Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK
Starring: Don Knotts, Anne Francis, Edmund O'Brien, James Gregory
Directed By: Nat Hiken

Although you never really fear for Mrs "lop-sided" Wilberforce or General Gordon (her parrot) in The Ladykillers, the criminal gang who come to stay are clearly dangerous. Alec Guinness is extraordinary as the buck-toothed mastermind, and once the hijacked lolly is stowed in their digs it's a joy to watch him scheme to eliminate the other crooks and abscond with it all. Herbert Lom's ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Danny Green
Directed By: Alexander Mackendrick

Reunited with many of the team behind Trouble in Store (1953), his smash hit of the previous year, for his second starring role Norman Wisdom played the oldest orphan of Greenwood Children's Home. Having being raised in the home Norman has stayed on as odd-job man, a role which ideally suits his man-child persona. Not only does he have to find the money to buy one of the orphans a model ...

Manufacturer: Cinema Club
Starring: Norman Wisdom, Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair, Thora Hird, William Russell
Directed By: John Paddy Carstairs

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, starring MGM soprano Jane Powell and handsome baritone Howard Keel, has retained a remarkably loyal following among fans of the musical film ever since its release in 1954. Although it was filmed in state-of-the-art CinemaScope, Stanley Donen was obliged to direct much of the film on Metro's sound stages, where the artificial sets and painted backdrops don't ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall
Directed By: Stanley Donen

Manufacturer: Elstree Hill Entertainment
Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Reginald Gardiner, Clem Wilenchick, Charles Middleton
Directed By: Edward Sutherland

Manufacturer: 4 Front Video
Starring: Doris Day, James Garner, Arlene Francis, Edward Andrews, Reginald Owen
Directed By: Norman Jewison

Decades before the Hollywood film industry became famous for megabudget disaster and science fiction spectaculars, the studios of Southern California (and particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were renowned for a uniquely American (and nearly extinct) kind of picture known as The Musical. Indeed, when Sight & Sound conducts its international critics poll in the second year of every decade, this ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell
Directed By: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits ...

Manufacturer: Cinema Club
Starring: Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw
Directed By: Gerald Thomas

Hilarious, tacky black comedy from 1960 that may be the best film by B-picture master Roger Corman, other than Bucket of Blood, made about the same time with the same writer, Charles Griffith. Seymour (Jonathan Haze) is an assistant in a skid-row flower shop who's on the point of losing his job when the unusual plant he's developed turns the store into a major attraction. The only problem ...

Manufacturer: Whe Europe Limited
Starring: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail
Directed By: Roger Corman

Hattie Jacques finally got to the play the title role in 1972 when Carry On Matron immortalised the character she had developed during several previous outings, most notably in Carry On Doctor. And she seized it with gusto. This is no one-dimensional performance, but a very human portrait of a woman doing her best to retain her authority in the face of mounting chaos--a raid planned ...

Manufacturer: Cinema Club
Starring: Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques
Directed By: Gerald Thomas