Simply Media is delighted to announce the release of six classic features from the Universal Pictures/Hollywood Classics stable starring screen legends Joel McCrea, Rock Hudson and Kenneth Branagh. The Lone Hand, Masquerade in Mexico, Melvin and Howard, Never Say Goodbye, One Desire and The Proposition come to DVD for the very first time in the UK.

 

The Lone Hand (U) RRP £12.99 (1953) is a thrilling western starring Joel McCrea (Foreign Correspondent) as widowed farmer Zachary Hallock, who joins a group of outlaws as a solution to his money problems. Tangled in a web of violence, betrayal and deceit, he must choose between what is right and what is necessary.                                                                               

American singer Angel O’Reilly (Dorothy Lamour – Road to Singapore) finds herself stranded in Mexico, soon she lands a job as a nightclub singer after duping the owner into believing she’s a Spanish countess. But when honest banker Tom Grant (Patric Knowles – The Wolf Man) shows up with his estranged wife and a Mexican bullfighter on her arm, comedy ensues. Masquerade in Mexico (1945) (U, RRP £12.99) is a suspenseful yet hilarious musical which pits lovers against one another leaving every character wondering who exactly has betrayed them.

Featuring a star-studded cast including two-time Academy Award winner Jason Robards (All The President’s Men), Golden Globe winner Paul Le Mat (American History X) and Academy Award winner Mary Steenburgen (Back to the Future Part III), Melvin and Howard (1979) (12, RRP £12.99) tells the delightful, laugh-out-loud story of down on his luck Melvin whose brush with billionaire Howard Hughes changes his life forever. Inspired by a true story, the film won two Oscarsã for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. 

 

Hollywood screen icon Rock Hudson (Giant) stars in romantic drama Never Say Goodbye (1956) (U, RRP £12.99) as an eminent doctor who unexpectedly runs into his German-born wife whom he thought was dead. The film also features an uncredited Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino) in one of his first screen roles alongside George Sanders (The Jungle Book).

 

 

Anne Baxter (The Razor’s Edge) and Rock Hudson star in One Desire (1955), (PG, RRP £12.99) a lively Wild West tale of a pair of lovers who set out to escape their shady past. They move to a small town and Clint (Hudson) takes a job at a bank, but he soon catches the eye of the banker's daughter (Julie Adams – General Hospital), who will do anything to get her man.

 

In The Proposition (1998) (12, RRP £12.99) Father Michael McKinnon (Kenneth Branagh - Valkyrie) arrives in 1930s Boston to join the priesthood at St Jude’s, oddly intent on avoiding contact with his most prominent parishioners, Arthur Barrett (William Hurt – The Incredible Hulk) and wife Eleanor (Madeleine Stowe - Revenge). Meanwhile Eleanor and Arthur desperately want to have a child, but Arthur is sterile, so they hire a Harvard law student (Neil Patrick Harris – How I Met Your Mother) to impregnate her with disastrous consequences.

We have a bundle of all six dvds to give away. Just tell us in which city The Proposition is set.

Send your answers to diarmuid.macdonagh@dorsetecho.co.uk

Closing date 5pm July 22. Usual terms and conditions apply. See newsquest.co.uk/terms