Great movies, great presents

ANDREW NICKOLDS recommends treats for film-lovers this Christmas

THE WAGES OF FEAR BFI – Offer £14.99 (RRP £19.99)

Already controversial in France after his poison-pen letters thriller Le Corbeau and alleged collaboration with Nazi film-makers, Henri-georges Clouzot made his international reputation in 1953 with this suspense-drenched story of Yves Montand and Charles Vanel so desperate for money that they agree to transport truckloads of nitro-glycerine through the South American jungle, braving lethal conditions on behalf of the cynical Southern Oil Company. The other ‘SOC’ (Standard Oil Company) took umbrage at the portrayal resulting in chunks of the film being cut in the US. The full 147-minute version is a masterpiece of mounting tension, rarely matched – though the 1977 remake ( Sorcerer) has its moments. CODE: 171161

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT Dogwoof – Offer £12.99 (RRP £15.99)

Released this year, half a century since Francois Truffaut’s week-long series of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock came out in book form, this documentary by Kent Jones smartly interleaves the original sound recordings made in Hitchcock’s office at Universal with toothsome clips from the films under discussion, and illuminating comments from directors Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and David Fincher. The enthusiasm from all is infectious, and despite Truffaut’s limited English there is a growing, almost father-and-son affection between the two film-makers. It helps that Hitchcock was basking in a period of golden success ( Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds) before his decline into mediocrity. CODE: 166642

EARLY HITCHCOCK Canal Plus – Offer £19.99 (RRP £34.99)

A fascinating and well-packaged collection from the start of a unique career: nine films mainly adapted by Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, from successful plays (including Galsworthy’s The Skin Game) or novels of the time. The quality varies, depending, one feels, on Hitchcock’s interest in the project, but all demonstrate his future mastery of suspense, both in the imaginative use of early sound (as in the famously menacing repetitions of the word ‘knife’ in Blackmail) and plot dénouements amid visually arresting settings: a transvestite trapeze artist cornered at a circus in Murder!, a chase through the British Museum in Blackmail, and a bus/train chase in the farcical Number

Seventeen. Hitchcock’s preferred blondes are also much in evidence. CODE: 169363

THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT Moviemail – Offer £15.99 (RRP £19.99)

For those in the mood for a completely different take on the Holy Family amid the religious festivities, here is Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael’s bizarre fantasy from 2015 in which God is – in the words of the song – ‘a slob like one of us’, despotically controlling the world via a computer in his ramshackle Brussels apartment. His daughter rebels – as did his son ‘JC’ earlier – hacks into God’s computer and releases to everybody on Earth the date of their deaths. This prompts extreme behaviour from a featured half-dozen characters, including Catherine Deneuve who fulfils an ambition to have a relationship with a gorilla. God comes down to earth via a laundrette washing machine in search of his daughter and suffers all-too-human consequences. Like Belgian chocolates, this film will be too rich for some, but may well be to your taste ‘if you liked Being John Malkovich’, as they say. CODE: 172533

ALBERT R N Renown – Offer £10.99 (RRP £12.99)

Like The Man Who Never Was, this belongs in the category of Second World War stories so wildly unlikely they must be true. Marlag O was a POW camp in Germany for naval officers, one of whom, the artist John Worsley (later responsible for illustrating The Adventures of P C 49 in the Eagle comic) built the eponymous Albert, a life-sized dummy which appeared on parade as a substitute for escapees

when the roll call was taken. Though the characters are national stereotypes, meaning the actors (including Jack Warner, Anthony Steel and Anton Diffring) are only slightly more lifelike than Albert, this is more enjoyable than most of the plethora of po-faced Brit escapee films around at the time, ten years after the war ended. CODE: 164126

DR TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS Moviemail – Offer £10.99 (RRP £12.99)

The first (1965) in a series of horror anthologies produced under the company name Amicus but using Hammer Films regulars (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough), this is a real curiosity because of the rest of the cast, eclectic in the extreme: Roy Castle, Alan Freeman, Max Adrian and a young Donald Sutherland. In the corner of a train compartment sits mysterious Dr Schreck (Cushing) who produces a pack of tarot cards which predict his fellow passengers’ grisly fates. Stolidly directed by Freddie Francis, it does however boast a score by Elisabeth Lutyens – and who can resist the sight of ‘Fluff’ Freeman being menaced by a killer plant? CODE: 172093

TRAPPED Arrow Films – Offer £22.99 (RRP £29.99)

Walter Iuzzolino (Walter Presents) may be flooding Channel 4 and its affiliates with European and South American drama, but he’ll be hard pressed to ferret out anything else as gripping as this ten-episode Icelandic saga, perfect for a winter weekend’s viewing in front of the fire, if only because the brutal weather conditions make Reykjavik (in the soft sophisticated south of the island) look tropical. Bear-like police chief Andri (Olafur Darri Olafsson) battles against blizzards, sinister local politics and his chaotic personal life and demons, as he tries to unravel a murder mystery whose roots go back years to a suspicious fire which permanently affected his own family. Created by Baltasar Kormakur, this is a spectacular slice of Nordic noir (and blanc). CODE: 166871

HERE COMES MR JORDAN Sony Pictures – Offer £9.99 (RRP £12.99)

First-rate Hollywood fantasy from 1941, which spawned several second-rate remakes. Aspiring prizefighter Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery – father of Bewitched’s Elizabeth) crashes his plane and dies. Due to bureaucratic confusion on the part of recording angel Edward Everett Horton, not only is this fifty years ahead of Joe’s due death date, but the body has been cremated so a replacement is needed. With the help of suave celestial fixer Mr Jordan (Claude Rains) a suitable body is found: a crooked financier, drowned in his bath by his wife and her lover. For once the term ‘hilarity ensues’ is appropriate, and the complicated juggling act that the plot becomes works beautifully. CODE: 130891

PENDA’S FEN BFI – Offer £14.99 (RRP £19.99)

Written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke, this Play for Today is from 1974: a golden period of BBC drama, when challenging work could be made without being vetoed on the grounds that nobody could understand it (which both Clarke and producer David Rose admitted). Deep in Elgar country, public schoolboy Stephen Franklin (Spencer Banks) is haunted by dreams not only of Gerontius but his awakening sexuality and sense of nonconformity, encouraged by his doubting vicar father and a radical writer (Ian Hogg). Soon Stephen rebels against the school CCF and embracing the paganism of the ancient landscape: his visions include a bethroned King Penda. There’s more than a touch of The

Wicker Man but Clarke keeps his foot on the reality pedal and elicits strong performances all round. The play includes a startling appearance as an angel by Christopher Douglas, now Radio 4’s Ed Reardon. CODE: 167074