Amazing Amazon Deal on Bond 50

Wow! This is the best price you're ever likely to see on the Bond 50 Blu-ray collection, containing all 22 official EON 007 movies from Dr. No through Quantum of Solace (with an empty slot reserved for Skyfall), plus a bonus disc. All day Saturday only, until 11:59 PM tonight, the Bond 50 Blu-ray set is on sale for just $99.99! That's 67% off of its retail price of $299.99! That works out to $4.55 per title for Bond on Blu. How can you beat that? You can't. If you've been holding off on getting this for yourself, or want to get it for someone on your Christmas list, today is the day! (And, let's face it, everyone in the world should own this set.) Order Bond 50 on Amazon for under $100 right now!

UPDATE: The set, unsurprisingly, proved remarkably popular, and has sold out by noon on Amazon, so this deal is over.

Amazon Lightning Deal on The Prisoner, Plus Other Great Spy Bargains

Amazon's got some amazing prices on DVDs and Blu-rays all week for Black Friday. Some of them last for a few days, but some just for a few hours. One of those "Lightning Deals" for today is a holiday bargain perennial: A&E's DVDs and Blu-rays of The Prisoner: The Complete Series. Until 12:20 PST (too late now), the DVD set is on sale for $17.99 and the Blu-ray for $22.99. Remember when the original DVD megaset cost over $100?

Well, that deal's over now. But lots more remain! Among the longer lasting deals (though I have no idea for how long) of interest to spy fans are Acorn's Blu-ray of the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries for just $21.99 (a great deal at a whopping 63% savings!), the Bond 50 Blu-ray collection for less than half-price at $129.99 (working out to around six bucks a movie!), the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection Blu-ray set for just $149.99 (half off!), Homeland: The Complete First Season on DVD for $19.99 and Blu-ray for $24.99 (well over half off in both cases), Covert Affairs: Season One for just $11.99(!), the Austin Powers triple feature Blu-ray for $10, The Bourne Trilogy Blu-ray set for $27.99 (less than half price), Magic City: The Complete First Season on Blu-ray for $23.49, Burn Notice: Season Five (that's the most recent one) for a mere $11.99, Burn Notice: Season Four for $14.99, Burn Notice: Season Three for $12.99, Burn Notice: Season Two for $12.99, Burn Notice: Season One for $12.99 and the Indiana Jones Blu-ray set for half off, making it just $49.99. Wow!

Network Spy Sale

Network, the awesome UK DVD company responsible for the Region 2 releases of so many classic spy series and ITC adventure shows, is currently running an all-spy sale called their "Shadow State Sale." It's a great opportunity to pick up some fantastic serious spy shows, like Callan (review here), The Sandbaggers and Danger Man, at reasonable prices! Network's Callan releases include the reunion telefilm "Wet Job" and what survives of the original monochrome series (review here), neither of which have been released in Region 1 to date, so American spy fans with all-region players should take note. Another notable Edward Woodward title included in the sale is the 80s miniseries Codename: Kyril (review here), which had been out of print for a while and is well worth seeking out! Further great titles on sale include the excellent Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (which contains bonus material not found on the Region 1 release reviewed here), The Quiller Memorandum, The Ipcress File (also with bonus material not found in Region 1), and the Sixties anthology series Espionage, among others. I'm not sure how long The Shadow State Sale runs for.

It Takes A Thief Box Set Drops to a Reasonable Price

It Takes a Thief: The Complete Series has finally dropped down to a somewhat reasonable price for what you get on Amazon: right now it's just $72.49 for all three seasons of the 1968-70 Robert Wagner spy show. The show itself would easily be worth the usual Amazon asking price of $98.99 (if maybe not the SRP of $199.99) were any effort put into the DVD release. But unfortunately eOne Entertainment's release was far from satisfying. They crammed a few cheap, stupid trinkets that surely nobody wants (like coasters) into an annoyingly chunky, disappointingly flimsy oversize box, and hoped that those things would distract fans from the appalling video quality on the third season episodes. (Season One looks great, though.) Were these seasons released individually for under $30 each, like Image's latest I Spy sets, I would have no complaints. But with a list price of $200, I definitely expected more. (You can read more of my complaints here.) Today's price is more in line with the quality you get. It actually amounts to less than $25 per season, and that's certainly fair. Because It Takes A Thief is, after all, a highly entertaining series that belongs in the library of every Sixties spy fan! So if you've been holding off... now's your chance to finally catch Alexander Mundy.

Network DVD Sale: Last Day!

After skipping it last year (as I recall, anyway), Network is back to having a late-January (and early February) sale! Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to include their web exclusive titles (like Tightrope, Spyder's Web and The 4 Just Men); those have been taken off the site for the duration of the sale. But there are still plenty of great bargains to be had on Region 2 and Region B spy titles, including the feature-packed Blu-ray Persuaders! set and the Retro-Action BD titles, samplers which include one high-def episode each from such ITC classics as The Saint, Danger Man, Man in a Suitcase, Department S, The Baron, The Champions and more. All of the companies previous DVD collections of those shows (the non web-exclusive ones, anyway) are also on sale, many of them including slews of bonus material. This sale is also a good opportunity to pick up some of the company's excellent spy TV soundtrack sets, including The Saint (review here), The Music of ITC, and my personal favorite, Man in a Suitcase. They're all 40% off! But hurry, because the sale ends tomorrow, February 2.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Frederick Forsyth Presents

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Frederick Forsyth Presents

Wow, I never thought we'd see a Region 1 release of the 1989-90 ITV series Frederick Forsyth Presents. But TV Shows On DVD reports we'll be getting exactly that for Valentine's Day, from Timeless Media Group! So much did I doubt this would ever happen that I just imported the Region 2 version from Amazon.co.uk this past summer. Now it turns out I could have saved a lot of money... but at least I got better cover art! Because this TMG budget release sports some truly awful Photoshopping. That cover isn't representative of the six classy TV movies contained on 3 discs within. These movies are based on novellas contained in Forsyth's book The Deceiver. Alan Howard (best known as the voice of the Ring in the Lord of the Rings movies) plays unorthodox spymaster Sam McCready, Forsyth's answer to George Smiley. McCready generally takes a backseat, however, to the people he's manipulating in each story. This formula enabled the producers to bring in a big guest star for each film, including Elizabeth Hurley, Lauren Bacall, Brian Dennehy, Beau Bridges, Chris Cooper, Phillip Michael Thomas, David Threlfall and Peter Egan. The ones I've watched are solid productions, and I'm not sure why this production isn't better known. It deserves a place beside other solid Forsyth adaptations like The Day of the Jackal (indeed, one of these stories concerns Carlos, the international terrorist the media dubbed "the Jackal" after Forsyth's book!), and especially the Pierce Brosnan and Michael Caine starrer The Fourth Protocol. (Now if only that would get a Region 1 DVD release!) This budget release, priced at just $14.98, will no doubt prove to be one of those nice little cheap gems for spy fans eager for more serious dramas in the serious vein of Le Carre. The set hits stores on February 14, so get it for your spy-loving sweetheart. You can already pre-order it on Amazon.

Warner Spy Bargains

Warner Brothers is running a TV On DVD blowout sale this week in which you can pick up season sets of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (review here), Chuck, Human Target and La Femme Nikita (as well as many non-spy shows) on DVD and Blu-ray for an average of 50-60% off. Among the many bargains, that puts Scarecrow and Mrs. King: The Complete First Season at just $16.49, several seasons of Chuck for as low as $19.19, and Human Target: The Complete First Season at just $19.19 on DVD or Blu-ray! And those are only a few examples. Shipping is free on orders of $60 or more. View the sale here.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: It Takes a Thief

Upcoming Spy DVDs: It Takes a Thief

Currently Half Price at Walmart!

We've known this one was in the works for a while now, and we've been very patiently awaiting the official announcement. And here it is! (Or... here it was months ago, anyway. This is a post that's sat half-finished since July. Sorry; that'll happen sometimes.) Just a little bit different from what we thought it would be. According to TV Shows On DVD (in a post dating back to Comic-Con weekend), eOne Entertainment will no longer be releasing The First Season, as we'd originally believed. They'll instead be releasing everything, in It Takes A Thief: The Complete Series! That will give you all three seasons (that's 66 episodes) of the 1968-70 ABC series starring Robert Wagner (The Pink Panther, Austin Powers) as master cat burglar Alexander Mundy, who's caught and pressed into service by SIA agent Noah Bain (Malachi Throne) to use his considerable skills for the U.S. Government as a thief-cum-spy. The great Fred Astaire played his dad (also a gentleman thief) on a handful of episodes during the third season, and Peter Sellers guest-starred on one in dual roles. Adolfo Celi turned up on another. We'd been expecting eOne to release Season One sometime this past summer, but obviously that didn't happen. Instead, they'll bring us It Takes A Thief: The Complete Series this fall! That includes all three seasons, totaling 66 episodes, in one convenient package. This release is major news for spy fans, especially coming hot on the heels of Warner Archives' recent The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. sets. Slowly but surely, all the classic American spy shows of the Sixties are finally materializing on DVD. Now all we need (unless I'm overlooking something big) are Amos Burke, Secret Agent and T.H.E. Cat...

eOne's 18-DVD set will be available in just over a month, on October 25. (Or maybe even sooner, on October 11, depending where you look. There are discrepancies.) And unlike April Dancer's sets, it won't be bare bones! Extras will include a retrospective featurette, new interviews with Robert Wagner and Glen A. Larson (who made his writing/producing debut on this series), English subtitles, a "collectible photo book" and, best of all, the feature film Magnificent Thief, an expanded version of the pilot episode released theatrically overseas and eventually on video here in America.

The downside to this feature-laden mega-set is the price tag. SRP will set you back a whopping $199.98. Luckily, Amazon's got it available for pre-order at $179.99, and, even better, Walmart's currently offering it for just $98.96, a whopping 51% off!

Download John Le Carré Audiobooks For Free!

Download John 
Le Carré Audiobooks For Free!

According to John Le Carré's official website, The Guardian wants to give you the chance to hear seven of his best novels as audiobooks... for free! They'll be giving away one per day in conjunction with AudioGo to celebrate The Guardian and Observer Books Season. You haven't missed out on the first few, however; each book is available for a whole week. That means you can already download Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (a natural choice to begin with, since this whole promotion is tied in with the UK release of that film), Our Kind of Traitor (the author's latest) and The Honourable Schoolboy (the immediate follow-up to Tinker Tailor). Tinker Tailor and Schoolboy are read by Michael Jayston, who played Peter Guillam in the 1979 BBC miniseries of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opposite Alec Guinness. (Jayston has also read a series of Ian Fleming audiobooks, and even played James Bond once in a radio adaptation of You Only Live Twice.)

So, in summary, The Guardian and AudioGo are giving away seven unabridged Le Carré audiobooks absolutely free! To take advantage of this promotion, you must enter a UK address. Go to the Guardian's website to claim your free spy classics by signing up for an AudioGo account and following the instructions. You do not need to enter any credit card information; as far as I can see, there are no catches. If you've never read Le Carré, this is a great opportunity to catch up with the greatest living practitioner of the literary spy genre. I often cite Tinker Tailor as not only my favorite spy novel (though Casino Royale by Le Carré's antithesis comes awfully close), but my favorite novel period. I highly recommend it! And if you have read Le Carré... well then, what are you waiting for? Audiobooks are a great way to revisit old favorites. Visit The Guardian now to download the first three, and be sure to check back daily as new books are added. I'll be curious to see which ones they choose.

Deal Alert: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series is 57% off for one day only on Amazon as the Gold Box Deal of the Day. That puts the total price at $84.99 instead of $199.92. That's a good bargain for the amazing Time-Life collection of all four seasons of the classic Sixties spy series plus about a billion great extras in an attache case package. It's also the only way that the show has been issued on DVD to date; individual seasons were never released. (Though you can find a few on their own through second-hand sellers on Amazon.) Read more about the features in this fantastic set here. Act fast; this special price expires tonight.

Bargain Alert: The Prisoner Blu-ray For Just $25!
UPDATE: Missed it by that much.

Sadly, as of last week, I no longer get even the meager kickback I used to receive from items bought on Amazon through this site thanks to a new California law. (Thus robbing me of the one tiny bit of compensation I got for all the time I spend on this blog. Those Google ads earn next to nothing!) But, gripes aside, that won't stop me from pointing out a good spy deal when I see one! Right now, Amazon has A&E's Blu-ray of The Prisoner: The Complete Series for just twenty-five bucks! That's an amazing deal! And even though I don't think that the high def transfers, meticulous as they are, are worth the upgrade alone, the wealth of special features on these discs (ported over from Network's fabulous Region 2 set) make Blu-ray the clear choice over standard-def DVD for this seminal ITC show.

UPDATE: Whoops! The deal's already over. It was just one of those 24-hour things.

More New Spy DVDs Out Last Week
On Sale Today Only!

In addition to the sets that I wrote about on Tuesday, there were some other very exciting new spy releases last week. The Warner Archive splurged on spy titles in a nearly all-spy week, including a couple of great Eurospy titles.  And some of them are on sale through tonight (Monday)!

The Double Man
This cool, dark Eurospy entry finds Yul Brynner playing a double role as a tough, cold-blooded CIA agent and his potential doppelganger.  Future Bond Girl Britt Ekland is also on board, though her loyalties are questionable.  The Cold War intrigue unfolds in one of my favorite spy locations: the Swiss Alps.  It's a bit darker than a lot of Eurospy fare, but still delivers just about everything you could hope for from the genre.  The Double Man is available to pre-order from Amazon, and available now directly through The Warner Archive. (At a substantial discount if you act fast!)

Assignment To Kill
Spies get assigned to kill all the time. After all, they've got licenses for that.  But how often do insurance investigators receive an Assignment To Kill?  Quite often, actually, if you've dabbled a bit in the Eurospy genre!  Longtime readers will be aware that I'm a big fan of this particularly curious sub-genre.  For some reason, insurance investigators were so glamorized in the Sixties that European filmmakers tended to use them as proxy spies.  The best Eurospy movie of all, Deadlier Than the Male (review here), isn't about a spy at all, but an insurance investigator.  Other movies in this mold include Ring Around the World (review here) and 1968's Assignment To Kill, though the latter has been rather elusive until now.  Patrick O'Neal plays ultra-cool insurance investigator Richard Cutter, and a globe-trotting probe into big-time fraud takes him into contact with such spy movie regulars as Herbert Lom, John Gielgud, Peter van Eyck, Eric Portman and Oscar Homolka. The action unfolds against the same great Swiss backdrop as The Double Man.  Assignment To Kill is available now from The Warner Archive, and available to pre-order on Amazon.

Avalanche Express
I've never seen Avalanche Express (1979), but I do love spy movies on trains, so I'm eager to give it a go!  Lee Marvin plays CIA agent Harry Wargrave, whose assignment is to escort a Soviet defector (played by Robert Shaw, a seasoned veteran of train-based espionage!) on Europe’s Milan-to-Rotterdam express, then cross the Atlantic and deliver his charge to Washington. But enemy agents are out to stop him–and won't think twice about causing a devastating avalanche to do so! Other passengers on the train (some of whom are bound to be foreign spies) include such nefarious types as Maximilian Schell, Mike Connors, Horst Buchholz and the ubiquitous Vladek Sheybal. Avalanche Express is available for pre-order from Amazon at $18.99 or available now directly.

24 Hours To Kill
24 Hours To Kill doesn't have former Tarzan and Eurospy dabbler Lex Barker playing an actual spy, but as an international thriller set primarily in that favorite Eurospy location, the "Paris of the Middle East," Beirut, it's essentially part of the genre. The plot concerns smuggling, and the cast includes Mickey Rooney and Walter Slezak. 24 Hours To Kill has been available before on a dubious grey market label, but the Warner Archive edition marks its widescreen debut.  This MOD edition is available to pre-order from Amazon and available now directly.

Two more titles in this wave aren't quite spy titles, but they're Sixties adventures with guns and beautiful women, and that puts them close enough in my book.  Dark of the Sun is a 1968 men-on-a-mission movie in which Rod Taylor (The Liquidator) and Jim Brown lead a group of elite commandos on a perilous train journey across the Congo out to rescue endangered civilians and recover a huge cache of diamonds.  And just look at that cover art!  Kona Coast was an unsold pilot for a Hawaiian action series based on a book by John D. Macdonald. The Kremlin Letter's Richard Boone plays a charter boat captain who turns vigilante to avenge the death of his daughter. Finally, Once Before I Die is a war movie and not a spy movie in any sense, but it does star Bond Girl Ursula Andress...

Whew!  Quite a week!  How on earth are we spy fans to keep up with so many releases at once, you might ask?  Well, fortunately The Warner Archive is having a very nice Father's Day sale lasting through the end of the day today (Monday, June 13), in which all of these titles (and many other action movies) are available at a five dollar discount.  To me, that $5 makes all the difference in the world.  The regular Warner Archive retail price of $19.95 always strikes me as prohibitive for a made-on-demand DVD, but $14.95 sounds entirely reasonable–especially with free shipping on orders of two or more!  That's the way to go if you're buying these today, but if you miss the sale or want to hold off, they're all also available to pre-order on Amazon (where they won't be available until July) for $18.99 apiece.  Other titles in the sale that might interest spy fans include Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (a bona fide Tarzan spy movie - review here), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (co-starring Sean Connery - review here), Brass Bancroft of the Secret Service, The Sell-Out and many, many more.

Spy Bargains Continue Throughout The Weekend

Many Black Friday deals on spy DVDs continue today and in some cases through tomorrow or Cyber Monday.  I can't possibly keep track of them all, but I'll point out a few good bargains I've noticed.  If you don't have all the seasons of Burn Notice yet (and, frankly, you should!), then it's worth a trip to Target.  They're offering all of them (seasons 1-3) for $9.99 apiece! That price is also available online, though the latest season is sold out at the moment. Amazon's got the same $9.99 deal on Season 1 (review here), but 2 and 3 aren't discounted any more than usual.  Amazon also has the same deals on neo-Eurospy movies as Best Buy: you can find Taken (review here) for $7.99 on Blu-ray and $5.00 on DVD, From Paris With Love for $9.99 on Blu-ray and $5.99 on DVD and The Transporter, Transporter 2 and Transporter 3 (review here) Blu-rays for $9.99 apiece.  Killers is also just $9.99 on Blu-ray and $5.99 on DVD; Jackie Chan's The Spy Next Door is $9.99 for a Blu-ray/DVD combo.  Finally, perennial Black Friday bargain favorite The Prisoner will be an Amazon Gold Box deal at 4:30 Pacific this afternoon.  I don't know what the price will be or whether it will be for the DVD or the special feature-laden Blu-ray set, but if you or a spy fan on your Christmas list don't yet own The Prisoner in any of its past home video incarnations, I'm sure it will be worth looking into!

If you stumble across any other great deals on spy DVDs that are still active, please feel free to share them in a comment below.

Lots Of Spy DVD Deals This Week

Deep Discount's annual winter sale has begun.  It's 25% off (just enter the coupon code "25MORE" at checkout), but as with the last couple of sales, it's not quite as good as it was in the old days, because the sale doesn't apply to every item in stock and the seller has raised their prices on a lot of items in advance of the sale.  Still, prices do end up being at least a little bit cheaper, and there are some great deals if you look around.  What I'm most excited about is that the sale includes the recently released Columbia Classics DVDs on demand, and makes them just $14.74 each.  The first wave of Columbia DVD-R's included such spy titles as Otley (a true classic that everyone needs in their collection!), Duffy, The Executioner and Man on a String. The 25% off Winter Sale runs through December 10. 

Of course there are lots of amazing Black Friday deals going on this weekend, too, at brick and mortar stores.  Best Buy is selling a lot of recent neo-Eurospy movies at cut-rate prices.  From Thursday to Saturday, both Taken (review here) and From Paris With Love will be on sale for just $9.99 on Blu-ray and just $5.99 on DVD.  There are a lot of Lionsgate titles on sale, which makes me realize how many spy movies the studio put out this year (without a hit among them, sadly): besides From Paris With Love, Killers and The Spy Next Door are also part of the sale. 

Bargain Alert: Network Halloween DVD Sale This Weekend

UK DVD company Network (a name well known to spy fans) is having a Halloween sale this weekend.  (At least I think it's a Halloween sale... but it's couched in what appear to be British sitcom references that go way over the head of this American.) They bill this as their last sale of 2010, so don't expect another one before Christmas.  (However, I'd be willing to bet we'll see their annual winter sale at the end of January.)  It's a good sale: 35% off the already discounted prices on pretty much their entire inventory, excluding pre-orders and recent releases.  (The fine print also gives Network the right to exclude whatever they feel like excluding, but that doesn't seem to be very much as far as I can tell.)  For American spy fans with multi-region DVD players, be aware that the company's usual overseas shipping caveat applies with a hefty £40 surcharge on orders over a certain weight.  But if recent sales are any indication, this is easily avoidable by ordering your items seperately.  If you want to get a huge set, it might kick in though. 

Network has churned out a steady flow of amazing spy releases over the summer. This is a great opportunity to pick up many of those DVDs and soundtrack CDs cheaply.  Some to consider (although I haven't checked all of these to see if any might be excluded): The Saint: Original Soundtrack (review here), The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack (review here), Codename: Kyril (review here), The Corridor People: The Complete Series (review here), Saracen: The Complete Series (review here), The Four Just Men, Mr Palfrey of Westminster, The Protectors: The Complete Series, The Prisoner: The Ultimate Set or any of Network's many other spy DVDs or impressive ITC series soundtracks. International buyers, please be aware that all of Network's DVDs are PAL Region 2 releases, and you need a multi-region player (or at least a computer equipped with the free software VLC Player) to watch them.

The sale runs through midnight (GMT, presumably) on Sunday.

Network Offers Summer Sale This Weekend Only

UK DVD company Network is taking a brief break from churning out a steady stream of new spy DVDs this weekend to offer a significant sale on all these titles.  This weekend only (through midnight Sunday, UK time), the company is offering 35% off of all their DVDs and soundtrack sets.  That's 35% on top of their already normally discounted prices.  The catch for American buyers with all-region DVD players is that when your order reaches a certain weight, you get saddled with one of those untenable £40 shipping fees.  The good news, however, is that there are no minimums, so you don't need to reach that kind of weight (as one sale last winter required).  In fact, I was able to load two multi-disc sets into my order without triggering the fee, so it seems easy enough to avoid.  So no matter where you live, take advantage of this great deal to pick up on of Network's recent spy DVDs or soundtrack CD sets, like Codename: Kyril, The Corridor People, The 4 Just Men, Saracen, The Sentimental Agent, The Saint: Original Soundtrack or The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack.  Or any of the many older spy sets the company has offered. They're all well worth it!  Head on over to Network's website to start saving... and spending.

Bargain Alert: One Day Super Sale On The Man From U.N.C.L.E.!

Amazon is offering The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series for less than half price as their Deal of the Day today!  Today's price is just $85.49 for the complete series–57% off the list price of $199.92 and half of what it was yesterday–the regular Amazon price of $170.99.  But if you're missing this crucial piece of any complete spy collection, and have been patiently waiting for the price to drop this low, you better strike quickly!  This offer is good only today, July 15.  Tomorrow it will be regular price again.  And, yes, what we're talking about here is the awesome attache case-shaped box originally offered as an even costlier Time-Life exclusive, containing all four seasons of the seminal Robert Vaughn/David McCallum series along with copious, copious extras.  It's a really good set.  Get it, and watch it before the dubious Hollywood movie version comes out!  Hurry!

Paramount Spies On Sale At Deep Discount

Deep Discount is having a 50% off sale on Paramount TV DVDs, which includes all the seasons of Mission: Impossible and Wild Wild West, as well some borderline spy stuff like Hawaii Five-0 and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. It's a great opportunity to fill in any gaps in your spy TV collection! The sale runs through April 29. 

Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The First TV Season here.
Read my review of The Wild Wild West - The Fourth Season here.
Read my review of The Wild Wild West - The Third Season here
Read my review of The Wild Wild West - The Second Season here
Read my review of Hawaii Five-O: Season 6 here.
Read my review of Hawaii Five-O: Season Three here.
Read my mini-review of Hawaii Five-O: Season Two here.
Read my review of Hawaii Five-O: Season One here.

More Spy Sales

I guess January is the season for sales on spy DVDs.  Or the season to break spy fans' banks!  Hot on the heels of Network's big sale and concurrent with Deep Discount's sale on Acorn titles comes a matching Deep Discount sale on A&E titles and another Network sale that will be much more appealing to American buyers.

Between Acorn and A&E, Deep Discount is now covering just about all the major Region 1 British spy TV releases.  A&E doesn't do a lot in that field anymore, but they do handle one of the biggest: The Prisoner.  And in this sale (up to 60% off), you can get The Prisoner: The Complete Series on DVD for just $27.98... on Blu-ray for just $39.98. And this Blu-ray is awesome.  If you've got the equipment for it and you haven't picked this up yet, now's the time.  It's got every single feature from the Network Region 2 DVD release, and the high-def transfer looks amazing.  It normally retails for a hundred bucks, so this is a steal.  I've got to mention some non-spy titles in this sale, too, just because they're among my favorites.  A&E recently issued the surviving episodes of Peter Cushing's 1968 Sherlock Holmes TV series for the first time ever on Region 1 DVD, and it's outstanding.  And it's just $13.48 in this sale.  And with even less spy relevance, one of the funniest British series ever, Jeeves & Wooster: The Complete Series, is just $23.98 (for eight discs!).  Back when I was buying these, you couldn't even get a single season that cheaply!  (Now you can get those for $7.98.)  The P.G. Wodehouse adaptation stars Dr. House himself (and Gunseller author, if you want a spy connection) Hugh Laurie and the great Stephen Fry (Stormbreaker).  And it's great, if I didn't make that clear.  Plus, if you were so inclined, between the Acorn sale and the A&E sale you could assemble the complete Poirot collection for an unusually affordable price right now at Deep Discount. But enough divergences; let's get back to spies, shall we? 

We've got spies galore from Network.  Yes, the very people who created those great special features on the aforementioned A&E Prisoner Blu-ray.  The order minimums (and resulting shipping costs) on their most recent sale pretty much excluded American buyers.  But now they've got a more limited sale with no minimums!  And though it might be limited, it's pretty much limited to the things Double O Section readers probably want anyway.  (Honestly, it's a little bit annoying if you did buy stuff in the last sale. But a godsend if you didn't.)  It's a 50% off sale on Network's web exclusives, which includes the recent releases Whiplash: The Complete Series (with Peter Graves, review here) and Zodiac: The Complete Series (from Avengers writer Roger Marshall, full review here), ITC's prototypical Sixties adventure show, Man of the World, and all of the company's fantabulous ITC* soundtrack sets!  I know I just itemized them last week, but for those with short memories, they include The Prisoner (and this three disc set is almost entirely different music from the tracks available on Silva Screen's three individual CDs), Department S, Man In A Suitcase , The Champions, The Protectors, Jason King and two volumes of Danger Man. These are all exhaustive, multi-disc sets containing nearly all the surviving tracks for these series.  And they're as cheap as you're ever likely to find them in this sale!  The sale ends January 28; no coupon is necessary.

*In case you're thinking my vocabulary got weird, that's actually a sort of obscure (and, admittedly, dumb) spy reference I couldn't resist.  I know some of you got it.

Roger Moore's Gold Of The Seven Saints On Sale On Warner Archive Site

I hadn't even realized that one of Roger Moore's rarely seen, pre-Bond, pre-Saint movies (from his early days in Hollywood as a Warner contract player), Gold of the Seven Saints, had been released through the Warner Archive Collection last fall until regular reader and commenter Delmo alerted me to the fact.  So I haven't actually bought it yet, but now's a great opportunity, because it's on sale (along with all of the Warner Archives Westerns) for 35% off through the Warner Archive website.  That makes it a very affordable $12.96 as opposed to the regular, overpriced $19.95.  (I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: if Warner just lowered that standard price point on their Archives to $14.95, I would by so many more titles--and I'm sure I'm not alone.)  For those of you who have caught this on TCM, it's the one where Roger sports an Irish accent--and sings.  (No, Sean Connery wasn't the only actor to warble a little Celtic ditty onscreen before becoming Bond!)  And, as Moore points out in his excellent, fantastic, must-read autobiography, the title turned out to be very portentous for him.  Gold, the number seven, and Saints would all prove recurring themes in his future film and television roles.  Gold of the Seven Saints is also available through Amazon, and presumably will be eventually through DeepDiscount as well, as other Archive titles have become.  For now, though, this sale's the best deal going!