U Item # 20771 | RRP £12.99 | Out Now

Our DVD Price: £8.99

The Gelignite Gang Terence Fisher

Patrick Holt, Lloyd Lamble. ‘It Explodes and Blasts the Lid Off a Ruthless Underworld!’ Soho-set British crime thriller in which insurance investigator Jimmy Baxter searches for a daring gang of jewel robbers who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to achieve their goals. UK | 1956 | SIMP | 71 min | Cert U Item # 59720 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Meet Mr Callaghan Charles Saunders

Cynthia Meraulton hires private eye Slim Callaghan (Derrick de Marney) when her uncle changes his will in her favour ... or so she says. When Slim finds out her uncle is already dead, he switches his suspicions from the former three beneficiaries to Cynthia herself – and her fiancé. UK | 1954 | SIMP | 86 min | Cert U Item # 59729 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

The Jerry Lewis Box Set The definitive collection. Features The Patsy, The Delicate Delinquent, Rock-a-Bye Baby, The Geisha Boy, The Bellboy, Cinderfella, The Ladies Man, The Errrand Boy, The Nutty Professor, The Disorderly Orderly, The Family Jewels. 11 discs.

USA | PARAH | 1014 min | Cert PG Item # 55443 | RRP £59.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £53.99

Page 18

Bettie Page Films Irving Klaw Classics: Bettie Page and Dancing Films In the 1950s, ‘King of Pin-up’ Irving Klaw began filming, producing over a hundred 8mm films. This collection of Klaw’s Bettie Page films shows the legendary pin-up at her finest, while the dancing films have pin-ups such as Donna Brown and Trudy Wayne.

USA | 1950s | DIGCL | 120 min | Cert 18 Item # 60024 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th Oct

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Irving Klaw Classics: Fetish and Wrestling Films This collection of Irving Klaw’s fetish films features pin-ups wearing corsets, gloves and high heels, while the wrestling films feature beautiful women wrestling in lingerie and burlesque legends Tempest Storm and Lili St Cyr performing playful catfights.

USA | 1950s | DIGCL | 120 min | Cert 18 Item # 60025 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th Oct

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Bettie Page: Bondage Queen With her distinctive haircut and figure, playful sexuality and lack of inhibition, Bettie Page was one of the most photographed pin-ups of all time. Here she stars, along with other glamour girls, in original 8mm and 16mm bondage, fetish and catfight films.

USA | 1998 | DIGCL | 115 min | Cert 18 Item # 60023 | RRP £15.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Bettie Page: Dark Angel Paige Richards stars as favourite pin-up model and cult icon Bettie Page in this film that recalls in episodes her last three years as a pin-up queen and faithfully recreates, in Irving Klaw’s original style, many of her now classic bondage film performances.

USA | 2004 | DIGCL | 75 min | Cert 18 Item # 60018 | RRP £15.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Nine films starring the rugged American icon, and one of the most recognisable of all male stars. Features Hondo, McLintock!, Rio Lobo, True Grit, El Dorado, Big Jake, The Shootist, The Sons of Katie Elder, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. 9 discs.

USA | PARAH | Cert 15 Item # 59572 | RRP £39.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Paul Newman Collection: Vol 2 Five films featuring the legendary actor, including his big-screen debut, The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954), in which the director said, ‘This young man is destined for great things’. Also with The Helen Morgan Story (Michael Curtiz, 1957), The Outrage (Martin Ritt, 1964), When Time Ran Out (James Goldstone, 1980), and Newman’s first directorial outing, 5 discs. Rachel Rachel (1968). USA | 1980 | WHV | 550 min | Cert 12 Item # 58919 | RRP £21.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £16.49

Rock You Sinners Denis Kavanagh

London radio DJ Johnny Laurence dreams of hosting his own TV show but meets with little success until his assistant persuades him that rock ‘n’ roll is where it’s at! A rare snapshot of the earliest days of British rock ‘n’ roll, with performances from Art Baxter and his Rockin’ Sinners, Tony Crombie and his Rockets, Dickie Bennett, Joan Small and more. UK | 1957 | NWORK | 59 min | Cert PG Item # 59901 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Swinging UK / UK Swings Again

DJs Brian Matthew, Kent Walton and Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman introduce some of the biggest stars of the British Beat Boom era. This amazing showcase features The Animals, The Hollies, Lulu, Millie, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, The Merseybeats, The Tornadoes, The Four Pennies and the Swinging Blue Jeans. UK | 1964 | NWORK | 83 min | Cert E Item # 59818 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Hammer A small selection of films starring

Richard Burton The Spy who Came from the Cold Martin Ritt This adaptation from le Carré perfectly captures the seedy atmosphere of cold war espionage and has one of Burton’s best roles as an apparently washed-up spy. UK | 1965 | PARAH | 112 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 31162 | RRP £9.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £4

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

DVD: £6.99 Save £11

Equus Dir: Sidney Lumet. Burton, in one of his best performances, plays psychiatrist Martin Dysart, who is investigating the savage blinding of six horses. UK | 1977 | MGMHE | 135 min | Cert 15 | # 14350 | RRP £12.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £7

Offer ends 25th October or while stocks last

The Taming of the Shrew Dir: Franco Zeffirelli. Zesty version of the classic comedy starring Burton and Taylor. Convincing quarrels! UK | 1967 | COL-T | 117 min | Cert U | # 7392 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £14

Villain Dir: Michael Tuchner. Brutal action thriller which sees Burton play Vic Dakin, a murderous, sadistic, gay, mother-fixated London gang leader. UK | 1971 | OPTIM | 98 min | Cert 18 | # 50609 | RRP £12.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £7

Wagner Dir: Tony Palmer. With his peremptory air and biting speech, Burton is perfectly adapted to play Wagner as his smouldering genius ages. 4 discs.

We exclusively present the DVD debuts for three uncommon Hammer films. All have 24 page booklets with film notes from Hammer expert Marcus Hearn, and are presented in their original aspect ratios ‘Megascope’ for the two war films and ‘Hammerscope’ for The Damned.

Yesterday’s Enemy Val Guest

A fine piece of work from Val Guest, who brings polished cinematic clout to this low-key war drama. Captain Stanley Baker and his men, separated from their unit and unsure whether they are behind enemy lines, take a rest from snaking through the Burmese jungle. But the village they stumble upon houses a puzzle that they must solve or pay for with their lives. Far from confining the action, Enemy’s studio setting actually helps to emphasise the claustrophobia and stifling oppression of jungle combat. And the film is worth seeing for Baker’s performance alone. A kind of proto Peckinpah anti-hero, he’ll commit war crime for the greater good of the operation, but he’ll risk his life to save men that he is never civil to. The antithesis of the stiff-upper-lipped British officer, this is one of his best screen roles. 24-page illustrated booklet. UK | 1959 | SPHE | 95 min | Cert TBC Item # 59715 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Camp on Blood Island Val Guest

Hammer horror of a different kind, this was highly controversial on its release, being one of the first films to attempt an unflinching look at Japanese atrocities in WWII. A stoic André Morell leads a group of POWs, interned under the sadistic rule of Commander Yamamitsu, who has vowed to massacre them all should Japan surrender. When this indeed happens, the British prisoners have to ensure that the evil Commander doesn’t hear the news. Blood Island should now be enjoyed for what it is: lively Boy’s Own adventure hokum from a much less politically correct age (for one thing, most of the Japanese guards are ‘yellowed-up’ westerners). But impressive is Val Guest’s assured visual sense and Hammer’s economic inventiveness: a few palm trees, and you barely notice that Virginia Water, Surrey, is Booklet. standing in for deepest Malaysia.

UK | 1984 | MET-D | 469 min | Cert 15 | # 21639 | RRP £39.99

UK | 1958 | SPHE | 82 min | Cert TBC Item # 59713 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

DVD: £17.99 Save £22

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Stylish, bewildering, thought-provoking, cryptic, apocalyptic and (maybe) even a touch pretentious, there are precious few movies like The Damned. That it was produced by the venerable but conservative Hammer Studios only adds to the fun, for it is like nothing else they ever produced. It starts in Brighton Rock territory, as American Simon Wells is mugged in Weymouth by a vicious biker gang led by King (a glowering Oliver Reed). Wells flees town in the company of King’s sister Joan, with the outraged thug in pursuit. From here however, it takes a sharp left into science fiction fairy tale. The lovers seek shelter inside the perimeter of a secret Army base and find their way into a mysterious bunker, filled with children. But there is something very odd about these children, not least that their skin is cold to the touch... The Damned is a fascinating, haunting experience. Hammer might not have known what they had on their hands but it’s the most intriguing picture they ever released. JO

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£11.99

RRP: £12.99 Save £1 (7%)

Page 19

Classic Movies Silent

Documentaries

Seven Sinners

Albert de Courville Felix Aylmer, Constance Cummings. A wryly amusing tale featuring vanishing corpses, a wisecracking private eye and crashing trains (courtesy of sequences recycled from the crash staged for the 1928 film, The Wrecker). Written by Frank Launder & Sidney Gilliat. UK | 1936 | NWORK | 67 min | Cert TBC Item # 59812 | RRP £15.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Recommended

Sex and the Other Woman / This, That and the Other

Dennis Waterman, Victor Spinetti, Vanessa Howard. A pairing of British sex comedies. Sex and the Other Woman (1972) follows the exploits of four sultry seductresses and four willing husbands. Directed by the ‘King of Sexploitation’ Stanley A. Long, it stars Richard Wattis and Page 3 girl Felicity Devonshire. Also includes This, That and the Other (aka A Promise of Bed) (Ford, 1969). UK | 1969-72 | ODEON | 170 min | Cert 18 Item # 57432 | RRP £9.99 | Released 21st September

Our DVD Price: £7.99

Silent Film Sunrise (Masters of Cinema) FW Murnau

George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor. This landmark of silent cinema becomes the first full-length silent film to appear on Blu-ray. Not only that but it comes in two versions – the American Movietone version and a beautiful print of an alternative silent version recently discovered in the Czech Republic. Addressing themes of temptation, reconciliation and redemption, it was named by ‘Cahiers du cinéma’ in 1967 as ‘the single greatest masterwork in the history of the cinema’. It borrows its language from Dutch genre painting, expressionism and theatre, but in the end it is a pure 2 discs; Restored highcinematic spectacle. definition transfers; Original Movietone score and alternate Olympic Chamber Orchestra score; Commentary by John Bailey; Outtakes; Murnau’s 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film; PDF of script with Murnau’s annotations; Booklet. USA | 1927 | EUREK | 95 min | Cert U Item # 59731 | RRP £19.99 | Released 21st Sept

Director: Géza von Bolváry Starring: Joseph Striker, Benita Hume Released: 5th October DVD Extras: The Wrecker (Home Movie Version); Vintage Cine Kodak Services Trailer; Featurettes: Shooting The Wrecker, Walking the Line, Composing for The Wrecker; Derailment (1944); Iowa State Fair Staged Rail Crash (1932); Mid-Hants Railway: A Line Preserved; A Train Wreck in Korea, 1952; Viewing Notes Booklet. UK | 1928 | NWORK | 74 mins | B&W | Cert TBC | Item # 59843

As a spate of train crashes sees the public transferring their allegiance to the newly-established motor coach routes, lurid newspaper headlines talk of the deadly exploits of ‘Jack the Wrecker’. Who is he and can he be prevented from creating more deadly mayhem? Stepping into the breach is retired amateur cricketer Roger Doyle, about to join the board of United Coast Lines Railway, where he teams up with his uncle’s secretary in an attempt to foil the wrecker’s deeds. Previously thought lost, The Wrecker is a fascinating late British silent film, filmed on the Southern Railways in 1928, that famously makes use of a dramatic staged locomotive crash. Given a sprightly new score from Neil Brand and packed with related content, it is a must for silent film and train enthusiasts alike, who will relish the locations, the hurtling steam trains and the period detail – including the capture of a criminal by Dictaphone! GH

The Age of Stupid’s stated aim is to ‘turn 250 million viewers into climate activists’. McLibel director Franny Armstrong takes five stories from around the world – from a Nigerian woman, two Iraqi children, a New Orleans resident, an alpine guide, an Indian cheap flights entrepreneur – while Pete Postlethwaite plays a future archivist, looking back at footage from our present world. As he ponders the all-too evident trails of destruction, displacement, oil terrorism, natural disasters, environmental change and human ingenuity countered by profit-motivated short-termism, his question is telling: ‘We wouldn’t be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us? … The question I’ve been asking is: why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren’t sure if we were worth saving?’. There is food for thought here for everyone, even if you are already acquainted with the stark predictions and the need for change. GH

Buying Details

Our DVD Price:

RRP: £19.99 Save £7 (35%)

RRP: £19.99 Save £8 (40%)

£12.99

DVD Price: £12.99 Blu-ray Price: £15.99

Page 20

The Wrecker

£11.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

Back Catalogue Spotlight

As You Like It

The Edge of the World

Dir: Paul Czinner. A treasure from the archives which sees a young Olivier play Orlando in Shakespeare’s popular comedy. Camerawork by Jack Cardiff, editing by David Lean. UK | 1936 | SMPLY | 96 min | B&W | Cert E | # 32322 | RRP £9.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £3

The Lady Vanishes

Dir: Michael Powell. A moving drama set on the remote Shetland Isle of Foula, where the new ways of the trawler fleets collide with the old island ways. UK | 1937 | BFI | 74 min | Cert U | # 15231 | RRP £19.99

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. The elderly Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) goes missing on a train bound for England. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave set out to find her. Hugely entertaining! UK | 1938 | NWORK | 92 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 55646 | RRP £5.99

DVD: £11.99 Save £8

DVD: £5.99

No Limit

Pygmalion

Things to Come

Dir: Montague Banks. Filmed at the 1935 Isle of Man TT races, this lively mixture of action and comedy sees George Formby play a man convinced that he has the talent to win them.

Dir: Asquith & Howard. Shaw’s comedy of manners is given its finest screen outing in this 1938 film that sees Wendy Hiller take the role of cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle.

Dir: William Cameron Menzies. The extended version of this incredible pro-science fantasy showcasing the hopes and predictions of H.G. Wells, who worked closely on the script. 2 discs.

UK | 1935 | OPTIM | 77 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 32640 | RRP £15.99

UK | 1938 | SECND | 92 min | B&W | Cert U | # 50424 | RRP £19.99

UK | 1936 | NWORK | 94 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 30200 | £19.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £3

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

DVD: £11.99 Save £8

Anna Neagle Collection DVD £32.99 Save £8 Ask A Policeman / Boys Will Be Boys (Will Hay) DVD £7.99 Save £5 Boots! Boots! DVD £7.99 Borderline DVD £13.99 Britain’s Home Front at War: London Can Take It DVD £9.99 Save £6 City of Ships DVD £9.99 Save £5 Comic Icons: George Formby DVD £32.99 Save £7 Comic Icons: Will Hay Collection DVD £14.99 Save £5 Dark Journey DVD £7.99 Elephant Boy DVD £8.99

John Mills Centenary Collection (Volume 2) DVD £32.99 Save £17 Keep Your Seats Please DVD £11.99 Save £3 King Solomons Mines (1937) DVD £8.99 Save £1 Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950 DVD £27.99 Save £7

Sweeney Todd (King, 1936) DVD £6.99 Save £1

The Return of Bulldog Drummond DVD £11.99 Save £4

The 39 Steps DVD £5.99 Save £10

The Scarlet Pimpernel / Return of the Scarlet... DVD £7.99 Save £5

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery DVD £15.99 Save £4 The Four Feathers (1939) DVD £5.99 Save £4

Maria Marten - Murder at the Red Barn DVD £8.99 Save £1

The Ghoul (Hunter, 1933) DVD £10.99 Save £4

Nell Gwyn DVD £7.99 Save £3

The Good Servant DVD £12.99 Save £7

Nurse Edith Cavell DVD £7.99 Save £2 Off The Dole DVD £7.99 Save £5

Evergreen DVD £9.99 Fire Over England DVD £7.99 Save £2

Old Mother Riley: In Paris & MP DVD £9.99 Save £3

Gracie Fields Collection DVD £15.99 Save £14

Q Planes DVD £7.99 Save £2

Jamaica Inn DVD £5.99 Save £4

The Private Life of Henry VIII DVD £10.99 Save £2

Laurence Olivier Shakespeare Collection DVD £37.99 Save £42 The Frozen Limits DVD £8.99

Oh Mr Porter! / Convict 99 (Will Hay) DVD £7.99 Save £5

In Good Heart DVD £12.99 Save £7

Stormy Weather (Walls, 1935) DVD £10.99 Save £2

Sabotage DVD £5.99 Seven Sinners (de Courville, 1936) DVD £11.99 Save £4 St. Martin’s Lane DVD £10.99 Save £2

The Lion Has Wings DVD £7.99 Save £2 The Man Who Could Work Miracles DVD £8.99 Save £1 The Man Who Knew Too Much DVD £5.99

The Sea Harvesters DVD £12.99 Save £7 The Sherlock Holmes Box Set (Rathbone) DVD £42.99 Save £7 The Tommy Trinder Collection DVD £25.99 Save £9 The Vicar of Bray DVD £7.99 Save £2 The Werewolf of London DVD £7.99 Save £2 The Will Hay Collection DVD £32.99 Save £17 There Goes the Bride DVD £8.99 Save £1

Tod Slaughter Triple Bill The Margaret Lockwood DVD £13.99 Save £4 Collection DVD £27.99 Save £12 Trouble Brewing The Mikado (Schertzinger, DVD £11.99 Save £4 1939) DVD £7.99 Save £2 Young and Innocent DVD £5.99 The Prisoner of Corbal DVD £7.99 Save £5

Order now from MovieMail!

Prices valid until 25th October or while stocks last

Film Listing

Highlights

British Film of the 1930s

Created by popular demand for the benefit of customers who don’t have access to our website, this is the first of a series of Back Catalogue Spotlights, where we present (almost) all the available DVDs and Blu-rays from a particular area of film. Do let us know if you have any requests for topics in future editions!

Documentaries “The Creative Interpretation of Actuality”

New Releases

Great British Steam Railway Galas & Anniversaries: 1925-80 A chronology of the best Galas and Anniversaries of the 20th century, including: 1925 – Railway Century Pageant, Darlington; 1956 – The Caterham ‘Centenarian’; 1962 – Centenary run of the ‘Flying Scotsman’ and 1979 – Paddington Station 125th Anniversary.

Am I Black Enough for You? Goran Olsson

The story of legendary Philadelphia soul artist Billy Paul and of how the civil rights movement gave rise to the birth of soul music. Well known for ‘Me and Mrs Jones’, Paul’s radical follow-up single, ‘Am I Black Enough For You?’ flopped. This tells why it was released. USA | 2009 | DRAKE | 87 min | Cert 12 Item # 59282 | RRP £19.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Britain at War Collection These documentaries feature veterans from the army, navy, air force and civilian organisations sharing their recollections for perhaps the final time. Together, they from an extraordinary collection of testimonies from a generation that lived through and survived the uncertainties and fears of WWII.

UK | 1925-80 | NWORK | TBC min | Cert E Item # 59872 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Mayday: Tugs of War

Released: 5th October

A documentary that brings the history of the WWII Deep-Sea Rescue tugmen to life. This engaging film, containing rare archival footage, tells of the tugmen’s struggles against enemy submarines, ships, aircraft, and nature while also towing sinking ships almost three times their size.

DVD Extras: TBC

Our DVD Price: £12.74

UK | SIMP | 840 min | Cert E Item # 59724 | RRP £26.99 | Released 21st Sept

Swastika

Lutz Becker

Our DVD Price: £24.49

Charles Dickens’s England Julian Richards

Derek Jacobi presents this documentary exploring the towns, villages and rural locations where novelist Charles Dickens lived and worked, and looks at how he went on to use these places as locations in his many novels and stories. UK | 2009 | GFL | 120 min | Cert E Item # 59465 | RRP £17.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £12.99

Churchill’s War: 1939-1945

Controversial documentary, produced by David Puttnam, told exclusively through archive propaganda footage and colour home movies made by Hitler’s fiancée Eva Braun, which portrays the human side of Adolf Hitler. Introduction; Swastika Revisited; Ludovic Kennedy Interviews Albert Speer; Colour Film in Nazi Germany; Leni Reifenstahl Revisited. UK | 1973 | ODEON | 95 min | Cert E Item # 58817 | RRP £17.99 | Released 28th Sept

Our DVD Price: £12.99

The Trials of Henry Kissinger Eugene Jarecki

Six years of conflict made Winston Churchill Britain’s greatest leader. Sourced from the ITN archives and featuring a wealth of previously unseen footage Churchill’s War combines newsreels and speeches from the war archives to present a vivid picture of a man who helped shaped Britain’s destiny.

Documentary based on the book by Christopher Hitchens, which argues that Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was in fact a power-hungry warmonger responsible for massive military cover-ups and assassination. Tightly focused on its arguments, this film is shocking in its political revelations.

UK | 2009 | ODEON | TBC min | Cert E Item # 59761 | RRP £9.99 | Released 21st September

USA | 2002 | ARTF | 80 min | Cert 15 Item # 59963 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £7.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Page 22

Recommended Director: Gideon Koppel

Robin Williams

UK | 2008 | SIMP | 209 min | Cert E Item # 59725 | RRP £16.99 | Released 21st Sept

4 discs.

sleep furiously

UK | 2008 | NW | 94 mins | Cert U | Item # 60027

Generous in its allowance of natural rhythms, sleep furiously is a subtle, elegaic documentary portrait of a community in west Wales, etiolated through farm sales and the closure of the local school. Director Gideon Koppel was raised in the place that he pictures. His film is that of an incomer (even if born in a place one can be a lifelong incomer), which takes refuge in an aesthetic born of exquisite reticence, and the noting of mundane and usually overlooked textures – breeze block kennels in concrete yards, rain dropping from a clothes line – and actions, such as a shearer replacing a comb on his sheep shears, a farmer shaking out straw bedding in a winter barn, or tracing arcs and serpentine curves in winter sheep feed across a field, patterns discernible only from a distance. Appropriately, this is a film haunted by shades. Koppel talks of Dylan Thomas as an influence, and his film is a sort of diurnal counterpart to Thomas’s intermingled and rumbustious dream lives. Like much of the countryside in Britain, sleep furiously portrays a place that now needs redreaming. GH

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£12.99

RRP: £19.99 Save £7 (35%)

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Portrait of a Miner: The National Coal Board (Vol 1) Recommended Contains: 34 films from the National Coal Board Film Unit, made between 1947-78. Released: 21st September DVD Extras: 2 discs; Booklet with essays and extensive film notes. UK | 1948-84 | BFI | 347 mins | B&W | Cert 15 | Item # 59431

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£16.99

RRP: £24.99 Save £8 (32%)

B 80 Bonus Points If purchased for £16.99

See Alsos The GPO Film Unit: Volume 1 Includes Coal Face. UK | 1933-35 | BFI | 300 min | Cert PG | # 55424 | RRP £24.99

Our DVD Price: £22.99

British Transport Films (Vols 1-9) UK | 1951-80 | BFI | Cert E | RRP £19.99 each

Our DVD Price: £17.99 each

his first volume of films from the National Coal Board Film Unit is part of a three-year project from the BFI, This Working Life, which looks at Britain’s 20th century industrial heritage on screen. Further volumes, on shipbuilding and steel – are planned. This first volume however, Portrait of a Miner, looks at coal, ‘the bedrock of British wealth and welfare’ as it is described in the 1952 film, Plan for Coal. The core of the collection is Mining Review, the monthly industry cinemagazine that ran between 1947-83, and which offers a wealth of material, covering subjects as diverse as pit ponies, machinery, juvenile marching bands, whippet racing and women’s football teams. Also visited are the ‘pitmen painters’ of the Ashington Art Group and Jack Cardiff as he films Sons and Lovers at Brinsley colliery. Other films range from straight documentaries to strange health and safety films. The Shovel traces the tool’s history from a shoulder blade in the Orkneys and concludes with valuable lessons in the art of effective shovelling, while Arthur Clears the

Another superlative documentary collection from the BFI Air is a charming colour drama made to promote The National Coal Board Housewarming Plan. It ends with an extravagant ball whose guests include various types of clean-burning coal. Man Failure is a cautionary tale on the dangers of daydreaming at work, while the animated Hands, Knees and Bumps-a-Daisy has an inimitable address to fellow blokies and worklemates by Stanley Unwin, in which he stresses the deep importlude of safety glovery and knee paddery. The standout title though is Richard Mason’s Portrait of a Miner (1966), an impressionistic half-hour portait of a miner’s thoughts, fears and longings as he works his shift, mixed with direct-to-camera addresses by people in his life. It leaves plenty unsaid and offers an evocative snapshot of one day from the middle of many. Graeme Hobbs

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 23

Television Programmes Originally Broadcast

The Comedians: Series 6

New Releases The Adventures of Black Beauty: The Complete Series

A benchmark production in children’s television, Black Beauty, based on the famous books by Anna Sewell, was one of the most successful TV series ever made in the UK, and is a must for anyone with a love of horses and well-made TV 8 discs. drama.

UK | 1972-7 | NWORK | 1300 min | Cert PG Item # 59870 | RRP £49.99 | Released 2nd Oct

Our DVD Price: £44.99

Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain An epic account of major events in Britain since the end of WWII. Drawing on his detailed knowledge of contemporary politics, Marr helps viewers see themselves in the context of modern history, and in each episode, explores the landmark events that have shaped our world.

Captain America: Vols 1 & 2 Star-spangled Marvel Superhero Captain America (aka Steve Rogers after a dose of super serum) battles the evil forces of his numerous foes in these 1960s animated cartoons based on Jack Kirby’s original comic book stories. Two volumes are available.

Dangerous Knowledge

Big Cat Diary Special

An exclusive one hour special, edited from 2008’s Big Cat Live Week, the BBC Natural History Unit’s ambitious live project to explore the hidden side of Kenya’s Masai Mara Reserve.This tells Tamu’s story – the tale of a lone lioness as she fends for her cubs.

UK | 2009 | 2ENT | 60 min | Cert E Item # 58969 | RRP £15.99 | Released 31st August

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Bootsie and Snudge: Series 1

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Our DVD Price: £5.99 each

Our DVD Price: £13.99

UK | 1960-61 | NWORK | 975 min | Cert TBC Item # 59532 | RRP £39.99 | Released 21st Sept

UK | 1974 | NWORK | 200 min | Cert TBC Item # 59526 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

UK | 2009 | 2ENT | Cert E Item # 59925 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

A follow-on from The Army Game, centred around a gentlemen’s club and written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman. Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser resume their roles of snivelling skiver and bullying sergeant, while Clive Dunn plays the bumbling 5 discs. dogsbody.

The quintessential quickfire stand-up comedy show, The Comedians was one of the great successes of ITV, lasting from 1971 until 1993 and making household names of many of its stars. Filled with excruciatingly bad jokes and knowing winks, this set contains all the best bits from Series 6, first shown in 1973.

Alan Gibson

John Gregson, Patrick Allen and Prunella Ransome star in Southern TV’s 1970s spy thriller written by dramatist NJ Crisp. Gregson plays ex-Army Intelligence man Kirby, now an insurance salesman. Or is he? Returning from France, he finds himself tailed by agents. An apparently innocent bystander helps him to escape, but can Kirby really trust her? UK | 1976 | SIMP | 150 min | Cert 12 Item # 59728 | RRP £14.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Desperate Romantics

This six-part TV serial about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, first broadcast on BBC Two, is a character-driven romp through the alleyways, studios, brothels and chop-houses of 19th century London, where a vagabond group of English poets and painters gain notoriety for their ground-breaking paintings and their intertwining love affairs. 2 discs. UK | 2009 | 2ENT | Cert TBC Item # 59340 | RRP £24.46 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Page 24

Doctor Who: Dalek War Box

An exciting release for Doctor Who fans, this set contains the two six-part Jon Pertwee adventures from the tenth series in which he confronts his deady foes The Daleks: Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks. As ever, the discs are packed with special features to appeal to even the most discerning collector. 4 discs; Many and various extras. UK | 1973 | 2ENT | Cert TBC Item # 59900 | RRP £34.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £31.49

Doctor Who: Keys of Marinus John Gorrie

An early adventure for the time traveller. When the TARDIS lands on the planet Marinus, the Doctor (William Hartnell), Ian, Barbara and Susan are captured by a powerful machine that is in danger of falling into the wrong hands. 2 discs. UK | 1964 | 2ENT | 147 min | Cert PG Item # 59077 | RRP £19.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Five Minutes of Heaven Oliver Hirschbiegel

Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt star in this drama set against the backdrop of ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. One murdered a Catholic teenager and now assuages his guilt withconflict resolution projects. The other is the younger brother of the murder victim. Both remain scarred by the event - and now they are going to meet. UK | 2009 | ELEM | 90 min | Cert 15 Item # 59470 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Fred Dibnah’s Backyard Fred’s backyard was his pride and joy. It was his playground, a place where he breathed life back into rusty old machinery and steam engines. This unique collection, filmed over seven years, features Back Street Mechanic, Fred’s Engines and Fred’s 3 discs. Coalmine.

UK | ACORN | 360 min | Cert E Item # 59385 | RRP £24.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

For the Love of Ada: Series 1

On a visit to her late husbad’s grave, Londoner Ada (Irene Handl) meets widowed Yorkshireman Walter (Wilfred PIckles), the local gravedigger who buried her husband. The course of true love seldom runs smooth for any of us, and septuagenarians Walter Bingley and Ada Cresswell are no exception! UK | 1970 | NWORK | 150 min | Cert PG Item # 59804 | RRP £12.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Foyle’s War: The Best of Six episodes specially selected by Michael Kitchen, who plays an English police inspector fighting crime on the Home Front during the second world war. Contains The German Woman, Eagle Day, Fifty Ships, Among the Few, The French Drop, Bad 6 discs. Blood.

UK | 2002-06 | ACORN | 552 min | Cert 12 Item # 59389 | RRP £39.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Get Some In!: Series 5

All the episodes from the fifth series that follows the misadventures of the unfortunate ‘erks’ of ‘C’ flight as they do their best to survive their gruelling two years of National Service at the fictional RAF Skelton. Stars Tony Selby as the dreaded Corporal Marsh and Robert Lindsay as Jakey, with Paul Eddington guest-starring as Squadron Leader Bush. UK | 1978 | NWORK | 175 min | Cert TBC Item # 59533 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Guinea Pig Club Shel Piercy

This documentary tells the WWII story of two pioneering plastic surgeons, Sir Archibald McIndoe and Dr. Ross Tilley. Their revolutionary holistic approach to reconstructive surgery changed the face of history, bringing airmen so badly burned and broken they were ready to die, back into the world of the living. The film’s underlying theme is, ‘it’s not about having the courage to die, but finding the courage to live’. Canada / UK | 2002 | ORACL | 47 min | Cert E Item # 26916 | RRP £10.99 | Released 7th September

Our DVD Price: £8.99

Wuthering Heights

Just William: Series 2

Recommended

Director: Coky Giedroyc Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Sarah Lancashire, Andrew Lincoln, Kevin McNally

Starring: Diana Dors, Geoffrey Bayldon, Freddie Jones, Julian Fellowes, Ronald Lacey Released: 19th October

Released: 7th September

DVD Extras: 2 discs.

DVD Extras: TBC.

Mischievous, eternally scruffy, crafty and still utterly likeable, Richmal Crompton’s famous 11-year-old schoolboy William Brown, who appeared in books in the 1920s, found his definitive screen presentation here, in this 1976-78 Sunday teatime series from LWT. Adrian Dannatt (in his one and only screen performance) stars as the bull’s eye and white rat-loving William, who, along with his gang, the Outlaws – Ginger, Henry and Douglas (and Jumble the dog) – create mayhem in the neighbourhood. Only one thing is guaranteed to turn William in his tracks – the dreaded Violet Elizabeth Bott (Bonnie Langford); the spoiled and lisping daughter of the local millionaire, whose master plan, should William not give in to her demands, is simple, and entirely effective – to ‘...thcweam and thcweam and thcweam until I’m thick...’. A success with children and parents alike, Just William featured a number of high-calibre guest stars. Also available in a Box Set complete with Series 1, RRP £29.99

Emily Brontë’s haunting gothic novel of ungoverned, thwarted love and cruelty across desolate landscapes features two of the most memorable lovers in literature in Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. This 2009 ITV adaptation – the first in ten years – is one of the best yet, a lavish, dark and brooding costume drama that was filmed, appropriately, on the bleak moorlands and in the beautiful stately homes across the Yorkshire Dales. Of course, Wuthering Heights is all about the central relationship, and there is genuine passionate chemistry between the leads here. Tom Hardy is convincing in his portrayal of the orphan Heathcliff, his soul in torment, tortured by his love for his childhood soulmate Cathy, played here by the beautiful newcomer Charlotte Riley. The drama was adapted by top television writer Peter Bowker (Flesh and Blood, Blackpool); lovers of the original work should note that his changed ending has proved controversial!

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

Also on

£11.99

RRP: £19.99 Save £8 (40%)

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£13.99

RRP: £19.99 Save £6 (30%)

Page 25

Television House: Season 5

Hugh Laurie returns to his Golden Globe-winning role as Dr. Gregory House. Season 5 picks up where season 4 left off. With Amber’s death, House blames himself and believes Wilson blames him but is afraid to ask. Wilson decides to leave the hospital, but has he 6 discs. really gone? Will House change? USA | 2009 | UPV | Cert 18 Item # 59917 | RRP £34.99 | Released 5th October

nity of Midsomer.

Our DVD Price: £31.49

Our DVD Price: £53.99 each

Based on the best-selling novels of Elizabeth George, these mysteries find DI Thomas Lynley, 8th Earl of Asherton, and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers divided by class barriers both real and imagined, but united in their efforts to uncover the truth, as an unlikely but successful sleuthing duo. Contains Natural Causes, One Guilty Deed, Chinese Walls and In 2 discs. the Blink of an Eye. UK | 2006 | ACORN | 240 min | Cert TBC Item # 59365 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

M-M Robin

Aka The World According to Monsanto. Since its foundation in 1901, Monsanto has faced trial after trial. Today, it has reinvented itself as a ‘life sciences’ company converted to sustainable development. Using hitherto unpublished documents and testimonies, this film pieces together the origins of its industrial empire.

Our DVD Price: £17.99

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum: Series 8

‘Meet the gang, ‘cos the boys are here, the boys to entertain you!’ All the episodes from the final season of the comedy series about the Royal Artillery Concert Party doing their best to entertain the British troops in the steamy jungles of the sub-continent.

UK | 1981 | 2ENT | Cert TBC Item # 59940 | RRP £15.99 | Released 5th October

Moving On

Ian Hart, Lesley Sharp, Sheila Hancock, Christine Tremarco. All five parts of the BBC mini-series of which each episode is a self-contained drama set in a household in which a family or individual is moving in or out. How do the characters cope with 2 discs. this change?

UK | 2009 | G-VEN | 225 min | Cert 12 Item # 58916 | RRP £19.99 | Released 22nd June

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Louis Theroux: Law & Disorder BAFTA Award winning journalist and filmmaker Louis Theroux heads into the worlds of crime and addiction in this new collection of fascinating documentaries that finds him on the crime-ridden streets of Philadelphia and Johannesburg, among convicted paedophiles at California’s Coalinga Mental Hospital, and among the crystal meth addicts of Central 2 discs. Valley, California.

Page 26

Monsanto: Your Big Brother in Business

France / Canada / Germany | 2008 | QUANT | 108 min | Cert E Item # 59960 | RRP £24.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Two six disc sets containing all the episodes from the tenth and eleventh series of the crime mystery dramas starring John Nettles as veteran DCI Barnaby and Kevin Whateley as Sergeant Troy as they investigate murders around the rural commu6 discs each.

UK | 2007 | ACORN | 744 min | Cert 15 Item # 58545 | RRP £59.99 | Released 5th October

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: Series 5

UK | 2009 | 2ENT | 240 min | Cert TBC Item # 59223 | RRP £19.99 | Released 14th Sept

Midsomer Murders: Complete Series 10 & 11

Noah’s Castle Colin Nutley

British society is on the brink of anarchy with rioting and chronic food shortages. A man moves his family to the country, hoarding food in the cellar. However, news of their secret food store spreads and their ‘castle’ comes under siege. An excellent Southern TV children’s drama, adapted from John Rowe Townsend’s novel. UK | 1979 | SIMP | 182 min | Cert PG Item # 59718 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Rogue’s Rock: Series 1 Christopher McMaster

Ed Bishop, Vladek Sheybal, Susan Dury. Donald Hewlett stars as Wing Commander Rogue in this children’s adventure series from Southern TV that details his life and those of his loyal group of friends living on a tiny independent island off the coast of Great Britain. UK | 1974 | SIMP | 150 min | Cert TBC Item # 59719 | RRP £12.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Spooks: Complete Season 7 Peter Firth. Richard Armitage takes over as the lead in this series based around the operations of MI-5, as Lucas North, the spy returned from years in a Russian prison. As always, nothing is ever quite what it seems, and who can be trusted is open to debate.

UK | 2008 | CTEND | Cert 15 Item # 56730 | RRP £39.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Victorian Farm / Tales from the Green Valley (Box Set) A pairing of historical documentaries. In Victorian Farm a group of experts, including a food historian and two archaeologists, rediscover the skills and tools of the mid-19th century and run a farm in Shropshire, while Tales from the Green Valley sees five archaeologists and historians work on a farm for a year on the precept that they run it according to life four hundred years ago, with no electricity, refrigera4 discs. tion, mains water or pesticides.

UK | 2009 | ACORN | 720 min | Cert E Item # 59352 | RRP £39.99 | Released 7th Sept

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Wainwright Walks: Collection A special collection of Wainwright Walks with Julia Bradbury, ‘Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells’, in hand. The set has all ten walks from Series One and Two, Coast to Coast, Railway Walks, and Wainwright, the Man Who Loved the 4 discs. Lakes.

UK | 2009 | ACORN | 698 min | Cert E Item # 59346 | RRP £59.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £53.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Waterloo Road: Series 4 - Autumn

A new term begins at Waterloo Road comprehensive school, where the lives and loves of the teachers, parents and pupils are inextricably intertwined. This is an engaging drama, in which ‘those who can, teach, and those who can’t have 3 discs. a lot to learn’.

UK | 2009 | ACORN | 573 min | Cert TBC Item # 59367 | RRP £24.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Wessex Tales

John Hurt, Billie Whitelaw, Ben Kingsley. Six BBC dramatisations of Thomas Hardy’s short stories: The Withered Arm, Fellow Townsmen, A Tragedy of Two Ambitions, An Imaginative Woman, The Melancholy Hussar and Barbara of the House of 2 discs. Glebe. UK | 1973 | ACORN | 360 min | Cert TBC Item # 59358 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £13.99

World in Action: Volume 2

A second volume from ITV’s flagship current affairs programme which lasted across four decades, from the 1960s to the 1990s. This volume features editions that cover aspirin abuse, Nazi war criminals, Thatcher’s bid for Conservative power and the events of Dallas in November, 1963, among other topics. 2 discs; World in Action: 30 Years. UK | 1963-96 | NWORK | 400 min | Cert E Item # 59819 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Heroes: Complete Series 3 All the episodes from the third season of the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated drama that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they are not so ordinary after all, and must wrestle with an assortment of superpowers which may prove to be not so much 6 discs. a blessing as a curse. USA | 2009 | UPV | Cert 15 Item # 58432 | RRP £49.99 | 12th October

Our DVD Price: £44.99 Blu-ray: £53.99

Also Released Agony: Complete Series UK | 1979-81 | NWORK | 500 min | Cert 12 | # 59800 | RRP £24.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Battlestar Galactica: Complete Series USA | UPV | Cert 15 | # 58848 | RRP £119.99

The Avengers: Series 1 & 2 Recommended Starring: Ian Hendry, Patrick Macnee, Honor Blackman Released: 5th October DVD Extras: 8 discs; The Surviving Ian Hendry Episodes; Pilot Episode - Hot Snow; Police Surgeon - Easy Money; New Interview with Honor Blackman; Commentaries; Filmed Introductions; Insert Reprint of Original Publicity Material; Telesnaps of Lost Episodes; PDF Material Including Original Scripts. UK | 1961-62 | OPTIM | B&W | Cert 12 | Item # 59877

Those who only remember TV’s The Avengers being a campy, colourful ride on the James Bond bandwagon of the sixties are often surprised to see that it originated from a grittier, monochrome star vehicle for the semi-forgotten Ian Hendry. An unofficial follow-on to Hendry’s 1960 show Police Surgeon, the first series saw him teaming up with Patrick Macnee to avenge the death of his wife. But when an ITV strike interrupted Series 1, Hendry, an ambitious young actor with real potential for stardom, left the show to pursue a film career. Honor Blackman, of all people, was brought in to replace him, and the rest is history. Containing all the surviving Hendry episodes as well as the complete second series and a wealth of extras, this set is a godsend to Avengers fans and will also be fascinating to anyone interested in those ‘missing believed wiped’ days of British TV drama. JU

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£57.99

DVD Price: £107.99 Blu-ray: £143.99

Enemy at the Door: Complete UK | 1978-80 | NWORK | 1300 min | Cert 12 | # 59825 | RRP £49.99

Our DVD Price: £44.99

ER: Series 15 USA | 2009 | WHVU | 972 min | Cert 15 | # 59827 | RRP £44.99

Our DVD Price: £40.49

Heroes: The Complete Series 1-3 USA | 2009 | UPV | Cert 15 | # 59880 | RRP £119.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £107.99

House: Season 1-5 USA | 2009 | UPV | Cert | # 59916 | RRP £99.99

Our DVD Price: £89.99

I Dream of Jeannie: Complete Seasons 1-5 USA | 1970 | COL-T | # 59305 | RRP £79.99

Our DVD Price: £71.99

Moomin: Volume 4 Japan | STAX | # 59020 | RRP £14.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Priceless Antiques Roadshow UK | 2009 | ACORN | 450 min | # 59395 | RRP £24.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Prisoner Cell Block H: Volume 3 Australia | PNE | 1500 min | Cert 15 | # 59905 | RRP £34.99

Our DVD Price: £31.49

Taggart: The Knife Trick Collection UK | ACORN | 276 min | Cert 15 | # 59362 | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £13.99

The Simpsons: Season 12 USA | FOX | Cert 12 | # 59604 | RRP £39.99

Our DVD Price: £35.99

Wind at My Back: Season 1 Canada | SULL | 600 min | # 58365 | RRP £29.99

Our DVD Price: £26.99

RRP: £79.99 Save £22 (28%)

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 27

Contemporary Film English Language Films, 1970 – present Chéri

New Releases Jesse Rosen

USA | 2008 | TLAUK | 72 min | Cert 15 Item # 59704 | RRP £14.99 | Released 21st Sept

Greek Pete

Andrew Haigh An often explicit docudrama which draws on the life experiences of its cast – men who work in the world of London gay escorts. Here, the handsome and ambitious Pete wants to be known as the best in his field. If he works hard enough, perhaps a nomination at the ‘World Escort Awards’ in Los Angeles awaits... UK | 2009 | PECCA | 75 min | Cert 18 Item # 59984 | RRP £15.99 | 21st September

Canada | 1977 | DIGCL | 100 min | Cert TBC Item # 60064 | RRP £14.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Coraline

A drama based on the true story of a black girl born to two white Afrikaaner parents (Sam Neill and Alice Krige) in South Africa during the apartheid era. A genetic throwback, Sophie’s skin colour causes problems for her bigoted father and her all-white school.

USA | 2009 | UPV | 101 min | Cert PG Item # 59605 | RRP £19.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £9.99

DVD Price: £13.99 Blu-ray Price: £17.99

Kevin Costner

Epic revisionist western in which Costner plays a Lieutenant who falls in love with frontier life and befriends Lakota Indians. Soon he is contravening orders when he helps the Lakota in their battle against the Pawnee. A great directorial debut which won seven Oscars.

Stipe Delic

Made for the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Sutjeska, this was one of the most expensive films to be made in the former Yugoslavia. Richard Burton plays Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Yugoslav Partisans. Yugoslavia | 1973 | ARROW | 126 min | Cert TBC Item # 59994 | RRP £15.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Best of 16th Raindance Film Festival Shorts

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Page 28

Anthony Fabian

A strange parallel reality awaits young Coraline when she crawls through a secret passage in this spooky animated children’s fantasy based on the novella by Neil Gaiman. She is initially bewitched by her surroundings – but soon has to fight to return home when her new mother Available in DVD, tries to force her to stay. Blu-ray, and Limited Edition 3D version.

The Battle of Sutjeska

USA | 2009 | DOGW | 101 min | E Item # 59874 | RRP £14.99 | Released 28th Sept

Skin

Dances With Wolves

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Never before available in the UK, this cult classic tells the funny and touching story of Robin (Craig Russell) – a gay hairdresser whose vocal impressions of legendary divas see his star rapidly ascending – and his pregnant, schizophrenic roommate, Liza.

UK / Germany | 2009 | FOX | 92 min | Cert 15 Item # 59318 | RRP £15.99 | Released 21st Sept

Henry Selick

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Now in its sixteenth year, Raindance is the UK’s leading independent film festival and continues to discover new filmmakers. This collection showcases the best of the new films, award winners and nominees alike.

Richard Benner

Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates. Romantic drama set in 1920s Paris, based on the novel by Colette. Michelle Pfeiffer stars as a courtesan who agrees initiate a young playboy into the ways of love. Trouble arises when their liaison unexpectedly blossoms into romance.

The Art of Being Straight Josh, newly arrived in LA and surrounded by hetero friends, begins work at an ad agency, where he meets a sexy ad director who won’t take ‘straight’ for an answer! A savvy comic story about the fluidity of sexuality and the bonds that transcend stereotype.

Outrageous!

Stephen Frears

USA | 1990 | WHV | 173 min | Cert 15 Item # 59867 | RRP £10.99 | Released 12th October

Our DVD Price: £8.99 Blu-ray: £14.24

Fireflies in the Garden Dennis Lee

UK / South Africa | 2008 | ICA | 107 min | Cert 12 Item # 59644 | RRP £12.99 | Released 5th October

State of Play

Kevin Macdonald

Political thriller based on the acclaimed 2003 BBC mini-series. With the action transposed from Westminster to Washington, the film follows the investigations of journalist Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) as he probes into the suspicious death of the mistress of Ben Affleck’s up-and-coming Congressman. USA | 2009 | UPV | 127 min | Cert 12 Item # 59330 | RRP £19.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £13.99 Blu-ray: £16.99

Sugar

Ryan Fleck

Julia Roberts, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Ioan Gruffudd. A drama about a dysfunctional family struggling to find its way beyond a devastating and unforeseen tragedy. Julia Roberts plays the beleaguered family matriarch, Willem Dafoe her cold and domineering husband.

Breakthrough Hispanic US drama that follows an upcoming Dominican baseball player, Miguel ‘Sugar’ Santos, as he progresses from training camps in his homeland to a minor-league club in Iowa. Then injury, and the loss of his closest friend make him newly vulnerable to his environment, and he begins to examine the world around him and his place within it with new eyes.

USA | 2008 | UPV | 99 min | Cert 15 Item # 59828 | RRP £14.99 | Released 28th Sept

USA | 2008 | AXIOM | 114 min | Cert 15 Item # 59003 | RRP £15.99 | Released 21st Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

October 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Swoon

Also Released on DVD

Tom Kalin

Leopold and Loeb, two homosexual lovers who murdered a 14 year-old boy in 1924, are the subject of this atmospheric black-and-white study of the killers, their crime and trial. The case was the inspiration for Hitchcock’s Rope. A significant film in the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s. USA | 1992 | PALIS | 93 min | Cert 18 Item # 59906 | RRP £15.99 | Released 28th Sept

A Few Days in September

Santiago Amigorena France / Portugal / Italy | 2006 | HIFLI | 112 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 59620 | RRP £12.99

Our DVD Price: £8.99

Synecdoche, New York

Awaydays Pat Holden

UK | 2008 | OPTIM | 105 min | 18 | # 59219 |

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Con O’Neill. Music-filled biopic about the life and tragic death of maverick British songwriter and record producer Joe Meek. Flamboyantly gay in a time when homosexuality remained outlawed, tone deaf, drug addicted, famously paranoid and obsessed with black magic, Meek was also responsible for a string of 1960s chart-toppers. UK | 2008 | MOMET | 118 min | Cert 15 Item # 59597 | RRP £15.99 | Released 28th Sept

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Vinyan

Fabrice Du Welz

Thriller starring Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart as a couple living in Thailand who lost their only son Joshua in the tsunami. Months later, Jeanne is convinced that she sees Joshua in a film about orphans, and although Paul fears she is losing her mind, he agrees to go with her to search for him. France / UK / Belgium | 2008 | REV | 96 min | Cert 18 Item # 59762 | RRP £14.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £13.99

Whoops Apocalypse Tom Bussmann

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samantha Morton

2 discs.

Gigantic

Matt Aselton

Released: 12th October

USA | 2008 | UPV | 98 min | Cert 15 | # 59806 |

USA | 2008 | REV | 124 mins | Cert 15 | Item # 59753

Our DVD Price: £11.99

RRP £14.99

This third film from writer-director Charlie Kaufman all but refutes respectable film criticism. Imagine Being John Malkovich found a door that led into the head of Adaptation and the two of them stumbled drunkenly around before finding a third door that emerged, John Malkovich-like, in Charlie Kaufman’s own cranium – such is the beautiful solipsism of Synecdoche, New York. Ostensibly, this is about a man called Caden Cotard (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his favourite film role so far) who is working on the play of his life, but the film’s richness rewards repeated viewings. It is a film awash with disease, hypochondria, mis-hearings, mis-sayings and surreal side-steps. A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole – and Synecdoche, New York is a film, loaded with detail, crammed with significance, that attempts to tell a life in a film. All told, it’s a beautiful arthouse oddity, as perplexing and stirring as we expect from Kaufman, but also unsettlingly poetic too. PW

Buying Details

UK | 1982; 1986 | NWORK | 240 min | Cert 15 Item # 33126 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th October

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £14.99

Director: Charlie Kaufman

Nick Moran

Dr Strangelove reinvented for the Reagan era, this is an outrageous blend of slapstick and 80s political satire, featuring a top array of comic talent including Peter Cook, Ian Richardson, Alexei Sayle and Rik Mayall. Features the 1982 television series and the 1986 theatrical film.

RRP £15.99

Recommended

Telstar

Our DVD Price:

Also on

Hell Ride

Larry Bishop USA | 2008 | WHVU | 83 min | Cert 18 | # 59690 | RRP £16.99

Our DVD Price: £12.75 Blu-ray: £17.99

Observe and Report Jody Hill

USA | 2009 | WHV | 86 min | 15 | # 59887 | £16.99

Our DVD Price: £12.74

Out of Sight

Steven Soderbergh USA | 1998 | UCA | 118 min | Cert 15 | # 12442 | RRP £9.99

Our DVD Price: £7.99

Police Academy 1-7 USA | 1984-94 | WHV | 582 min | Cert 15 | # 59946 | RRP £22.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

Summer Scars Julian Richards

UK | 2007 | SODA | 73 min | 18 | # 59152 | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Swing Vote

Joshua Michael Stern USA | 2008 | ANBAY | 120 | 12 | # 59701 | £17.99

Our DVD Price: £12.99

Tormented Jon Wright

UK | 2009 | FOX | 91 min | Cert 15 | # 59968 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

White Lightnin’ Dominic Murphy

UK | 2008 | MOMET | 84 min | Cert 18 | # 59167 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

£11.99

RRP: £17.99 Save £6 (30%)

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 29

James Oliver’s From the Cheap Seats

Hammer’s ‘Other’ Films

his month brings forth the long overdue release of three rarities from the archives of Hammer films. Two of the these three – The Camp on Blood Island and Yesterday’s Enemy – have never before appeared on any home video format while the third – that’s The Damned, directed by Joseph Losey – has been frustratingly difficult to see for many years. Excellent stuff, then. Not just because these are worthwhile films in themselves (see reviews for proof of that): they also show us a very different side to one of the great institutions of British cinema. Far more than a production company, Hammer represents a style, a genre even. Specifically, the Hammer brand is synonymous with a certain type of Gothic horror film. Dracula and Frankenstein provided the template but Hammer developed it into something characteristic and instantly recognisable, all fake blood and heaving bosoms (if we’re lucky, sometimes in the same shot.) And yet... Despite a certain nostalgia for Hammer product, I find most of their horror films close to unwatchable. There are exceptions, notably some of the late-period pictures, principally those directed by Peter Sasdy (Countess Dracula and Taste the Blood of Dracula being especially worthwhile). And Christopher – sorry, Sir Christopher – Lee and Peter Cushing are always good value. Cushing in particular was one of the greatest screen actors this country ever produced: it’s a tragedy he played in so few films worthy of his talents. But compare Hammer’s Gothics to the films created to cash in on their undeniable popularity, Roger Corman’s cycle of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations or Mario Bava’s psychedelic fairy tales. By contrast, Hammer’s efforts look dull

Hammer Studios’ many ‘other’ films have been ignored for far too long and stolid, deficient not just in budget but also in atmosphere and ideas. That’s why it’s exciting to see the Hammer vaults being prised open and their contents arrive onto DVD. Because amidst all the Gothics the studio churned out by the yard, they also found time to make rather more worthwhile films that have stood up surprisingly well. Hammer were a prolific bunch – not for nothing awarded the Queen’s Award for Industry – and they produced films in many other genres beyond the one they’re celebrated for. Both Yesterday’s Enemy and Camp on Blood Island are war films and they made some useful crime pictures, notably the excellent Hell is a City. Viewed today, however, it’s Hammer’s adventure films that stand up best of all. Most of these are still waiting to appear on DVD but at least we have The Sword of Sherwood

Forest to be going on with. It’s amongst the best Robin Hood films – not quite in the Errol Flynn league but sprightly and well-paced, with the blessed Cushing on great form as the detestable Sheriff of Nottingham. Hammer’s adventure yarns are unpretentious fun, walloping through their fights and derring-do with brio enough to satisfy anyone who’s ever been nine years old. It’s to be hoped that these new releases herald the forthcoming appearance of films like Captain Clegg and (let’s hope) Terror of the Tongs. These ‘other’ Hammer films have been ignored for too long, overlooked for the more famous horrors. Now that they are finally available, perhaps its time to reappraise the studio’s achievements – for the better.

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Our DVD Price: £12.99

Visit the Cheap Seats blog and join in on the discussion! blogs.moviemail-online.co.uk/cheapseats Page 30

Order now www.moviemail-online.co.uk

The New MovieMail Website August Highlights • New Trailers – Synecdoche, New York, Katyn, Drag Me to Hell, State of Play, The Hurt Locker and many more • Exclusive online sales – The films of Ken Loach, Universal Box Sets, expanded Universal Classics sale and more • New Filmcast – “sleep furiously - The Aesthetics of Restraint” • Full length reviews for – Synecdoche, New York, sleep furiously, The Damned, Rider on the Rain, Coraline and more • New in Cinebox – more films including Penelope Cruz in Don’t Move Visit: www.moviemail-online.co.uk

MovieMail Filmcast The MovieMail Filmcast is a fortnightly programme that gives considered and insightful introductions to significant films and directors. Presented by Graeme Hobbs, the programmes aim to inspire you to watch the films with a fresh eye as well as introduce their themes and context. Listening and downloading is simple - you don't need an iPod or mp3 player, just a computer. Those with iTunes can easily subscribe to the podcast. Go to www.moviemail-online/podcasts

Mailorder Form Title / Item #

Complete and send to MovieMail Direct, PO Box 267, Letchworth, SG6 9BS

Qty

Price

Name Tel / Email Address

If delivery address is different please supply separately

Please note that prices listed on Ref: Oct 09 W Payment this catalogue are valid for online I enclose a cheque made payable to MovieMail, or please charge orders only. If you wish to order by my credit\debit card: Phone or Mail please call us for the Card # appropriate prices CSC No. Exp. Date Postage:

Total:

UK Postage: £1 per DVD, except with multiple discs in the same item, where it’s £1 for the first disc and 50p for every disc thereafter. VHS £2 each. Max postage charge £6. International: Please call for details

Start Date Signature

Issue No.

MovieMail are pleased to present 3 exclusive films from Hammer Studios including Joseph Loseyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Damned â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see page 17.