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(1945-53, StudioCanal, PG)

A public school boy from the professional middle-class, the ruggedly handsome Trevor Howard (1913-88) was the first new British star to emerge after the second world war, usually playing middle-class professionals – doctors, lawyers, military men, colonial officials. He was, however, Oscar-nominated as Paul Morel's hard-drinking, working-class father in Sons and Lovers (1960).

His movie career lasted more than 40 years, but his most memorable star parts came early on. Five of these are in this excellent box set, starting with his decent doctor caught up in a chaste but passionate affair with housewife Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter (1945), a classic example of British understatement, and the first of his three films with David Lean. This is followed by his cynical intelligence officer pursuing black marketeer Harry Lime through the sewers of postwar Vienna in the Carol Reed-Graham Greene masterpiece The Third Man (1949).

In the third film,...

Feature Aliya Whiteley 19 Aug 2013 - 07:32

We pay tribute to Mary Yre, the star of stage and big-screen classics including Look Back In Anger and Where Eagles Dare...

There was something remote about Mary Ure that came across on screen so clearly. She looked untouchable, distant; she had great poise and enormous eyes that always contained a hint of wariness. A theatre actress in the main, she made very few films, but she always brought deeper meaning to the movies she was in, from action thrillers to science fiction, social drama or literary adaptations.

Always the supporting actress, her quiet ability to wring emotion from few words added a huge amount to these films. It’s so sad that she left behind only a few cinematic performances when she died at a young age, but here are five of her very best roles, and a reminder of how talented she was.