DVD

The crowning achievement of Orson Welles's extraordinary film career, Chimes at Midnight was the culmination of the filmmaker's lifelong obsession with Shakespeare's ultimate rapscallion, Sir John Falstaff. Usually a comic supporting figure, Falstaff-the loyal, often soused friend of King Henry IV's wayward son Prince Hal-here becomes the focus: a robustly funny and ultimately tragic screen antihero played by Welles with looming, lumbering grace. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Welles created a gritty and unorthodox Shakespeare film, one that he intended, he said, as “a lament . . . for the death of Merrie England.” Poetic, philosophical, and visceral-with a kinetic centerpiece battle sequence that rivals anything else in the director's body of work-Chimes at Midnight is as monumental as the figure at its heart.

A fictional account of one year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria who on her birthday in 1877 turned 40 and became an "old woman." Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz, Marie Kreutzer, 2022.

Coming to Special Edition DVD for the first time, it’s the complete Fawlty Towers collection with all-new commentary from John Cleese! Hot off the runaway success of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, John Cleese embarked on his now-legendary sitcom, Fawlty Towers, creating one of the most memorable and best loved characters in all of British comedy, Basil Fawlty. Basil Fawlty is a much put-upon, hard-working hotel manager whose life is plagued by dead guests, hotel inspectors, and riff-raff. Of course his biggest headache is his “little nest of vipers,” his nagging wife Sibyl. Together they run their hotel, Fawlty Towers, with a little help from the unflappable Polly and the trainee waiter from Barcelona with marginally more intelligence than a monkey, Manuel. -Exclusive commentary by John Cleese -2009 extended interviews, including exclusive interview with Connie Booth -Accompanying booklet -Interviews with John Cleese, Prunella Scales, and Andrew Sachs -Series 1 director's commentary by John Howard Davies -Series 2 director's commentary by Bob Spiers -Artist profiles -Outtakes -Torquay Tourist Guide (short documentary film) -Cheap Tatty Review