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Alfred Hitchcock: The Signature Collection: Strangers on a Train; Stage Fright; I Confess; Dial M for Murder; The Wrong Man; North by Northwest
PG, Warner Home Video, 7 discs, pounds 57.50
Bruno Anthony's (and probably Alfred Hitchcock's) theory is that "everybody is a potential mass murderer". Fortunately, not everybody fulfils this potential: fortunately not least because
of the deep fun to be had from the notion of "the wrong man",
on which most of these impressive thrillers play
elegant variations.
Star Wars Trilogy
U, Fox, 4 discs, pounds 44.50
Might Kurt Russell have made
a decent Han Solo? Watch the riveting 75-minute documentary included here - complete with the very first screen tests for the saga - and decide for yourself. As for the marvellous original three films, here lovingly restored and looking as crisp as icicles, no introduction is needed.
Capra Boxset: It Happened One Night; Mr Smith Goes to Washington; It's a Wonderful Life; You Can't Take It with You
U, Universal, 4 discs, pounds 38.50
A magnificent set, with three James Stewarts (two majestic
and Oscar-nominated) and one Clark Gable (immortal, Oscar- winning). Blub at the greatest, most troubled of Christmas movies, It's a Wonderful Life (1947), Capra's masterpiece; then treat yourself to a road-trip with It Happened One Night (1934), the definitive screwball comedy.
Yes, Minister
U, BBC, 4 discs, pounds 29.50
"Fortunately Bernard, most
of our journalists are so incompetent that they have the gravest difficulty in finding out that today is Wednesday." "It's actually Thursday, minister."
If you have pined for the BBC's razor-sharp yet oddly heart- warming satire, pine no more.
Coen Brothers collection: Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink,
The Hudsucker Proxy
18, Universal, 4 discs, pounds 38.50
From the Coens' debut in 1984 with the superb Texas sleazeball noir Blood Simple to the stoned West-Coast shaggy-dog comedy of The Big Lebowski (1988), this set is a treat. Barton Fink
is Kafka in 1930s Hollywood,
with jokes; and buffs love the motormouth pastiche of Hudsucker Proxy.
Ealing Comedy: DVD Collection: The Man in the...