MovieMail November 2011 Film Catalogue by MovieMail

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November 2011

Monthly Film Catalogue

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French Cancan Delightful, vibrant cinema from Jean Renoir

Over 265 films The Tree of Life Secret Beyond the Door Cave of Forgotten Dreams Russian Hamlet and King Lear Order Now

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About MovieMail Moviemail Team Q. With Asif Kapadia’s Senna coming out this month (see the documentary section on page 15 for our review), our monthly question invites people to ‘suggest a great sports film or documentary’.

Dan Hunter Editor Robert Wise’s The Set-Up (1949)

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

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The Monthly Film Catalogue

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

MovieMail News

nside this month’s issue you’ll find our Early Bird Christmas Gift Guide, designed for those who like to get their shopping started early! This hand-picked selection includes great savings on films, TV series and documentaries that will make perfect presents for friends, family and, of course, yourself. Also, as an encouragement, we’re giving away free DVDs when you spend over £30 – turn to page 21 for full details. We’ve been asking you for your ‘lost’ films recently. Since MovieMail started the most frequent request has been for the ‘Russian Hamlet’, so you

Film of the Month 5 Hamlet / King Lear Le Quattro Volte French Cancan

Gay and Lesbian 13 can imagine how pleased we are to have Kozintsev’s Hamlet and King Lear as our joint Film of the Month. We hope you agree that they’ve been worth the wait. Enjoy your films,

A. Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric (2009)

Mike McCahill (John Sayles’ Eight Men Out) is a freelance journalist who writes on film for The Sunday Telegraph, The Scotsman and The Guardian website. He has made sporadic radio and TV appearances, contributed extensively to the most recent edition of Halliwell’s (The Movies That Matter), and can be tracked down online at his Cinésthesia site: cinesthesiac.blogspot.com

Gareth Evans (Nyznik & Schiller’s The Man Who Skied Down Everest) edits Artesian – www.gotogetherpress.com

Classic Movies

Secret Beyond the Door

Documentaries

Humphrey Jennings Vol 1 Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Television Animation

Stage

Contemporary

Taking Off The Tree of Life

Contributors

Alex Davidson (Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia) is a website producer for the BFI

Blu-ray

Shoestring

Turn to page 21 for full details!

Michael Brooke (Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings) has a blog over at michaelbrooke.com/kinoblog/

World Cinema

Enjoy a Free DVD

Alexander Ballinger (Peter Yates’s Breaking Away) is the author of The Rough Guide to Film Noir

Contents

James Oliver (Robert Wise’s The Set-Up) is a freelance film writer. David Parkinson (Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia) is a film critic and historian

From the Cheap Seats

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Special Offers Classic French Cinema

Nick Riddle (Jørgen Leth’s A Sunday In Hell) is an editor at Bristol University.

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Julian Upton (Steven Lisberger’s Animalympics) edited Offbeat – due out soon.

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Milo Wakelin (Steven Spielberg’s Munich) writes on film for Gay Times

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12 21-25 27

Top 10 Shakespeare Films 29 Page 3

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1 The Rocking Horse Winner

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A dark and atmospheric psychological British drama, adapted from DH Lawrence’s story about a boy (a 10 year-old John Howard Davies) who receives a rocking horse and learns that he is able to pick the winning horse at the races. Item # 66543 UK | 1949 | SPIRT | min | B&W | £12.99

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2 The Tree of Life

A long-cherished project from Terence Malick, The Tree of Life is an ambitious, awe-inspiring, Palme d’Or-winner that centres on a family in 1950s Texas, yet also reaches for cosmic significance in the creation of the universe itself. Item # 66435 USA | 2011 | FOX | 139 min | 12 | £20.99

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3 Pina

Wenders pays tribute to the work of brilliant avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch in this beautiful homage to her life and work. Filled with entrancing, expressive physicality this is simply a wonderful watch. Item # 65651 Germany / France / UK | 2011 | ART-E | 103 min | subt | U | £15.99

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4 Hamlet

Grigori Kozintsev’s renowned production ranks among the finest adaptations of Shakespeare on film. His strong visual style places the characters on a rich widescreen canvas while preserving the inward dimension of Hamlet’s character. Item # 66473 Russia | 1964 | Bongo | 144 min | subt | B&W | U | £12.99

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5 Harakiri

Voyage to 8 My Italy

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7 the Door

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Reader Feedback On the subject of ‘lost’ films, Clive Thomas got in touch to wonder what had happened to Franco Rossi’s beautiful 1955 film, Amici per la pelle (Friends for Life). He says, “it was shown at the National Film Theatre decades ago and was described at the time as ‘one of the best films about childhood and an almost perfect miniature’. I’m surprised to find that it seems to have disappeared without trace when so many French and Italian of the period have been lauded and made readily available.” Sadly it remains unavailable anywhere in the world, but we can hope that that will change. Please email feedback@moviemail-online.co.uk or send us a postcard if you would like to get in touch about anything.

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Names of the Month: Gerald Flood, Arthur Haynes, Frank Randle

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

MovieMail’s Films of the Month

Hamlet / King Lear Recommended Director: Grigori Kozintsev Released: 17th October

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anking alongside Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa as one of the cinema’s great Shakespeare adapters, Grigori Kozintsev had previously staged Hamlet and King Lear in the theatre, but was pushing sixty when he felt confident enough to translate the first of these to the screen, by which time he’d already written a book on the subject. Decades of experience dating back to the silent era produced a film of overwhelming visual impact: Elsinore Castle is a vast granite edifice seemingly hewn from wave-blasted rocks, the ghost is a huge terrifying figure clad in black armour, while Ophelia is so fragile she barely looks as though she’ll last till the end of each scene. Innokenty Smoktunovsky, the Soviet Union’s closest equivalent to Laurence Olivier, is an unusually firm-purposed Hamlet, helped here by an adaptation that intelligently truncates the text almost by half, but without ever losing sense of the dramatic and psychological structure. King Lear, made two years before Kozintsev’s death, is equally intelligent, set in a grim universe of mud and torrential rain that’s closer to Andrei Rublev than the

The long-awaited release of Kosintsev’s mighty adaptations RSC, with the wiry Yuri Yarvet (familiar from Tarkovsky’s Solaris) brilliantly catching the old king’s growing madness and despair. Both films are based on Pasternak’s translations, shot in resplendent black-andwhite widescreen (a deliberate artistic choice by 1971, but this Lear is unimaginable in colour) and scored by Dmitri Shostakovich – the latter element a particular coup given that the great composer had long since abandoned the screen for the concert hall. But he made an exception for his old friend and comrade-in-art (he and Kozintsev first collaborated in the 1920s), with spellbinding results. His score for Hamlet is electrifying, with the ghost’s appearance heralded by a spine-chillingly sinister fanfare. Meanwhile, Lear has all the spare, desolate bleakness of the late string quartets, the Fool’s pipe as much a musical as physical presence. Michael Brooke

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World Cinema Films in a Foreign Language

New Releases Ashes and Diamonds Andrzej Wajda

One of the most important of all Polish films, in which, on the last day of WWII in a small Polish town, exiles and occupying Soviet forces face a new day and a new New restoraPoland. tion from 35mm film; Director interview; Comprehensive booklet.

Potiche Recommended

Effi Briest Recommended

Director: François Ozon

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini, Sergi López, Jérémie Renier

Starring: Hanna Schygulla, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Schenck

Our DVD+Blu-ray Price: £17.24

Released: 10th October

Extras: Interviews with Deneuve & Ozon; Making-of; Bloopers; Costumes Test; Trailer.

Item # 66674 Ger | 1974 | ARROW | 135 min | subt | B&W | U

Film Socialisme Jean-Luc Godard

An allegorical cine-essay from arch-provocateur Godard, this ‘symphony in three movements’ finds him delivering a timely reflection on the history, culture, philosophy and economics of modern Europe, opening with a depiction of Europe as a luxury cruise ship in the Mediterranean sea... Switzerland | 2010 | NW | 97 min | Partly subtitled | PG Item # 65830 | RRP £15.99 | Released 7th November

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The Gleaners and I Agnès Varda

A lovely, multi-award winning documentary in which Varda investigates the world of foragers and scavengers, along the way likening her own filmmaking to the gleaning of ideas and images from her interior and exterior The Gleaners journeys. -Ten Years Later. France | 2000 | ART-E | 78 min | subt | Cert U Item # 66349 | RRP £15.99 | Released 24th October

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In the Realm of the Senses Nagisa Oshima

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For any cinephile the on-screen pairing of Deneuve and Depardieu is cause for celebration. And justifiably so in the hands of deft director François Ozon as these icons of French cinema play comedy together for the first time in this free-flowing adaptation of a hit 1970s feminist farce. Deneuve plays the ‘potiche’ of the title – an untranslatable word which infers someone whose function in life is purely decorative. After the heart attack of her philandering husband she chooses to run the family umbrella factory bringing her own emancipated style of management to bear on it. Depardieu plays the local mayor whose youthful tryst with her colours his communist sympathies as he gets drawn into her plans to turn round the strike-riven factory. Supported in their antics by character actors – Judith Godrèche as her scheming daughter, Jérémie Renier as her effete son and Karin Viard as the put-upon mistress – this is sublime entertainment only occasionally upstaged by its hilarious 1970s design and costumes. AB

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Effi Briest was a landmark film in the extraordinarily prolific career of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, made, unbelievably given its maturity, when he was still in his twenties. It was his first film based on a period story in this case, Theodor Fontane’s 1896 novel which he had wanted to adapt many years earlier. He later admitted he was glad he had had to wait, as his younger self would have made a much more straightforward work. The film gave one of his favourite actresses, Hanna Schygulla, her best role yet. Never more beautiful, she is remarkable as the doomed heroine. Shot in exquisite black and white, it tells the story of Fontane’s young heroine, who as a teenager marries an aristocrat many years her senior. She is left alone for large stretches of time while her husband is away, and eventually enters into an affair with a debonair army major. When the liaison is discovered, Effi’s world changes forever. This is one of the director’s most beautiful and dreamlike works. And while it is also one of Fassbinder’s most accessible films, his social comment is as bitterly acute as ever. AD

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Le Quattro Volte Recommended Director: Michelangelo Frammartino Starring: Giuseppe Fuda Released: 10th October Extras: Director Interview Item # 65642 | Italy / Germany / Switzerland | 2010 | NW | 88 min | subt | Cert U

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Item # 66466 Italy | 2010 | NW | 88 min | subt | U | £19.99

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See Also Bal (Honey)

Semih Kaplanoglu

Item # 66270 Turkey / Germany | 2010 | DRAKE | 104 min | subt | | £15.99

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sleep furiously Gideon Koppel

Item # 60027 UK | 2008 | NW | 94 min | U | £19.99

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Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring Kim Ki-duk

Item # 19539 South Korea | 2003 | TARTN | 106 min | subt | 15 | £19.99

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ometimes, all too rarely, films appear from way out of leftfield that somehow find a way to travel far beyond what might, by rational analysis, be expected. From festival appearances and theatrical screenings onto DVD, they not only survive but thrive. Against all the odds they exist. And it is a triumph that they do. Miguel Frammartino’s second feature is such a film, and is one of the greatest of this young century. In retrospect (easy to do), all doubt is dispelled. But how to pitch this unclassifiable hybrid work, dwelling on the wondrous threshold between fiction and documentary, transcendent poem and earthy prose, between life and death. Indeed, the first miracle is that ‘the four times’ secured production funding at all, in an age so sceptical of things that cannot be priced, quantified or even obviously held. Ostensibly an idiosyncratic take on the ways and turns of a struggling village, situated deep in the verdant mountains of Calabria, Frammartino’s remarkable essay moves in four chapters – each bordered by an entry into absolute darkness – from the travails of a poor goatherd, through observation of his flock and the felling (or ritual repurposing) of a fir tree to the sculptural

An astonishingly beautiful, profound and luminous film charcoal burning that brackets the film. That this mirrors once local visionary Pythagoras’ theory of the soul’s transmigration from the human to the mineral is both crucial and a footnote. Frammartino has made an astonishingly beautiful, moving, humorous, profound and, finally, metaphysically luminous work that appears completely effortless and simultaneously compelling to encounter. In it, ants, dogs, people and wood all claim the same validity and significance. Rarely has the world – in its totality – been as celebrated as it is here. With barely any dialogue, but a soundtrack as sensory as it is precise, the film takes a journey around a landscape that allows the viewer to consider their own life afresh. Frammartino has practised architecture, photography and installation; he is now planning an animation. All these disciplines find their place in this masterpiece of empathy and engagement. A film to travel with, Le Quattro Volte demands to be seen, at least four times… Gareth Evans

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Page 7

Potiche

French Cancan Recommended Director: Jean Renoir Starring: Françoise Arnoul, Jean Gabin, María Félix Released: 7th November Extras: 2 discs; Brand new restoration; The Show Must Go On!: Making-of documentary (57 mins); Booklet. Item # 66472 | France | 1955 | BFI | 99 min | subt | Cert PG

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See Also Les Enfants du Paradis Marcel Carné

Item # 407 France | 1945 | SECND | 181 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

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Moulin Rouge! Baz Luhrmann

Item # 15485 USA | 2001 | 20CFX | 122 min | 15 | £17.99

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The Jean Renoir Collection

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ome films are simply made for restoration. 1954’s French Cancan, Jean Renoir’s triumphant return to his native France after an unhappy spell in Hollywood, proves surprisingly exuberant. It is, in narrative terms, a tale of showbiz misappropriation (i.e. the cancan’s reinvention as a knicker-flashing cash-cow) with some tricky sexual politics thrown in. Th subject is put across in joyfully unrestrained fashion; practically the only thing missing is the exclamation point Baz Luhrmann appended to the title of Moulin Rouge! Jean Gabin’s Danglard resembles the Simon Cowell of his day: a jaded impresario, whose interest (amongst other things) is piqued by Nini (Françoise Arnoul), the laundry girl he meets in a dive bar one night. Thoroughly smitten, the impresario is driven to construct not just a stage show but an entire edifice around her high-kicking, although his motives prove less pure than those of Nini’s other suitors: a baker boy so sensitive he weeps after making love among the baguettes, and the moneyed Prince who, after seeing Nini twirl, himself becomes enamoured. Even before we get to the knickerflashing – presented as being, in its own way, as scandalising as Stravinsky’s The

A sexy, vibrant film from Renoir, shot full of easy sensuality Rite of Spring – French Cancan remains a sexy, vibrant film, full of easy sensuality. Renoir is faultlessly open-handed, noting the Prince’s arrival with the same laissezfaire he’s earlier observed beggars and street entertainers and, in doing so, giving himself and his characters places to go. The advantage is the sheer life Renoir gets into the background: dogs wander on to stare at the camera; dancers emerge from dressing-room doors mid-quarrel, or are spotted washing in ‘nude-from-rear’ style. Like Danglard, the director delights in ushering on those elements which generally secure full houses: extracts from popular comedy turns, an Edith Piaf performance. In every given scene, anything goes, which results in a film considerably less stage-bound than it might have been: indeed, with its gorgeous, pastel-hued craft granted renewed effervescence by this digital print, it remains a simple (if not entirely uncomplicated) pleasure, a knees-up, or a jouissance, as you prefer. Mike McCahill

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ClassicCinema World French Cinema Sale Film Sale This month’s release of Jean Renoir’s French inspired us from to choose a Explore wonderful international cinemawonderfully old and newexuberant in this sale from Cancan Optimum. Ranging essential number like of profoundly delectation. Spanning 1930s realism to the classics La GrandeFrench Illusionfilms and for Au your Revoir Les Enfants to modern hits poetic like Diva, Biutiful andspirit The of ‘68, and taking joyful satires, surreal and meditations along the way, we Orphanage, this in selection is packed withfantasies rewarding cinema. Priceson areobsessive from just love £5.99, so now’s a great present a selection essential classics, ripetofor reacquaintance, from thenew. birthplace of cinema. time to pick up a filmofyou’ve always wanted see or discover something

Jacques Feyder

Henri-Georges Clouzot Collection

Partie de Campagne

A marvellous rediscovery from the golden age of French cinema and a major work of poetic realism, this tragic dopplegänger romance is set against the exoticism of 1930s Morocco.

A triple-bill containing the wartime poison-pen drama Le Corbeau (1943), the Gallic film noir Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and The Wages of Fear (1952). 3 discs.

Jean Renoir

Item # 62059 1934 | EUR | 89 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

Item # 33086 1943-52 | OPTIM | 340 min | subt | PG | £24.99

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Item # 13968 1936 | BFI | 39 min | subt | B&W | PG | £15.99

Les Amants

Jean Cocteau Collection

Dir: Louis Malle. Jeanne Moreau plays the high society wife who embarks on a passionate affair with a student in this scandal-causing film. Item # 33547 France | 1958 | OPT | 87 min | B&W | 15 | £15.99

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La Belle et la Bête Dir: Jean Cocteau. A landmark feat of cinematic fantasy in which Cocteau conjures spectacular visions of enchantment, desire and death. Item # 55372 1946 | BFI | 90 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

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The surreal fantasies The Blood of a Poet (1930) and Testament d’Orphée 2 discs. (1960). Item # 33390 Fra | 1930-60 | OPT | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

Renoir’s magical, unfinished masterpiece, adapted from a Maupassant story, tells the bittersweet tale of a fleeting, intense romance during a countryside picnic. DVD: £9.99 Save £6

Pickpocket Dir: Robert Bresson. An undisputed masterpiece from Bresson in which a man is driven by his compulsion for petty thievery. 2 discs. Item # 21794 France | 1959 | ART-E | 73 min | subt | PG | £22.99

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Jean-Paul Belmondo Collection

Le Plaisir

Contains À Double Tour, À Bout de Souffle, Pierrot le Fou, Stavisky and Le Professionnel. 5 discs. Item # 33085 France | 1959-81 | OPTIM | subt | 15 | £34.99

Dir: Max Ophuls. A wonderful adaptation of three short stories by Maupassant, each relating a tale about a different kind of pleasure. Item # 29731 Fra | 1951 | SE | 93 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

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Boudu Saved from Drowning

La Kermesse Héroïque

La Règle du Jeu

Dir: Jean Renoir. Michel Simon stars as the unruly vagrant who causes havoc in a bourgeois bookseller’s life.

Dir: Jacques Feyder. A joyfully immoral satire in which women come to the aid of their spineless men.

Item # 64922-3 1932 | PC | 81 min | subt | B&W | PG | £15.99

Item # 18826 1935 | BFI | 109 min | subt | B&W | 12 | £15.99

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La Chinoise

Madame de...

Thérèse Raquin

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard. Godard has fun with this prophetic and acute analysis of the sincere and naive spirit underlying the events of 1968.

Danielle Darrieux. Ophuls’ penultimate film – arguably his masterpiece – is a supremely elegant meditation on obsessive romantic love.

Dir: Marcel Carné. Simone Signoret stars in Carné’s updating of Zola’s scandalous 19th century tale of forbidden love to 1950s France.

Item # 21843 France | 1967 | OPT | 96 min | subt | PG | £19.99

Item # 29780 1953 | SECND | 96 min | subt | B&W | U | £19.99

Item # 57190 1953 | OPT | 102 min | subt | B&W | PG | £17.99

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Diary of a Country Priest

Pépé le Moko

Les Vacances de M. Hulot

Dir: Robert Bresson. The profoundly moving story of a young priest, rejected by his apathetic flock. Item # 52558 1950 | OPT | 111 min | subt | B&W | PG | £17.99

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Dir: Julien Duvivier. A landmark thriller that sees Jean Gabin’s gangster hiding out in Algiers. A classic mix of noir and poetic realism. Item # 19657 1937 | OPT | 90 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

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Dir: Jean Renoir. Dismissed on release but now firmly established as one of the greats, this is a brilliant study of a decaying society. Item # 13964 1939 | BFI | 110 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

Dir: Jacques Tati. A gentle, charming, languorous celebration of the yearly summer seaside holiday. Item # 63302 1953 | BFI | 114 min | subt | B&W | U | £19.99

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Le Grand Jeu

World Cinema

Kurosawa Box Sets

A low-key parable of morality and business in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, in which a humble village electrician taps into a nearby power grid to ensure an ongoing supply and helps pensioners by fiddling their meters. Then his schemes are discovered by the authorities...

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A Man Vanishes

This essential box set collects five of Kurosawa’s most profound masterpieces: the beautifully nuanced Ikiru (1952) in which Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura plays a dying man who discovers a new zest for life in the last six months of his life as he tries to turn a waste dump into a children’s playground; the nuclear threat drama I Live in Fear (1949); the humane Red Beard (1965), in which Toshiro Mifune plays an authoritarian doctor who has to teach an idle new intern responsibility to oneself and others; and, making their DVD debuts, the acclaimed Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths (1957) and Kurosawa’s acclaimed first colour film Dodes’ 5 discs; Selected Ka-den (1970). introductions by Alex Cox; Booklet.

Shohei Imamura

A seminal, long unavailable Japanese film that uses the story of a man’s disappearance to ask questions about the nature of reality itself. As a documentary crew try and construct a plausible scenario for how a middle-class salaryman could go missing, their subject and his motivations become progressively more elusive. Video interview with Tony Rayns; Booklet. Japan | 1967 | EUREK | 130 min | subt | Cert TBC Item # 66220 | RRP £19.99 | Released 24th October

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The Outlaw

Item # 66464 Japan | 1949-70 | BFI | subt | 15 | £49.99

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Andrucha Waddington

Kurosawa Crime Collection This set highlights Kurosawa’s mastery of the crime genre and brings together four of his finest thrillers. It contains the yakuza drama Drunken Angel (1948), which stars Toshiro Mifune in his first major screen role, the atmospheric film noir / police thriller Stray Dog (1949), set on the sweltering streets of occupied Tokyo; The Bad Sleep Well (1947), a tale of corporate greed and corruption which sees Mifune play a grieving son seeking revenge for his father’s ‘suicide’, and the gripping Ed Mcbain adaptation High and Low (1963), in which Mifune plays a wealthy industrialist who faces an agonising choice when a ruthless kidnapper snatches his chauffeur’s 4 discs; Booklet. boy. Item # 66465 Japan | 1948-63 | BFI | subt | 12 | £39.99

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Aktan Arym Kubat

Kurosawa Classic Collection

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The Light Thief

Three Colours Trilogy Krzysztof Kieslowski

Kieslowski’s universally acclaimed meditations on the French revolutionary slogan ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ form his cinematic masterpiece. Each film adopts a colour of the tricolore to dictate its mood and each film used a different actress and cinematographer to emphasise the contrasting tone: Blue (Juliette Binoche, Sławomir Idziak); White (Julie Delpy, Edward Kłosinski) and Red (Irène Jacob, Piotr 3 discs. Sobocinski). France | 1993-94 | ART-E | 277 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 66339 | RRP £44.99 | Released 21st November

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L’une Chante, L’autre Pas Agnès Varda

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Viva Riva!

Alberto Ammann takes the lead as famous 16th century Spanish playwright Lope de Vega, (‘If he was alive today, he’d be a rock star’ says the director) who, returning to Madrid from the war, is eager to live by his writing. Troubles begin when he falls for his boss’s ravishing daughter...

Djo Munga

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Shiver

Isidro Ortiz

A pacy Congolese crime drama set in the backstreets of Kinshasa, where charismatic hustler Riva is trying to get his hands on a cache of petrol, which is in short supply in the city. Soon he is up against crime boss Azor – who doesn’t take kindly to him lusting after his girl.

War and Peace

Sergei Bondarchuk

A Spanish horror film from the producer of Pan’s Labyrinth, in which a boy with a rare skin condition is linked to a series of murders when he moves with his mother to a mountain village, where the locals’ greeting is at best, lukewarm. Can they solve the mystery before the locals get to him?

Bondarchuk took nearly five years to make this Oscar-winning, 8-hour adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel. It is an amazing spectacle. With a cast of thousands, the stupendous sets, landscapes, grand balls and palaces all add to the authenticity of this widescreen wonder.

Spain | 2008 | 2ND | 91 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 66162 | RRP £15.99 | Released 17th October

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5 discs.

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Gay & Lesbian Blu-ray Close to Leo

Christophe Honoré

Léo’s family agree to protect his 12 year-old brother from the news that he has AIDS, even though Léo wants his baby brother to know. Growing increasingly frustrated watching his family tiptoe around the subject, young Marcel finally snaps and challenges them all to speak the truth – an outburst that helps Léo to confront his illness. France | 2002 | PECCA | 90 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 66471 | RRP £12.99 | Released 7th November

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Judas Kiss

J. T. Tepnapa A truly original gay feature that mixes fantasy and reality with verve. It stars Charlie David as a film festival judge whose handsome one-nightstand (Richard Harmon) turns out to be a student competing for a scholarship that he must award. He sees many similarities between his and Danny’s lives – can he mend his own life by pushing Danny in the right direction? USA | 2011 | TLAUK | 94 min | Cert 15 Item # 66580 | RRP £15.99 | Released 7th November

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Shelter

Jonah Markowitz

Charged with the excitement of first love, this sweet Californian romance is about confused young artist Zach (Trevor Wright), torn between his family and his future. Then he embarks on a secret affair with a young writer (Brad Rowe) that may give him the courage he needs to follow his passions. USA | 2007 | TLAUK | 97 min | Cert 15 Items # 54706 / 66340 | RRP £14.99 | Out 11th Aug

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Highlights Adventures of Tintin

Item # 66313 France | 1991-92 | ANBAY | 840 min | U | £59.99

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The Adventures of Mark Twain Will Vinton

Item # 66209 USA | 1986 | EUREK | 86 min | PG | £17.99

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Cave of Forgotten Dreams (3D) Werner Herzog

Item # 66566 France | 2010 | REV | 90 min | subt | E | £24.99

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Downton Abbey: S2 Item # 66704 UK | 2011 | UPV | £34.99

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French Cancan Jean Renoir

Item # 66472 France | 1955 | BFI | 99 min | subt | PG | £19.99

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In the Realm of the Senses Nagisa Oshima

Item # 65751 Japan | 1976 | 101 min | subt | 18 | £22.99

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Potiche

François Ozon

Item # 66440 France | 2010 | OPTIM | 102 min | subt | 15 | £22.99

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Le Quattro Volte

Michelangelo Frammartino

Item # 66466 Italy / Germany / Switzerland | 2010 | NW | 88 min | subt | U | £19.99

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Senna

Asif Kapadia

Item # 66291 2010 | 106 min | 12 | £26.99

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Taking Off

Milos Forman

If you see a DVD listed here that is due for release in the future you’re welcome to pre-order it from us. It will be delivered around the release date and your card only charged on despatch.

Item # 66488 USA | 1971 | 88 min | £19.99

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Three Colours Trilogy Krzysztof Kieslowski

Item # 66339 France | 1993-94 | ART-E | 277 min | subt | 15 | £44.99

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The Tree of Life Terrence Malick

Item # 66439 2011 | 139 min | 12 | £27.99

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Image from Three Colours Red

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Page 13

Classic Movies English Language Films, 1930 - 1969

New Releases Best of British Comedy

A collection of classic British comedy, containing Battle of the Sexes (Crichton, 1959), in which an accountant at a tweed factory plans to get rid of an efficiency expert, The Boy Who Stole a Million (Crichton, 1960) and Ladies Who Do (Pennington-Richards, 1963), in which a group of charladies make a 3 discs. fortune at the stock market. UK | 1959-63 | ODEON | 246 min | Cert PG Item # 66661 | RRP £19.99 | Released 17th October

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Black Rider / Glad Tidings Wolf Rilla

Two films by Wolf Rilla (Village of the Damned): Black Rider (1954), in which Jimmy Hanley plays a reporter out to prove that a ghostly monk is vey real, and Glad Tidings (1953), in which Raymond Huntley tries to introduce a new American wife (Barbara Kelly) to disapproving offspring. UK | 1954 | RENOWN | 130 min | Cert PG Item # 66426 | RRP £14.99 | Released 31st October

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Darn Good Westerns: Vol 1

Contains Stranger on Horseback (Tourneur, 1955), Outlaw Women (aka Boot Hill Mamas, Newfield & Ormond, 1952), set in a town that men cannot enter, and Four Fast Guns (Hole Jr., 1960), in which James Craig takes the role of 3 discs. ‘town-tamer’.

USA | 1960 | ODEON | 218 min | Cert PG Item # 66649 | RRP £17.99 | Released 10th October

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Darn Good Westerns: Vol 2 Contains Panhandle (Selander, 1948), in which Rod Cameron plays a trading post owner with a secret past, Hellgate (Warren, 1952), and Shotgun (Selander, 1955) in which a man is out to kill Sterling Hayden’s Marshal for putting him in 3 discs. prison.

USA | 1955 | ODEON | 250 min | Cert PG Item # 66650 | RRP £17.99 | Released 31st October

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Page 14

The Earth Dies Screaming Recommended

It Happened Tomorrow Recommended

Director: Terence Fisher

Director: René Clair

Starring: Willard Parker, Dennis Price, Vanda Godsell, Virginia Field, Thorley Walters

Starring: Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie

Released: 29th August

Released: 19th September Item # 66246 | USA | 1944 | ODEON | 82 min | B&W | Cert PG

Item # 66200 | UK | 1964 | FCE | 62 min | B&W | Cert PG

Enthusiasts of the ‘curious goings-on down English country lanes’ genre will be delighted with this previously unavailable 1964 British sciencefiction. It includes just about everything you might justifiably require from such a film: spare and unfussy direction from Terence Fisher based around the requirements of minimum budget and maximum effectiveness, a decent location (in this case the village of Shere, near Guildford), an eerie soundtrack from composer Elisabeth Lutyens, a thoroughly dependable American lead (Willard Parker), a decidely untrustworthy Brit (Dennis Price) and even rudimentary proto-cybermen, nut-and-bolted together from the contents of the kitchen and various back rooms at Shepperton. And blob-eyed zombies. Its theme is familiar: with the rest of the country apparently lifeless, an unlikely group assembles and does its best to battle whatever it is that is threatening to take over. With long wordless sequences, the film is a lesson in cinematographic economy and atmospheric invention. It’s also, to be frank, a hoot. GH

It’s odd how Gallic exiles in Hollywood never fared as well as their Germanic counterparts. René Clair’s satire about an obituary writer who becomes an ace reporter when a ghost feeds him the next day’s headlines doesn’t touch the landmark films he had made either side of the coming of sound. However, it is still enormously engaging and staged with a knowing lightness that wouldn’t have shamed Lubitsch. Crooner Dick Powell is affably roguish as the 1890s midwest journo who exploits a stroke of supernatural luck to boost his prospects and charm Linda Darnell. He is ably supported by Jack Oakie as a doubting fake medium and Edgar Kennedy as a cop who becomes increasingly suspicious about Powell’s sudden ability to predict imminent crimes. Smartly scripted by Dudley Nicholls from a Lord Dunsany play, the tale naturally had to contain a cautionary element and the manner in which Powell learns his lesson about dabbling in things he doesn’t understand is as fiendishly neat as it’s gleefully contrived. DP

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Secret Beyond the Door Recommended

Exclusive! Director: Fritz Lang Starring: Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave Released: 23rd September Extras: Booklet. Item # 66567 | USA | 1948 | EXP-C | 94 min | B&W | Cert PG

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See Also Gaslight

George Cukor

Item # 16238 USA | 1944 | WHV | 110 min | B&W | PG | £19.99

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Rebecca

Alfred Hitchcock

Item # 55238 USA | 1940 | PNE | 126 min | B&W | PG | £5.99

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The Woman in the Window Fritz Lang

Item # 56920 USA | 1944 | OPTIM | 95 min | B&W | PG | £15.99

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o there’s a young bride, who marries an aloof older man haunted by memories of his deceased first wife and it’s set in a baroque mansion staffed by creepy servants. No wonder Secret Beyond the Door is so often compared to Hitchcock’s Rebecca (not least by Fritz Lang himself). But great directors make poor copyists; their talents are too distinctive and they can’t help bending the material to their own ends. Sure enough, Secret Beyond the Door is no mere retread. It’s suffused with Lang’s style and sensibilities, a striking showcase for his unique vision. Our heroine is Celia (Joan Bennett), a wealthy young heiress. While holidaying in Mexico, she meets dashing architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave) and, after the proverbial whirlwind romance, marries him. The nay-sayers carp that he’s only married her for her money but Celia doesn’t believe that. At first... When they return to live at his ancestral seat, Celia realises that Mark is more unusual than she had ever supposed. Down in the basement, he has reconstructed a sequence of rooms in which celebrated murders occurred and he has other morbid tastes besides. Could it be that he actually murdered his first wife?

Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett star in Fritz Lang’s mad dream And does he mean to do Celia in too? Secret Beyond the Door is something of an oddity in Lang’s filmography. Where normally he favoured an inexorably linear story line, the plotting here is frankly delirious. Drawing freely on the old folk tale of Bluebeard, the film has an unsettling gothic tone: perhaps it is better understood as a mad dream rather than a fervid melodrama like Rebecca. Like many films of the 1940s (not least Hitchcock’s Spellbound), Secret Beyond the Door is fascinated by the theories of Sigmund Freud and supplies psychological motivations to the characters. True, these are simplistic (yup, it’s all mother’s fault) but it helps create a unique texture, a mental landscape that is accentuated by Lang’s careful design and spectral lighting. For all the superficial similarities to other films, this is a movie that only Fritz Lang could have made. Often undervalued, Secret Beyond the Door is deserving of far more attention. James Oliver

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Page 15

Secret Beyond the Door

Classic Movies The Emperor Jones

Night Tide

Dudley Murphy

Curtis Harrington

Paul Robeson plays Brutus Jones, a handsome, ambitious and devout churchgoer from the backwoods who gives in to his new-found world of fast money and loose women when he reaches New York, where he is soon found guilty of murder and sentenced to life on a chain gang. The first American film to feature an African American as its lead. USA | 1933 | ODEON | 72 min | Cert PG Item # 66624 | RRP £9.99 | Released 17th October

In an early starring role, Dennis Hopper plays a seaman on shore leave who falls for the star attraction at a ‘Mermaid’ sideshow – a woman with a long string of disappearing lovers. A mystery shot against the backdrop and landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, and much influenced by the tales of Edgar Allen Poe. USA | 1961 | CRNRS | 84 min | Cert PG Item # 66201 | RRP £12.99 | Released 31st October

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Portland Exposé

Impact / Serena

Harold Schuster

Peter Maxwell

A double-bill of British crime dramas, featuring Impact (1963) in which a reporter (Conrad Phillips of William Tell fame) is framed by a Soho racketeer, and Serena (1962), in which Patrick Holt’s Inspector strives to solve the mystery of an artist’s wife found shot dead at an isolated cottage.

In the 1950s LIFE Magazine printed an exposé on the rampant corruption that had a stranglehold on Portland, Oregon. Producer Lindsley Parsons seized upon the publicity, assembled a cast of great character actors, and made a gritty on-location crime drama that has considerable violence for a 1950s movie.

USA / UK | 1963 | RENOWN | 121 min | Cert 12 Item # 66453 | RRP £14.99 | Out 26th September

USA | 1957 | ODEON | 72 min | Cert 12 Item # 66528 | RRP £9.99 | Released 3rd October

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Laurel and Hardy: The Feature Films Collection

When You Come Home John Baxter

Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel star in this collection of 34 vintage films, including early silent shorts, made between 1928-40. Includes evergreen favourites such as Sons of the Desert (1933), Our Relations (1936), and 10 discs; Black and Way Out West (1937). white and colourised versions.

A childhood friend of George Formby, Frank Randle achieved great popularity as a music hall comedian and his manic temperament brought a new style of risqué comedy to the stage. This sees him recount his life as a music hall odd job man to his grandaughter.

USA | 1932-40 | UPV | 1900 min | Cert U Item # 66544 | RRP £99.99 | Out 17th October

UK | 1948 | RENOWN | 89 min | Cert PG Item # 66430 | RRP £12.99 | Released 31st October

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The Night Caller

Blu-rays

John Gilling

British sci-fi thriller in which the inhabitants of Ganymede need to find mates from another world to prevent their extinction – and discover suitable breeding stock amongst Earth’s females. Alfred Burke’s Detective investigates the unusually high number of missing women in his area. and white version included.

Cape Fear

J Lee Thompson

Item # 66560 USA | 1961 | B&W | 15 | £17.99

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Charade

Stanley Donen

Item # 66462 USA | 1963 | PG | £19.99

Black

UK | 1965 | RENOWN | 85 min | Cert PG Item # 66432 | RRP £14.99 | Released 31st October

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Page 18

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West Side Story Robert Wise

Item # 66215 USA | 1961 | PG | £17.99

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No Love for Johnnie Recommended

Director: Ralph Thomas

Starring: Peter Finch, Donald Pleasence, Billie Whitelaw, Rosalie Crutchley, Stanley Holloway Released: 5th September Item # 66115 | UK | 1961 | SPIRT | 110 min | B&W | Cert 12

When watching this government-set film from 1961, it is hard to resist the temptation to spot modern day equivalents of some of the characters, from the oily Peter Mandelson-esque schemer (Donald Pleasence) to the moral, socialist stalwart (Stanley Holloway), reminiscent of Tony Benn. Johnnie himself is a popular Labour politician denied a role in government and tempted into overthrowing the PM. As played by Peter Finch (who won a BAFTA for this role), Johnnie emerges as a complex character who is alternately idealistic and cynical, honourable and duplicitous. The film features some daring moments for its time, such as the scene where Johnnie picks up a prostitute, and the intensely cynical view of politics is remarkably prescient. A terrific cast fleshes out the supporting roles (Billie Whitelaw, playing a lovelorn neighbour, and Donald Pleasence, are particularly impressive), but this is Finch’s film. He delivers an acute portrait of a flawed, potentially decent politician who is unfulfilled and consumed by disappointment. AD

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Documentaries “The Creative Interpretation of Actuality”

New Releases Flying Monsters Matthew Dyas

David Attenborough sets out to uncover today’s evolutionary echoes behind one of science’s enduring mysteries, namely how pterosaurs – creatures the size of giraffes – defied gravity and soared through prehistoric skies. UK | 2011 | 2ENT | Cert E Item # 66173 / 80 | RRP £15.99 | Out 7th November

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Funny Up North: The History of Northern Comedy A documentary hosted by Professor Chris Lee and telling the story of the Mancunian Studios, its eccentric owner John E. Blakely and its many stars, including Frank Randle, George Formby Arthur Askey and Norman John Inman Evans. tribute to Frank Randle.

UK | 2011 | ODEON | 75 min | Cert E Item # 66635 | RRP £12.99 | Released 31st October

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Keep Calm and Carry On

An 8 hour digest of newsreels reporting on war related activities and news events occurring on the British Home Front during WWII. All aspects of life, from the instigation of National Service in 1939 to the VE Day celebrations in 1945 are covered in this celebration of 3 discs. dogged British resolve. UK | 1945 | SFE | 482 min | Cert E Item # 66288 | RRP £19.99 | Out 26th September

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Look at Life: Vol 3 - Science

This third volume of films from Rank’s 1960s cinemagazine looks at scientific progress and innovation, from ‘the press-button age’ to robots, space and miniaturisation – sixties style! The 45 10-minute films look at many varied aspects of science in the 60s – from the Channel Tunnel to the manufac3 discs. ture of chocolate digestives! UK | 1960s | NWORK | 450 min | Cert E Item # 65679 | RRP £29.99 | Released 26th Sept

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Senna Recommended Director: Asif Kapadia Released: 10th October Extras: 2 discs; Commentary with Director and Filmmakers; The Greatest Victory of All; Interviews; Home Videos; ‘Lost’ Radio interview. Item # 66290 | UK | 2010 | UPV | 106 min | Cert 12

Asif Kapadia’s portrait of Brazilian F1 legend Ayrton Senna roared off the box-office blocks to become the UK’s most successful documentary of all time, suggesting it transcended its presumed audience of petrolheads. Not that this latter group will be disappointed: a masterclass in montage, Senna lays testimony from those who knew the three-time champion best over endlessly evocative archive footage, much of it previously unseen. For anybody conscious of the names Sid Watkins and René Arnoux, it’s a must-see. Yet the film has a mythic quality that clearly drew in newcomers, too. In Senna’s on and off-track battles with French driver Alain Prost, we see one of the great sporting rivalries developing – often at speeds of up to 190mph. Never is this risk element more apparent than at San Marino’s Imola circuit in 1994, when the wreckage starts piling up, driver after driver is airlifted away, and Senna, for once, begins to appear wholly mortal. It’s a sequence handled with supreme sensitivity, as the chequered flag falls on a fine, thrilling, moving tribute. MM

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The Complete Humphrey Jennings Vol 1: The First Days Recommended

Contains: Post Haste, Locomotives, Story of the Wheel (1934), Farewell Topsails (1937), Penny Journey, Speaking from America, The Farm, Making Fashion (1938), Spare Time, SS Ionian, The First Days (1939), Spring Offensive, Welfare of the Workers, London Can Take It! (1940) Released: 19th September Extras: 2 discs; The Birth of the Robot (Lye, 1936); English Harvest (1939); Cargoes (1940); Britain Can Take It! (1940) 40-page booklet. Item # 65810 UK | 1934-40 | BFI | 211 min | B&W | Cert E

Adding early, long-unseen novice works, rarities, alternative cuts and collaborations to the first of his films made as a mature filmmaker, this enticing first volume of Jennings’ complete works shows him building the film vocabulary that would allow him to create the subtle, poetic explorations of people and places during wartime for which he is so justly regarded. His fascination with machinery and mechanisms is apparent from his earliest films. Later briefs allow him a slightly freer hand to add an interest in people and the typically overlooked everyday details which do so much to texture his later works. However, it is the war films that made his name. In wartime, filmmakers had to become chroniclers of the halflight and the blackout. Here, Jennings’ eye and ear for composition were peerless. GH

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Page 19

Cave of Forgotten Dreams Recommended Director: Werner Herzog Released: 17th October Extras: TBC NB: The DVD contains the 2D version while the Blu-ray contains both 2D and 3D versions, with the 3D viewable for those with 3D televisions. Item # 66565 | France | 2010 | REV | 90 min | subt | Cert U

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Also on Blu-ray Cave of Forgotten Dreams (3D) Item # 66566 France | 2010 | REV | 90 min | subt | E | £24.99

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See Also Encounters at the End of the World Werner Herzog

Item # 58816 2007 | 100 min | U | £17.99

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Quest For Fire JJ Annaud

Item # 29592 Canada / France / USA | 1981 | SECND | 100 min | 15 | £17.99

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Page 20

iscovered in 1994, the Chauvet cave in southern France is a repository of the earliest known examples of human art, dating back as early as 35,000 years. Sealed off for millennia, it contains a treasure trove of paintings that look as fresh and evocative as if they were painted yesterday. Herzog’s recent documentaries, such as Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of The World, have depicted facts stranger and more thrilling than any fiction, and given unprecedented access to this cave of curiosities, he does not disappoint. Cave of Forgotten Dreams features many of Herzog’s characteristic indulgences, such as an interview with a master perfumer who claims to be able to detect caves using his sense of smell, interrupting an archaeologist to quiz him on his past life in a circus, and a bizarre meditation on radioactive albino crocodiles. Indeed, Herzog’s tendency to look sideways at his subject is well suited to this strange subterranean world whose many marvels include a bear skull overgrown with crystalline deposits, a drawing in which human and animal parts intermingle, and a collage of handprints created by a single artist with a tell-tale crooked finger. Due to the fragility of the cave

Herzog’s sublime film of the earliest known examples of human art environment, Herzog and a small team were granted access scant hours at a time, and limited only to the lighting and filming equipment they could carry. Nevertheless, at times Herzog manipulates the medium in order to confound viewers’ sense of scale and perspective. The journey into Chauvet and its 35,000 years of human history is more than merely physical, and Herzog presents its crystalencrusted interiors as a space in which dreams and memories, art and reality, time and space itself, have become confused. In the end, Herzog’s decision to capture cave art as a 3D artform proves to be sound; in several sublime sequences he allows his cameras to slowly explore the contours of the cave walls, light and shadow playing over drawings which appear to move before your very eyes. It’s the nearest thing to being there, and this thought-provoking, meditative film transports you back to a world when humanity was young and art was timeless. Milo Wakelin

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Early Bird

Christmas Gift Guide Free DVD when you spend £30 Spend over £30 with us by Friday 4th November and you can have a one of these DVDs for free – but be quick, stocks are limited! Winners of more big awards than you can shake your remote at, you can choose from Hollywood classics, world cinema and modern British film. To qualify, simply spend over £30! The £30 can be spent on anything from our monthly catalogues. Simply quote ‘EB2011’ when you place your order (online customers should put the code in the Offer Code field at the Checkout).

Choose from these DVDs

An Education Lone Scherfig, Carey Mulligan

Meet Me in St Louis Judy Garland

The Night of Notorious the Hunter Hitchcock, Robert Mitchum Grant, Bergman

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

Also available: the Oscar-winning French war film, Days of Glory Free DVD offer available while stocks last, alternative titles may be substituted

Prices valid until 28th November or while stocks last

For Friends, Family and yourself!

Early Bird Christmas Gift Guide

Classic Movies These evergreen films have proved their worth time and again and will make perfect presents for lovers of vintage cinema Charlie Chan: Warner Oland 12 satisfying films crafted by Hollywood professionals at the top of their game. Warner Oland stars as the Chinese American detective alongside his “Number one son”. 6 discs; Remastered. Item # 66079 USA | 1931-37 | ODEON | PG | £69.99

Fantasia (SE)

Jane Eyre

Dinsey Studio’s extraordinary film in which eight animated segments are set to classical music selections. Includes the famous ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ scene in which Mickey Mouse creates magical mayhem. 2 discs.

Robert Stevenson

Item # 64552 USA | 1940 | WDHV | 120 min | U | £17.99

Item # 64538 USA | 1943 | ODEON | 93 min | B&W | PG | £14.99

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El Cid

Film Noir Box Set

Anthony Mann

Nine great 40s noirs, from Wilder, Siodmak, Tourneur and more: Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, Farewell My Lovely, The Killers, Crossfire, The Big Steal, The Glass Key, This Gun For Hire and 9 discs. The Blue Dahlia.

The legendary epic starring Charlton Heston as the 11th century Spanish patriot who fights to drive invading Moors from Spain. Sophia Loren co-stars as his seductive but duplicitous lover. 2 discs; Item # 65102-03 USA | 1961 | ANBAY | 172 min | U | £9.99

Item # 50929 USA | 1942-49 | UN | 897 min | B&W | 12 | £29.99

Perhaps the best adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, filled with gothic excesses. Joan Fontaine plays the eponymous heroine; Orson Welles the brooding master with whom she falls in love. DVD: £7.99 Save £7

Night of the Demon Jacques Tourneur A classic slice of psychological horror. Dana Andrews plays the American psychologist out to expose Niall MacGinnis’s devil cult leader as a fraud. Then strange events start to occur... Item # 63072 UK | 1957 | PNE | 90 min | B&W | PG | £19.99

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Cobra Woman

A High Wind in Jamaica

The War Lord

A riotously camp Technicolor cult classic set in the South Seas. ‘Queen of Technicolor’ María Montez stars as twin sisters – one a sweet native girl, the other an evil priestess – separated at birth.

A Mackendrick

One of the finest historical adventure films ever made, dramatising with uncommon intelligence and integrity the brutality and injustices of the Middle Ages. Charlton Heston stars.

Item # 64516 USA | 1944 | ODEON | 67 min | PG | £9.99

Item # 65623 UK | 1965 | EUREK | 104 min | PG | £15.99

Robert Siodmak

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James Coburn and Anthony Quinn star in this thrilling pirate adventure for the family based on Richard Hughes’ novel. A subtle look at the boundaries of childhood perception.

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Franklin J. Schaffner

Item # 62165 USA | 1965 | EUREK | 116 min | PG | £15.99

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An Inspector Calls

Western Heroes: Vol 2

A dark portrait of Britain in an era of changing sexual mores, in which a young man develops an obsession with his seductive colleague (Jane Asher) at a rundown swimming baths. 2 discs.

Guy Hamilton

A triple bill of westerns: Bullet for a Badman (Springsteen, 1964), Backlash (Sturges, 1956) and The Glory Guys (Peckinpah, 1965). James Caan, Richard Widmark and Audie Murphy star. 3 discs.

Item # 65809 UK | 1970 | BFI | 91 min | 15 | £19.99

Item # 60779 UK | 1954 | OPTIM | 76 min | B&W | PG | £15.99

Deep End Jerzy Skolimowski

DVD+Blu-ray: £12.99 Save £7

A brilliantly mysterious Alastair Sim stars as the inspector who slowly reveals a family’s secrets connecting them to a young girl’s death. The classic film of JB Priestley’s play. DVD: £7.99 Save £8

Item # 63494 USA | 1964 | OPTIM | 276 min | PG | £15.99

DVD: £12.99 Save £3

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Save up to 70% on perfect presents

World Cinema Stimulating films from around the globe that will make perfect presents for discerning friends and relatives Claude Chabrol: Vol 1

I Am Love

Takashi Miike Inventive, surprising and mercilessly entertaining, Miike’s larger-than-life samurai adventure sees a feared secret force undertake a suicide mission to wipe out a sadistic Lord.

8 films from ‘The French Hitchcock’: Les Biches, La Femme Infidèle, Que la Bête Meure, Le Boucher, Juste avant la Nuit, Les Noces Rouge, Nada and Madame Bovary. 8 discs.

This lavish modern melodrama has drawn comparisons with the films of Visconti and finds repressed passion seething beneath the ordered world of the Italian upper classes. Tilda Swinton stars.

Item # 65656 Jap | 2010 | ART-E | 125 min | subt | 15 | £15.99

Item # 28359 France | 1968-91 | ARROW | subt | 15 | £44.99

Item # 62794 Italy | 2009 | MET-D | 119 min | subt | 15 | £15.99

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

DVD: £17.99 Save £27

DVD: £7.99 Save £8

Andrei Tarkovsky Collection

Enter the Void Gaspar Noé

The Jacques Tati Collection

All seven of Tarkovsky's masterpieces: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalgia (1983), The 7 discs. Sacrifice (1986).

Boldly experimental, graphic, exhilarating and explicit, this ‘psychedelic melodrama’ is shot entirely from the perspective of the protagonist and laced with hallucinatory visuals. Like little else in cinema.

The evergreen genius of Tati and M. Hulot on display in five films: Jour de Fête (1949), Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953), Mon Oncle (1958), Playtime (1967) and 5 discs. Parade (1974).

Item # 62620 Russia | 1962-86 | ART-E | subt | 15 | £59.99

Item # 64862 France | 2009 | E1 | 160 min | 18 | £19.99

Item # 60161 France | 1949-74 | BFI | subt | U | £39.99

DVD: £34.99 Save £25

DVD: £11.99 Save £8

DVD: £17.99 Save £22

Before the Revolution

The Girl Who... Trilogy: Extended

The Secret in their Eyes

Bernardo Bertolucci

The trilogy – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest and The Girl who Played with Fire – extended by an extra 2 hours of new feature content. 4 discs.

Juan Campanella

Item # 65695 Sweden | 2009 | MOMET | 18 | £39.99

Item # 64114 Arg | 2009 | MET-D | 124 min | subt | 18 | £19.99

Part autobiography, part homage to the French new wave and Italian neo-realists, Bertolucci’s portrait of idealistic youth celebrates the passions and ideology of the 1960s.

2 discs.

Item # 65807 It | 1964 | BFI | 107 | subt | B&W | 15 | £19.99

Luca Guadagnino

This Oscar-winning Argentinean crime drama stars Ricardo Darín as a retired policeman who can’t forget an unsolved case or a romance that slipped by.

DVD+Blu-ray: £11.99 Save £8

DVD: £27.99 Save £12

A Blonde in Love

Heimat 1 & 2

Milos Forman

Heimat 1: A Chronicle of Germany and Heimat 2: Chronicle of a Generation, available separately. The story of Germany, 19191982. One of the most highly praised dramas in TV history.

Max Ophuls

Item # 61920-21 Ger | 1984 | 2ND | subt | 15 | £69.99

Item # 63690 Italy | 1934 | EUR | 86 min | subt | B&W | | £19.99

A young Czech girl falls in love with a musician in this tender and beautifully observed story about the impossible odds of young romance in Communist Czechoslovakia. Item # 63133 Cz | 1965 | 2RUN | 80 | subt | B&W | 15 | £12.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £5

Edgar Reitz

DVD: £37.99 each Save £32

DVD: £7.99 Save £12

La Signora di Tutti An exuberant melodrama often cited as one of Ophuls’ greatest films. Legendary Isa Miranda stars as the woman who revisits her history of lovers following a failed suicide attempt. DVD: £9.99 Save £10

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13 Assassins

Early Bird Christmas Gift Guide

Television Daniel Deronda Tom Hooper

Jeeves and Wooster

A sumptuous BBC adaptation of George Eliot’s novel from the director of The King’s Speech. Hugh Dancy leads a glittering cast in the story of an intense love affair in Victorian high society.

The entire series in which PG Wodehouse’s characters are brought to life by the perfect comic partnership of Stephen Fry (manservant Jeeves) and Hugh Laurie (bumbling 8 discs. master).

Item # 64976 UK | 2002 | 2ND | 208 min | 12 | £19.99

Item # 66121 UK | 1990-93 | G-VEN | 1156 min | PG | £39.99

DVD: £8.99 Save £11

DVD: £24.99 Save £15

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Downton Abbey

The Jewel in the Crown Christopher Morahan

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

One of the high points of 1980s TV drama, this production brought Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet to life, and established Charles Dance and Art Malik as national heart-throbs.

Double bill of enthralling BBC espionage series based on the novels by John Le Carré and starring Alec Guinness as mild-mannered master spy, George Smiley. 4 discs.

Series 1 & 2, available separately and in a box set, of ITV1’s acclaimed costume drama, set in an Edwardian country house before and during the First World War. Maggie Smith and Hugh Bonneville star. Item # Various UK | 2010 | UPV | 12 | £24.99/£29.99/£39.99

S1: £10.99 S2: £22.99 S1&2: £32.99

The Killing A thoroughly gripping murder investigation series from Denmark that proved a huge hit on BBC4, The Killing tries to answer the question, ‘who killed Nanna Birk Larsen?’ Detective Sarah Lund is on 5 discs. the case.

4 discs.

Item # 64864 Den | 2007 | Arrow | 1100 min | subt | 15 | £59.99

Item # 59407 UK | 1984 | G-VEN | 800 min | 15 | £39.99

Item # 66167 UK | 1982 | 2ENT | 687 min | 15 | £12.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £25

DVD: £9.99 Save £3

Modern Film Bridesmaids

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Paul Feig

Sylvain Chomet

Lee Unkrich

Arriving on a wave of high praise, this hilarious comedy, written by women about women, sees the lovelorn, penniless Annie (Kristen Wiig) struggling to be her best friend’s maid of honour.

A wonderful hand-painted animation from Chomet (Belleville Rendezvous), based on an unproduced script from Jacques Tati, and which brings his magic back to life once more.

Funny, thrilling and moving, this third instalment in the hugely popular series more than lives up to its predecessors, marrying quality storytelling, technical expertise, and artistic excellence.

Item # 66478 / 86 USA | 2011 | UPV | 125 min | 15 | £19.99

Item # 63911 UK / France | 2010 | FOX | 77 min | PG | £19.99

Item # 63728 USA | 2010 | BUENA | 86 min | U | £19.99

DVD: £11.99 DVD+Blu-ray: £17.99

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Brighton Rock

Terence Davies Collection

True Grit

Rowan Joffe A pacy update of Graham Greene’s crime novel, here set in 1964 Brighton. Sam Riley takes the role of Pinkie Brown, and solid support is on hand from screen luminaries such as Helen Mirren.

A showcase for one of Britain’s most individual filmmakers. Contains Distant Voices, Still Lives; The Long Day Closes; The Terence Davies Trilogy; Of Time and the City. 4 discs.

The Coen Brothers update of the classic western, with Jeff Bridges taking the John Wayne role of grizzled US Marshal ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, hired to help a young girl avenge her father’s murder.

Item # 64929 / 33 UK | 2010 | OPTIM | 106 min | 15 | £19.99

Item # 60332 UK | 2008 | BFI | B&W | 15 | £39.99

Item # 64873 USA | 2010 | PARAH | 110 min | 15 | £19.99

DVD: £7.99 DVD+Blu-ray: £9.99

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DVD: £7.99 Save £12

Ethan & Joel Coen

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Prices valid until 25th November

‘At The BBC’ Collections Alan Bennett at the BBC

Helen Mirren at the BBC

Judi Dench at the BBC

An exceptional selection of previously unreleased BBC material, containing A Day Out, An Englishman Abroad, The Insurance Man, Dinner at Noon, 102 Bvd Haussman 4 discs. and six more.

11 BBC dramas (1974-95) from one of Britain’s finest leading ladies, including The Changeling, The Apple Cart, Country Wife, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cymbeline 6 discs. and six more.

25 years of classic TV performances from Judi Dench, from Talking to a Stranger (1966) to Absolute Hell (1991). Also contains The Cherry Orchard, Ghosts and 6 discs. four more plays.

Item # 59908 UK | 1978-92 | 2ENT | 12 | £29.99

Item # 52757 UK | 1974-95 | 2ENT | 1088 min | 15 | £39.99

Item # 51504 UK | 1966-1991 | BBC | 15 | £39.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £15

DVD: £14.99 Save £25

Noel Coward Collection

Terence Rattigan Collection

Tony Hancock Collection

A collection of vintage Coward! Contains The Vortex, Hayfever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Plays in Laughter, Suite in Two Keys and Tonight at 8:30. 7 discs.

A star-studded compilation of Rattigan’s finest work, as seen on TV between 196194. Contains The Browning Version, Separate Tables, The Winslow Boy and six more plays. 5 discs.

‘Stone me, what a life!’ All 39 surviving episodes of Hancock's Half Hour and Hancock, Galton and Simpson’s groundbreaking series about the lugubrious misanthrope. 8 discs.

Item # 52754 UK | 1969-1991 | BBC | 1200 min | 15 | £49.99

Item # 65382 UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 827 min | 12 | £39.99

Item # 51518 UK | 1956-60 | BBC | B&W | PG | £49.99

DVD: £25.99 Save £24

DVD: £27.99 Save £12

DVD: £14.99 Save £35

Documentaries A wide-ranging and richly entertaining collection of films celebrating the folk customs, songs and dances of Great Britain, with films dating from 1912-2002. 2 discs;

The Power of Myth

Pina

Joseph Campbell’s powerful and sustained vision of the role that myth plays in our lives is essential, inspiring viewing that is filled with profound but lightly-worn insights. 2 discs.

Wenders pays tribute to the work of brilliant avant-garde German choreographer Pina Bausch. Filled with her dancers’ entrancing, expressive physicality, this is simply a wonderful watch.

Wim Wenders

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

Item # 65651 Ger | 2011 | ART-E | 103 min | subt | U | £15.99

DVD: £14.99 Save £8

DVD: £12.99 Save £7

DVD: £9.99 Save £6

Look at Life: Vol 1 - Transport

Keep Calm and Carry On

Shadows of Progress (BFI)

This first volume of films from Rank’s bright and breezy 1960s ‘cine-magazine’ features 54 films on the theme of transport – from airliners and glacier pilots to scooters and catamarans! 3 discs.

An 8 hour digest of newsreels reporting on war-related activities and news events on the British Home Front during the Second World War. A celebration of dogged British resolve. 3 discs.

A landmark collection of 32 rare and long-unavailable postwar British documentary films. This sequel to Land of Promise continues the story through the 1950s-70s. 4 discs; Booklet.

Item # 60833 UK | 1959-68 | NWORK | 540 min | E | £49.99

Item # 66288 UK | 1945 | SFE | 482 min | B&W | E | £19.99

Item # 63309 UK | 1977 | BFI | 880 min | 15 | £34.99

DVD: £17.99 Save £32

DVD: £13.99 Save £6

DVD: £17.99 Save £17

Item # 65812 UK | 1912-2011 | BFI | 360 min | E | £22.99

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Prices valid until 28th November or while stocks last

Here’s a Health to the Barley Mow (BFI)

Television Programmes Originally Broadcast

New Releases Arthur Haynes Show: Vol 2

With his robust delivery, Arthur Haynes reigned supreme for almost a decade as ITV’s biggest comedian. Featuring wickedly funny scripts from Alf Garnett creator Johnny Speight, this set contains a lively mix of sketches and musical 2 discs. entertainment.

UK | 1957 | NWORK | 325 min | Cert PG Item # 65839 | RRP £19.99 | Out 31st October

Series 2 and 3, available separately, of this gentle sitcom starring Irene Handl and Wilfred Pickles as two senior citizens – Londoner Ada Cresswell and Yorkshireman Walter Bingley, the gravedigger who buried Ada’s husband – who fall in love, but find that marriage on an old-age pension isn’t easy.

UK | 1970-71 | NWORK | 175 min | Cert PG Item # 65712 / 66294 | RRP £12.99 | Out 17th Oct

S2 DVD Price: £10.99 S3 Price: £9.99

Heartbeat: Series 8

Our DVD Price: £13.99

The Body Farm: Series 1 A spin-off series from Waking the Dead which sees Tara Fitzgerald reprise her role of forensic pathologist Eve Lockhart, here in her other world in a boundary-pushing private forensics facility that is called upon for its expert crime-solving 2 discs. knowledge.

This eighth series sees Jason Durr play the former Metropolitan Police officer whose work now takes him into the heart of rural community life in North Yorkshire. In this series, he is feeling his way in his new posting and has to contend with, among other things, stolen radioactive isotopes, witch6 discs. craft and babysnatching. UK | 1999 | NWORK | 1200 min | Cert 12 Item # 66324 | RRP £49.99 | Out 24th October

UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 390 min | Cert TBC Item # 66307 | RRP £25.52 | Out 24th October

Our DVD Price: £41.99

Our DVD Price: £17.99

It Takes a Worried Man: Series 1

Children of the Stones Peter Graham Scott

A groundbreaking fantasy series, starring Iain Cuthbertson and Gareth Thomas. Filmed largely at Avebury, it mixed scientific fact and fiction with pagan mythology and rural folklore in its portrayal of a village held captive by the power of its Neolithic 2 discs. stone circle. UK | 1977 | NWORK | 175 min | Cert 12 Item # 66268 | RRP £14.99 | Out 17th October

A Thames TV sitcom created by and starring Peter Tilbury as the selfcentred, guilt-ridden, insecure insurance salesman Philip Roath, who faces an uphill struggle to come to terms with his ever diminishing lot. Contains the complete first series.

UK | 1981 | NWORK | 150 min | Cert 12 Item # 66626 | RRP £12.99 | Released 31st October

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Downton Abbey: Series 2 Julian Fellowes’ hit drama returns for a second series, now set in 1916, in which we see the effects of The Great War on the lives of the Crawley family and their servants. Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern head the cast. 4 discs; Also available: Series 1 & 2 Box Set.

The Little Matchgirl Michael Custance

A moving musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous yuletide tale, which sees Natalie Morse play the match seller in Victorian London, Roger Daltrey her boozing father and Twiggy his music-hall singer companion. Includes the song Mistletoe and Wine – a Christmas hit the following year for Cliff Richard.

UK | 2011 | UPV | Cert TBC Item # Various | RRP £29.99 | Out 7th November

DVD Price: £25.99 Blu-ray: £31.49 Box DVD: £35.99 Box Blu-ray: £40.49

Page 26

For the Love of Ada: Series 2 & 3

UK | 1987 | NWORK | 90 min | Cert TBC Item # 66335 | RRP £7.99 | Released 7th November

Our DVD Price: £6.99

Miranda: Series 2

of.

Miranda Hart is back with a second series of her award-winning show, which sees her aiming to get fit, bake cookies, take care of house plants and be a woman her boarding school nemesis Tilly (Sally Phillips) and hard-toplease mother (Patricia Hodge) would be proud Also available: Series 1 & 2 Box Set.

UK | 2010 | 4DVD | Cert 12 Item # 65003 / 66315 | RRP £19.99 | Out 7th Nov

DVD Price: £13.99 S1&2 DVD: £24.99

Pathfinders in Space: Trilogy

One of ITV’s earliest dramas written specifically for children and a precursor to the development of Doctor Who, this popular, long-unseen trilogy – Pathfinders in Space, Pathfinders to Mars and Pathfinders to Venus – sees men sent to the Moon, Venus and Mars to expand mankind’s knowledge of space. 3 discs; Booklet. Gerald Flood stars. UK | 1961 | NWORK | 525 min | Cert U Item # 66655 | RRP £29.99 | Released 17th October

Our DVD Price: £25.49

Planet Dinosaur

From recent finds that have forced a rewriting of the prehistory books, palaeontologists now know that dinosaurs spread to every part of the globe, and evolved in ways so monstrous, horrific and bizarre they make Tyrannosaurus Rex look very tame indeed. Planet Dinosaur is an immersive visual experience studded with facts, action and monsters that presents a brand-new global perspective 2 discs. on the prehistoric era.

UK | 2011 | 2ENT | Cert E Item # 66706-07 | RRP £20.42 | Out 24th October

DVD Price: £15.31 Blu-ray: £17.99

The Queen’s Palaces

A celebration of exceptional buildings together with the treasures from the Royal Collection in three hour-long films presented by Fiona Bruce. In each location, Fiona reveals the history and treasures of three fine buildings – Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and The Palace of Holyroodhouse. UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 171 min | Cert E Item # 66044 | RRP £15.99 | Released 10th October

Our DVD Price: £12.24

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

Enjoy Complete TV Box Sets Classic sitcoms, dramas and mysteries available in complete editions. Watch what you love at your leisure! The Darling Buds of May A celebration of love, family life, sunshine and romance in the idyllic Kent countryside in the 1950s. Pam Ferris and Catherine Zeta-Jones join David Jason, who plays loveable rogue Pop Larkin.

Shoestring: Series 1

The Persuaders

6 discs.

Item # 66181 UK | 1992 | G-VEN | 899 min | PG | £39.99

All the episodes of the cult 70s TV serial that combined action, humour and panache in equal measure, and which saw Tony Curtis and Roger Moore starring as the millionaire playboys duped by a judge into righting wrongs.

Recommended Starring: Trevor Eve Released: 17th October Extras: 4 discs. Item # 66116 | UK | 1979 | 2ENT | 550 min | Cert 12

8 discs.

Item # 66277-164 UK | 1971-72 | 1300 min | PG | £49.99

DVD: £26.99 Save £23

DVD: £43.99 Save £6 Blu-ray: £65.99

Agatha Christie’s Poirot

Miss Marple

Seasons 1-8 of the TV crime series starring David Suchet as the eccentric Belgian detective. 32 discs. Item # 64367 UK | 1989-2010 | G-VEN | 15 | £179.99

The complete collection of Agatha Christie’s Marple, starring Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie as the elderly amateur sleuth. 20 discs. Item # 65835 UK | 2011 | G-VEN | 1844 min | 15 | £99.99

DVD: £99.99 Save £80

DVD: £59.99 Save £40

Cadfael

Only Fools and Horses

All 13 episodes of the drama starring Derek Jacobi as the man of the world turned man of the cloth – monk and medieval sleuth Cadfael. 5 discs. Item # 59401 UK | 1994-98 | G-VEN | 988 min | 15 | £49.99

DVD: £29.99 Save £20

David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst. All the series and all the specials of 26 discs. the long-running comedy. Item # 66187 UK | 1981-2003 | 2ENT | 12 | £75.99

DVD: £75.59

Hornblower

Sherlock Holmes

The complete collection of the 18th century maritime adventure series based on the novels by CS Forester. Ioan Gruffudd stars. 4 discs.

All 41 episodes from all four series of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV series, adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. 16 discs.

Item # 65953 UK | 1988-2003 | G-VEN | 15 | £49.99

Item # 59406 UK | 1984-94 | G-VEN | 2438 min | 15 | £89.99

DVD: £29.99 Save £20

DVD: £57.99 Save £33

The House of Eliott: Complete Collection

To the Manor Born

The complete series of the popular BBC fashion house drama set in 1920s London. 16 discs. Item # 66611 UK | 1991-94 | ACORN | 1762 min | 12 | £74.99

Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles star in this aristo-com which sees old money ousted and keeping a wary eye on the new. 7 discs. Item # 66614 UK | 1979 | ACORN | 703 min | £74.99

DVD: £57.99 Save £17

DVD: £55.49 Save £19.50

Inspector Morse

Upstairs Downstairs

A lavish set that collects all 33 episodes of the long-running detective series starring John Thaw and a wealth of guest stars. 17 discs.

The entire collection of the 1970s LWT costume drama based on the lives of the masters and servants of 165, Eaton Place. 21 discs.

Item # 55690 UK | 1987-2000 | G-VEN | 15 | £119.99

Item # 54449 UK | 1971-75 | NWORK | 3400 min | 12 | £99.99

DVD: £69.99 Save £50

DVD: £59.99 Save £40

Enquiries info@moviemail-online.co.uk

This acclaimed series has barely been seen in the 30 years since its original BBC run ended, but it is still well remembered, and celebrated, as one of the quirkiest entries in a genre that’s hardly averse to quirkiness. Trevor Eve’s Eddie Shoestring, a former computer programme driven to nervous breakdown by the noise and stress of working with the thenunwieldy machines, has turned gumshoe, sniffing out villains on the mean streets of Bristol (when his mood swings allow it). But that’s not his only unusual career move: when a case brings him into contact with the boss of the local radio station he’s offered a position as a phone-in private eye, following up leads from anxious callers. This, on paper, is Shoestring’s unique selling point: the radio show angle is an ingenious device (a good few years before Frasier) to generate plotlines and introduce an assorted cast of characters. But the real appeal of the series is Trevor Eve, still fairly new to television, who hit the ground running here. Rarely has a TV detective been quite so convincingly flawed and fascinating. JU

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

£15.99

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Page 27

VOLUME 3: SCIENCE Look at Life was a regular series of short documentary films produced in the 1960s by the Special Features Division of the Rank Organisation and screened in their Odeon and Gaumont cinemas. Marvellously concise and beautifully shot, these ‘slice of life’ colour featurettes numbering over 500 episodes in total - presented cinemagoers with varied aspects of contemporary British life. Digitally restored from the original film elements, this volume presents 45 memorable films offering fascinating insights into varied aspects of scientific progress and innovation that have benefited the British way of life, with many unseen since their first screening.

OUT NOW VOLUMES ONE AND TWO STILL AVAILABLE

The Complete Series

Andrew Davies’ surreal, searingly funny look at sexual politics, medical malpractice and academic rivalry at the height of the Thatcher era won huge acclaim and a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series. Dark secrets, sinister experiments, demented academics, STD epidemics, the Yankee Dollar, a desperate Creative with writer’s block and a couple of nuns all conspire to make life on campus a hair-raising experience for young idealistic doctor Stephen Daker. Starring Peter Davison, Graham Crowden, David Troughton, Barbara Flynn, John Bird, plus guest stars Hugh Grant, Kathy Burke and Mark Addy. n n

Contains Series 1, Series 2 and the 1992 sequel film A Very Polish Practice across 5 discs. With audio commentaries on episodes three and five.

ON DVD NOW www.networkdvd.co.uk

The Top 10 Shakespeare Films By James Oliver Douglas Hickox Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad reputation, praised too often for his poetry and great insight into humanity’s soul rather than for his career-long commitment to shock tactics and cheap sensationalism. Theatre of Blood gleefully corrects that, with Vincent Price as a ham actor who kills his critics with methods derived from the canon. Item # 12196 UK | 1973 | MGMHE | 100 min | 15 | £12.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £7

Inspired by this month’s much longed-for release of Kozintsev’s Hamlet and King Lear (see page 5), our thoughts have turned to wondering what exactly makes a great Shakespeare adaptation on the screen. Focusing particularly on films that use Shakespeare as a inspiration rather than treating his plays as sacred texts, James Oliver presents eleven films which have had greatness thrust upon them over the years.

2 Looking for Richard

5 Hamlet / King Lear

8 Titus

Al Pacino

Grigori Kozintsev

An unconventional Shakespeare film but one of the very best. Al Pacino has been obsessed with Shakespeare all his life; this film, his directorial debut, is a meditation on what the work means to him, using a production of Richard III to explore wider questions of the playwright’s methods and his eternal relevance.

For all his reputation as Britain’s national poet, most of the finest film versions of his work were made abroad. These Russian films are based on translations by Boris Pasternak and directed – brilliantly – by Grigori Kozintsev. Massively influential, they are not only triumphant renderings of the plays, they’re also sensational cinema.

A dazzling infusion of theatre and cinema, closely modelled on Taymor’s 1994 off-Broadway production of Titus Andronicus. An obscure Shakespearean bloodbath (mass-murder, decapitation, cannibalism – it’s got the lot) becomes a major film, a beautifully designed, carefully staged meditation on violence and destruction.

Item # 21171 USA | 1996 | 20CFX | 107 min | 12 | £12.99

Item # 66473/66463 1964/71 | Bgo | subt | B&W | U | £12.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £7

DVD: £9.99 each Save £3

DVD: £5.99 Save £10

3 Forbidden Planet

6 Romeo+Juliet

Fred Mcleod Wilcox

Baz Luhrmann

9 The Taming of the Shrew

Modern dress versions of Shakespeare are common; future dress versions are rarer. This is The Tempest in spacesuits: Prospero is a scientist, Ariel a robot and Caliban a monster of mental energy. Almost every science fiction film since owes a tip of the hat to this marvellous ride, which stars 2 discs. Leslie Nielsen and Walter Pidgeon.

Now this is undoubtedly a film that divides: many love it for its flamboyance and bold style but purists are probably best recommended to stick to the classic Zeffirelli version. However, the essence of Shakespeare’s play doesn’t just survive here, it leaps off the screen in heightened colours. Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio star.

Franco Zeffirelli

Item # 33318 / 62020 1956 | WH | 94 min | PG | £15.99

Item # 10032 / 63376 1996 | FOX | 115 min | 12 | £19.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £10 Blu-ray: £7.99

DVD: £7.99 Save £12 Blu-ray: £8.99

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

4 The Bad Sleep Well

7 Macbeth

10 Henry V

Roman Polanski

Laurence Olivier

Akira Kurosawa

Heaths were never so blasted, nor days ever so foul and fair as in this skillfully directed, bloody and accessible adaptation of ‘The Scottish Play’, which sees Polanski take it back to its roots as a horror story. Jon Finch stars as the fated ruler, Francesca Annis as his Lady. Its score, from The Third Ear Band, was Oscar nominated.

Cry God for Harry, England, and Laurence Olivier! As fine a piece of propaganda as was ever made, intended to stiffen the sinews of the Allied troops. It is good looking, beautifully staged, brilliantly reflexive, and immensely enjoyable. Oliver’s heroic interpretation of the young king and a stirring score guarantee an exhilarating ride.

Item # 11453 UK | 1971 | COL-T | 134 min | 15 | £19.99

Item # 4355 / 59770 UK | 1944 | CRLTN | 137 min | U | £9.99

DVD: £5.99 Save £14

DVD: £5.99 Save £4 Blu-ray: £10.99

Kurosawa famously transposed Shakespeare to Japan, relocating Macbeth and King Lear to the feudal era as Throne of Blood and Ran, respectively. This (loose) adaption of Hamlet might be the most interesting – a hardboiled crime film that drags the bard into contemporary Japanese corporate culture. Item # 23071 1960 | BFI | 144 min | subt | B&W | PG | £19.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £10

Julie Taymor

Item # 21451 UK | 1999 | BUENA | 155 min | 18 | £15.99

The Bard’s barbed battle of the sexes has inspired a musical (Kiss Me Kate) and teen comedy (10 Things I Hate About You) but this handsomely mounted, zesty production is surely the one to see. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor duked it out in many a movie – but this is surely the best script they ever had. DVD: £5.99 Save £14

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1 Theatre of Blood

Forbidden Planet

Television

Animation

Rev.

A contemporary sitcom about the daily frustrations and moral conflicts of the Rev Andrew Smallbone (Tom Hollander) – a Church of England vicar, newly promoted from a sleepy rural parish to the busy, socially-divided world of St Botolph’s in South London, a world of 2 discs. which he has no experience at all. UK | 2010 | 2ENT | Cert 15 Item # 62842 | RRP £19.99 | Out 7th November

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Andrew Davies’s surreal, highly satirical black comedy series places Peter Davison’s Dr Steven Daker in the middle of angst-ridden academics, medical malpractice and sexual politics in a showpiece sixties university campus looking increasingly anachronistic in the paranoid, profit-driven 1980s. Contains both series as well as A Very Polish Practice, the 1992 sequel film in which Stephen goes to 5 discs. work in post-Communist Warsaw. UK | 1986-88 | NWORK | 800 min | Cert PG Item # 64142 | RRP £49.99 | Released 10th October

Second Thoughts: Series 1-3

Our DVD Price: £41.99

The first three series, available separately, of the sitcom about two middleaged divorcees (Lynda Bellingham and James Bolam), trying to maintain a relationship against the odds. Adapted from a long-running Radio 4 comedy, it was inspired by the real-life relationship of husband-and-wife writing team, Jan Etherington and Gavin Petrie. UK | 1991 | NWORK | 175 min | Cert PG Item # Various | RRP £19.99 | Released 6th June

Wallander: Films 21-26 Six more of the original self-contained Swedish TV crime thrillers, based on the books by Henning Mankell and featuring the headstrong maverick detective Kurt Wallander (Krister Henriksson). Contains The Sniper, The Angel of Death, The Ghost, The Heritage, The Collector and The Witness.

3 discs.

S1: £9.99 S2: £14.99 S3: £13.99

Shaun the Sheep: Series 2 Aardman Animation

All 40 episodes from the second season of the animated series from the creators of Wallace and Gromit, in which Shaun, farm dog Bitzer, Timmy, big bouncy Shirley, the naughty pigs and Pidsley the Cat turn peace in the valley into mayhem in the 5 discs. meadow! UK | 2010 | 2ENT | Cert U Item # 66128 | RRP £39.99 | Released 3rd October

Our DVD Price: £30.49

Sunday Night at the London Palladium: Volume 2 Making its debut on ITV’s opening weekend in 1955, Sunday Night... soon established itself as a weekly TV highlight. These sets contain some of the best of its archives, including Bruce Forsyth, Jimmy Tarbuck, Frankie Howerd, Arthur Haynes, Cliff Richard and the 2 discs. Shadows and many more. Also available: Volumes 1 & 2 Box Set. UK | 1961-66 | NWORK | 384 min | Cert E Item # 65283 | RRP £19.99 | Out 10th October

DVD Price: £13.99 Vols 1&2: £32.99

Page 32

A Very Peculiar Practice

Our DVD Price: £37.99

Adventures of Mark Twain Will Vinton

This first full-length feature film made in claymation features vignettes from several of Mark Twain’s works, and sees Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn stow away with Twain on a journey in his airship. Will appeal to The fans of Aardman. History of Claymation. USA | 1986 | EUREK | 86 min | Cert PG Item # 66208-09 | RRP £15.99 | Out 31st October

DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £12.99

The Adventures of Tintin

With faithful dog Snowy at his side, the famous boy reporter travels the globe, investigating cases and encountering a colourful cast of characters – Captain Haddock, Thompson and Thomson, Professor Calculus – along the way. All 21 episodes of the 1991-92 5 discs; Remastered. animated series. France | 1991-92 | ANBAY | 840 min | Cert U Item # 66311 / 13 | RRP £29.99 | Out 10th October

DVD Price: £24.99 Blu-ray: £44.49

Rio

Carlos Saldanha A comedy adventure from the creators of Ice Age that tells the story of Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), a rare macaw who hears that a female of his species has been spotted in South America. Now he has to overcome his fear of flying and win her heart!

Also Released... Alice Through the Looking Glass

Item # 66133 UK | 1999 | 85 min | PG | £12.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

Birds of a Feather: Complete Item # 66299 UK | 1998 | 12 | £99.99

Our DVD Price: £83.49

Doctor Who - S6 Vol 2

USA | 2011 | FOX | 96 min | Cert U Item # 66391 / 98 | RRP £19.99 | Out 24th October

DVD: £13.99 DVD+Blu-ray: £24.99

Stage

Item # 66530 UK | 2011 | 12 | £25.52

DVD: £17.99 Blu-ray: £22.99

Frost on Friday

Item # 59289 UK | NWORK | £24.99

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London Bridge

Item # 66325 UK | 1995 | 325 min | £19.99

Our DVD Price: £13.99

Psychoville: Halloween Item # 66244 UK | 2011 | 2ENT | 15 | £7.99

DVD: £6.12 Blu-ray: £7.65

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Royal Opera Lewis Carroll’s ever-popular story provides the basis for Christopher Wheeldon’s spectacular new work starring Royal Ballet Principal Lauren Cuthbertson and filmed at the Royal Opera House in 2 discs; March 2011. Being Alice Documentary.

Will & Grace: Complete Item # 66629 USA | 4290 min | 15 | £129.99

UK | 2011 | OPUS | 120 min | E Item # 66616 | RRP £24.99 | Out 26th September

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Contemporary Film English Language Films, 1970 – present

New Releases

Orphans

Peter Mullan A Glasgow based black comedy written and directed by Peter Mullan (My Name is Joe), in which four grown-up children gather for their mother’s funeral. New Transfer; Peter Mullan shorts: Close, Good Day for the Bad Guys and Fridge.

The Cheerleaders Paul Glickler

1970s sexploitation movie in which the shameless girls of a cheerleading squad to seduce their team’s rivals into exhaustion. Lesbian sports mistresses and squarejawed jocks – no-one is 2 discs; Revenge safe! of the Cheerleaders (88 mins, 1976). USA | 1973 | ARROW | 81 min | Cert 18 Item # 66318 | RRP £9.99 | Released 24th October

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The Comeback Pete Walker

Jack Jones plays the pop star who finds himself on the edge of losing his mind in this horror mystery from Pete Walker (House of Whipcord, Die Screaming Marianne). David Doyle is his dodgy manager, Pamela Stephenson his girlfriend. UK | 1978 | ODEON | 100 min | Cert 18 Item # 66668 | RRP £14.99 | Released 7th November

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The First Grader Justin Chadwick

A heartwarming tale based on a true story and set in a remote village in Kenya, where an 84-yearold former freedom fighter overcomes opposition and ridicule when he enrols at the local primary school to learn how to What read and write. Happened Next. UK | 2010 | SodaElev | 103 min | Cert 12 Item # 66456 | RRP £17.99 | Released 17th October

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Heavenly Creatures Peter Jackson

Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey play inseparable, obsessively fantasising schoolgirls who resolve that the unbearable prospect of being parted by their parents must be thwarted at all costs. An intense potion of dreams and demons, based on a true Remastered. 1950s story. New Zealand | 1995 | PECCA | 98 min | Cert 18 Item # 65831 | RRP £17.99 | Out 12th September

DVD Price: £12.99

Blu-ray: £17.24

UK | 1997 | PARKC | 98 min | 18 Item # 66487 / 80 | RRP £15.99 | Out 31st October

DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £13.99

Quiet Flows the Don Sergei Bondarchuk Based on Mikhail Sholokov’s Nobel Prize winning novel, this epic drama follows the fluctuating fortunes of a young Cossack (Rupert Everett) against the backdrop of WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War. UK | 2006 | ARROW | 176 min | Cert 15 Item # 66677 | RRP £12.99 | Released 17th October

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Straw Dogs (40th Anniversary Edition) Sam Peckinpah

An unflinching study of primal brutality that is generally regarded as one of the strongest statements about violence ever put on screen. It was banned in the UK from 1984 to 2002. Dustin Hoffman plays the quiet American mathematician forced into action when locals assault his wife (Susan George). 2 discs; Many, many extras. USA | 1971 | PNE | 113 min | Cert 18 Item # 66259 / 56111 | £15.99 | Out 24th Oct

DVD Price: £11.99 Blu-ray: £12.99

The Tree

Julie Bertucelli Australian family drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, who finds herself struggling to hold her family together after the death of her husband. Her 8 year-old daughter is convinced that a giant fig tree next to the house holds her dead father’s spirit. Then the tree is scheduled to be felled because its roots are undermining the house... France / Australia | 2010 | ART-E | 100 min | Cert 15 Item # 66279 | RRP £15.99 | Released 10th October

Taking Off Recommended Director: Milos Forman Starring: Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin Released: 7th November Extras: Brand New Restoration; Before Taking Off: Milos Forman’s Road to America; Trailer. Item # 66482 | USA | 1971 | PARKC | 88 min | Cert TBC

When teenager Jeannie Tyne ‘takes off’ without a word, her baffled parents embark on a raucous journey not just to find her, but to understand the youth culture that has claimed her. So begins Forman’s first US film, a hippie-era classic that rivals Mike Nichols’ The Graduate as an astute exploration of how the late-sixties generation gap affected middle-class American mores (and surpasses that film for laugh-out-loud comedy). Another link to the Nichols movie is Buck Henry – the mildly deviant person’s Jack Lemmon – as Jeannie’s stiff-collared father (Henry co-wrote and appeared in The Graduate). His deadpan versatility shines as he and Mrs Tyne submit to the counterculture; the scene where they join a group of similarly bemused parents to learn how to smoke a joint is one of the great comic set-pieces of 1970s American cinema. For all that, Taking Off has a European feel. One of its writers was Jean-Claude Carrière, who the following year scripted Buñuel’s highly comparable The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. JU

Buying Details Our DVD Price: £9.99 RRP: £15.99 Save £6 (38%)

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Page 33

Contemporary Voice Over

Christopher Monger Voice Over caused a sensation on its release, when its subject matter was attacked by feminist groups. Ian McNeice plays the lonely, down-atheel radio personality whose ability to separate fact from fiction begins to break down, with devastating consequences. 2 discs; Newly remastered; Repeater (1979).

Hammett

UK | 1983 | BFI | 108 min | Cert 15 Item # 66691 | RRP £19.99 | Out 24th October

Recommended

Our DVD+Blu-ray Price: £12.99

Director: Wim Wenders Starring: Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Sylvia Sidney, Elisha Cook Jr. Released: 7th November Item # 64252 | USA | 1982 | OPTIM | 93 min | Cert TBC

Beautiful and strangely dreamlike, Hammett floats along like the stylish, tobacco-tinted ghost of an old film noir. Set in 1940s San Francisco, it follows the exploits of real-life crimewriter Dashiell Hammett as he becomes involved in a complex missing person case. Wisecracks are cracked, shadows are boxed, femmes are fatale. Seldom has the figure of the hard-bitten private eye been so likeable as Frederic Forrest’s Hammett, but he heads a classy cast that includes actors from Hollywood’s heyday, including Elisha Cook Jr, Sylvia Sidney and Hank Worden. Hammett has come close to slipping off Wim Wenders’ official CV, owing to its troubled production: Francis Ford Coppola hired Wenders to direct it, but on seeing the result, demanded that a great amount of it be re-shot – a task he undertook himself, according to some accounts. Hardly surprising, then, that the look of Hammett – with gorgeous cinematography and painstakingly designed studio sets – is reminiscent of Coppola’s work of the period. But perhaps one sees Wenders’ hand in the restrained performances, and Forrest’s Zen-like calm. NR

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Page 34

The Way

Also Released... Apocalypse Now: Special Edition

Francis Ford Coppola

Item # 66415 USA | 1979 | OPTIM | 148 min | 18 | £24.99

Our DVD Price: £15.99

The Beaver Jodie Foster

Item # 66163 USA | 2010 | ICON | 90 min | 12 | £15.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Green Lantern Martin Campbell

Item # 66255 USA | 2011 | WHV | 114 min | 12 |

Emilio Estevez A drama set along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. Martin Sheen stars as the father who travels to reclaim the body of his estranged son who died in the Pyrenees. Driven by grief and a desire to reach an understanding of his dead son, he embarks on the 800km pilgrimage himself. USA | 2010 | ICON | 128 min | Cert 12 Item # 66165 | RRP £15.99 | Released 31st October

Our DVD Price: £11.99

X-Men: First Class Matthew Vaughn

Superhero action prequel to the first three X-Men movies which follows Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) through their formative years in the 1960s as they come to terms with their newfound superpowers.

£20.99

DVD: £15.74 DVD+Blu-ray: £24.99

The Conversation

Francis Ford Coppola

Item # 64897 USA | 1974 | OPTIM | 109 min | 12 | £17.99

DVD: £11.99 Blu-ray: £14.99

The Dead Zone David Cronenberg

Item # 66082 USA | 1983 | SCANB | 99 min | 18 | £5.99

Our DVD Price: £5.99

The Guardian William Friedkin

Item # 66199 USA | 1990 | 2ND | 89 min | 18 | £15.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Jurassic Park Trilogy Steven Spielberg

Item # 66183 USA | 1993-2001 | UPV | 337 min | PG | £24.99

DVD: £17.99 Blu-ray: £43.99

USA | 2011 | FOX | 132 min | 12 Item # 66587 / 66594 | RRP £19.99 | Out 31st Oct

Last Night

DVD: £12.99 DVD+Blu-ray: £24.99

Item # 66403 USA / France | 2010 | OPTIM | 92 min |

Blu-rays Henry: Portrait of a... John McNaughton

Item # 66420 1986 | 85 min | 18 | £22.99

Massy Tadjedin 12 | £17.99

DVD: £11.99 Blu-ray: £14.99

Scanners Collection David Cronenberg

Item # 66327 Canada | 1981-92 | ANBAY | 309 min | 18 | £12.99

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Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

Tom’s Midnight Garden

Nagisa Oshima

Item # 65955 Japan| 1983 | OPTIM | 124 min | 15 | £22.99

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The Wings of the Dove Iain Softley

Willard Carroll

Item # 66168 UK | 1999 | 93 min | PG | £12.99

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The Wild Hunt

Alexandre Franchi

Item # 66333 Canada | 2009 | NETWR | 92 min |

Item # 66513 UK | 1997 | 98 min | 15 | £24.99

15 | £15.99

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November 2011 MovieMail Film Catalogue

The Tree of Life Recommended Director: Terrence Malick Starring: Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain Released: 31st October Extras: Exploring The Tree of Life (Blu-ray only) Item # 66435 | USA | 2011 | FOX | 139 min | Cert 12

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Also on Blu-ray The Tree of Life

Item # 66439 USA | 2011 | 139 min | 12 | £27.99

Blu-ray Price: £19.99

See Also 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick

Item # 30976 USA | 1968 | WHV | 136 min | U | £16.99

Our DVD Price: £7.99

Days of Heaven Terrence Malick

Item # 7938 USA | 1979 | PARAH | 89 min | PG | £9.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

The New World: Extended Cut Terrence Malick

Item # 60060 USA | 2005 | EV | 12 | £10.99

Our DVD Price: £7.99

alick. When someone becomes their surname, is this a strength or finally an Achilles heel? Five films in 40 years … who stands there, in the rarest of airs, with this most voyaging of film-makers? Kubrick, yes; Tarkovsky. And Spain’s Victor Erice. All with oeuvres as precise and seemingly unfettered (in their reach and expression). But for us, now, Malick means something else. Whether it be in his astonishing debut Badlands, the lacerating pastoral of Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line’s metaphysical conflict zone or The New World’s civilisation-testing love story, Malick has crafted politically acute and philosophically profound narratives – myths almost – unsurpassed in their pantheistic attention to the beauty of the natural world. And all of these have unfolded from within the Hollywood studio system, and have featured many of its most commercially successful actors. Now, Cannes-winning with The Tree of Life, his intimate epic of universal and personal origins, Malick has realised a lifelong project that has no equivalent in cinema. He structures his human storyline around a rites-of-passage 1950s Texas childhood recollection, hinging this on a

Malick’s Canneswinning epic has no equivalent in cinema terrible loss. However, in The Tree of Life, all times co-exist, whether in dream, living memory, the composition of cells or the persistence of the cosmic in the fabric of the daily. So Malick deploys images of the birth of things (the stellar, planetary and biological) that have never been framed cinematically within such a complete vision of underlying harmonic order. Crucially, and beyond the many struggles of the characters featured, he is seeking to express an enduring joy in the mystery of life. This is nothing sentimental, but urgently necessary. Adopting the perceptual understanding of a child in both narrative and making, he has, over his five features, moved closer than any other filmmaker to a form of cinema that embodies in the very fabric of the medium the experience and implications of being. Essential cinema, The Tree of Life demands complete engagement. What it returns is a manifesto of priorities that one can set a course by. Gareth Evans

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Page 35

Hammett

James Oliver’s From the Cheap Seats

Blast Off! – Quatermass Image from The Quatermass Xperiment

t’s said that pub landlords hated the Quatermass TV serial back in the 1950s. When the BBC first broadcast his adventures in those pre-iPlayer days, hostelries would empty as drinkers hurried home to catch the latest instalment, leaving no-one for barmen to pull pints for. Professor Bernard Quatermass was the first great icon of British television. The creation of writer Nigel Kneale (himself the first great British TV dramatist), Quatermass has influenced the entire science fiction genre, from Doctor Who to John Carpenter and beyond. Perhaps more importantly, he keeps finding fans in each successive generation: the first three film adaptations have just been re-released, and since they’re on DVD you can enjoy them in your own time – no need to hurry your drinking. In Kneale’s world, Quatermass was the head of the ‘British Rocket Group’ (oh, for the days when spacecraft boasted a Union Jack on their nose cones!). His position led him to encounter the dregs of the universe: Starting with BBC series The Quatermass Experiment in 1953 and continuing in Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1959), the professor battled with extraterrestrial invasion and, perhaps even worse, intransigent civil service bureaucracy. Intrigued by the character’s TV success, a small film studio called Hammer Films chanced their arm with a film adaptation of the first story (which they audaciously renamed The Quatermass Xperiment to emphasise its shocking content and capitalise on the decision of the then British Board of Film Censors to award it an X certificate). It was a huge hit in 1955, establishing Hammer as the serious film-biz players they would remain for the next two decades. Hammer eventually filmed all three

Professor Bernard Quatermass has had a huge influence on science fiction serials (Quatermass 2 came in 1957, while his adventures in the Pit had to wait until 1967) and it’s these versions which are most familiar to modern viewers. All three are stories of alien invasion, in which the (largely unseen) enemy first possesses and then transforms their earthling victims so they lose their fundamental humanity. This being the 1950s there are subtexts galore. We can view the aliens as a manifestation of the existential threat of communism, although this is a very reductive interpretation. Nigel Kneale was a more acute writer than that: the main tension in the film is not between mankind and the aliens but between this planet’s inhabitants – Quatermass is appalled how his inventions are coopted by the military, who plan to use them to slaughter their enemies. As with all successes, Quatermass inspired imitations. Hammer’s own (tremendously entertaining) X: The Unknown was even set to feature Quatermass until Kneale – unhappy at

the Studio’s use of American toughguy actor Brian Donlevy in the role in The Quatermass Xperiment – protested. It didn’t dissuade him from letting Hammer make The Abominable Snowman, adapted from another of his teleplays. Maybe the best of the Kneale / Hammer films, it concerns the hunt for the yeti and the terrible consequences for those who find it. This boom was short lived. Soon after, Hammer discovered tacky Gothic Horror and changed course: apart from one-off efforts like Quatermass and the Pit and The Damned, Hammer steered clear of science fiction. This is a shame, because they were amongst the best films the company made: mature, sophisticated and still thought-provoking.

Related Films Quatermass Double Bill Val Guest

Quatermass and Quatermass Xperiment Item # 66010 UK | 1955-57 | 160 min | 12 | £9.99

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The Quatermass Collection (BBC)

Contains BBC series Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit. Item # 20890 UK | 1953-59 | 450 min | PG | £29.99

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Visit the Cheap Seats blog and join in on the discussion! blogs.moviemail-online.co.uk Page 38

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The MovieMail Website November Highlights • Exclusive online sales – BFI Cinematic Treasures, Park Circus, Terence Malick, Bertrand Tavernier • Top 10 Sci-fi films – including video clips • Archive Interview with Nigel Kneale – Carol Hunter talks with the creator of Quatermass • Latest Filmcast – Graeme looks at Second Run’s Szindbád • Full-length reviews – Shoestring, The Complete Humphrey Jennings Vol , The Earth Dies Screaming, War and Peace 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

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Cave of Forgotten Dreams Werner Herzog Herzog takes us on an incredible adventure deep into the otherwise inaccessible Chauvet Cave in France to see their 32,000-year-old Paleolithic paintings – the oldest known examples of human artistic expression. With typically engaging and idiosyncratic narration, Herzog reflects on evolution, our primal desire to represent the world around us, and what it means to be human. Item # 66565-66 France | 2010 | REV | 90 min | subt | E | £15.99

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