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For this perplexing British production Peter Sellers fronts a solid cast in a numbingly literal tale of seven men buried alive in a wartime warehouse of supplies and foodstuffs — and who are forced to stay there for years, praying for rescue. Stories of this kind usually come with a heavy moral or dramatic pyrotechnics, but after the opening barrage that drives the men underground, the balance of the film is a slow march toward the inevitable. The supply of candles lasts for an entire two years . . . and then runs out. Excellent extras cover the production in detail, and a 1945 documentary about the Channel Islands is an unexpected delight.

The Blockhouse

Region Free Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. (both versions) / Street Date January 17, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Peter Sellers, Charles Aznavour, Jeremy Kemp, Per Oscarsson, Peter Vaughan, Nicholas Jones, Leon Lissek, John Levene, Alfred Lynch.

Cinematography: Keith Goddard

Art Directors: Low Austin,...

Studiocanal have released a brand-new restoration of director Michael Winner’s 1963 classic crime drama, West 11. Starring Alfred Lynch, Kathleen Breck (The Three Musketeers), Eric Portman along with the inimitable Diana Dors, this sympathetic study of rootless drifters filmed on location in Notting Hill will be available to own on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital platforms now… and you can win a copy of the film on Blu-ray by answering the question below:

Michael Winner’s foray into British Social realism sees an authentic portrayal of the grittier, darker side of West London in the 60s. In Notting Hill’s jazz club, coffee bar and bedsit land of the early 1960s, Joe Beckett (Alfred Lynch) is a young unemployed misfit and drifter whose life takes a turn for the worse when he encounters Richard Dyce (Eric Portman), an ex-army officer. Dyce persuades Beckett it will be in his interests to bump off...

To mark the release of West 11 on 5th July, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

Michael Winner’s foray into British Social realism sees an authentic portrayal of the grittier, darker side of West London in the 60s. In Notting Hill’s jazz club, coffee bar and bedsit land of the early 1960s, Joe Beckett (Alfred Lynch) is a young unemployed misfit and drifter whose life takes a turn for the worse when he encounters Richard Dyce (Eric Portman), an ex-army officer. Dyce persuades Beckett it will be in his interests to bump off Dyce’s wealthy aunt for her money. Beckett travels to the old lady’s house on the South coast, and prepares to murder her but loses his nerve and in a struggle, accidentally pushes her down a flight of stairs, killing her anyway. After a witness reports him, Beckett returns to...

It sounds like a winner — Albert Finney and Martin Sheen team up for a daring subterranean bank robbery in the heart of London. The locations, the sets and the production are all first class. So what happened? Susannah York and Jonathan Pryce are in on the heist as well.

Loophole (1981)

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date January 3, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Albert Finney, Martin Sheen, Susannah York, Colin Blakely, Jonathan Pryce, Robert Morley, Alfred Lynch, Tony Doyle, Christopher Guard, Gwyneth Powell.

Cinematography Michael Reed

Film Editor Ralph Sheldon

Original Music Lalo Schifrin

Written by Jonathan Hales from a novel by Robert Pollock

Produced by Julian Holloway, David Korda

Directed by John Quested

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The great movie titled Loophole is still the underdog film noir from 1954, with Barry Sullivan as a bank clerk being dogged by an insurance investigator. The 1981 Loophole, an English movie,...

Actor whose unpredictability never undermined his electrifying talent

Nicol Williamson, whose death of oesophageal cancer at the age of 73 has been announced, was arguably the most electrifying actor of his generation, but one whose career flickered and faded like a faulty light fitting. Tall and wiry, with a rasping scowl of a voice, a battered baby face and a mop of unruly curls, he was the best modern Hamlet since John Gielgud, and certainly the angriest, though he scuppered his own performance at the Round House, north London, in 1969, by apologising to the audience and walking off the stage. The experience was recycled in a 1991 Broadway comedy called I Hate Hamlet, in which he proved his point and fell out badly with his co-star.

Williamson's greatest performance was as the dissolute and disintegrating lawyer Bill Maitland in John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence at the Royal Court theatre in 1964. It was...

Like birds scuttling around for a few scant crumbs, Gothic Horror fans were presumably wondering when the next thrilling 1980s Doctor Who adventure would see a return to the Hinchcliffe/Holmes style of storytelling. A good proportion of 1980s Doctor Who horror stories took their inspiration from trendy blockbuster epics and video nasties, but interestingly, Gothic Horror stories were few and far between in the decade. The only two notable examples were State Of Decay and The Curse Of Fenric, the penultimate adventure of the original run of the series.

The Curse Of Fenric doesn't disappoint though. Not only should it please the horror fans, it's a cracking adventure in its own right, which like all good Doctor Who stories, has several different themes and undercurrents lurking under the surface. It's a bit like Ghost Light in that there's maybe too much happening at once, and on first viewing, fans...