A Hazard of Hearts, dramatised for television in 1987, could hardly be a better demonstration of Barbara Cartland's unique status as the most critically reviled, yet widely read, romantic novelist. The qualities which feed both points of view are present in abundance. There are the certainties of a wafer-thin plot: vulnerable but plucky young heiress falls on hard and tragic times, sails through mortal danger and escapes the clutches of lecherous older man, chastity intact, before claiming enigmatic and devastatingly handsome Lord for her own at the last minute. There are the pantomime characters, atrocious dialogue-by-numbers, set-piece scenes involving duels and smugglers, tight breeches and heaving bosoms. Produced by Lew Grade and the team behind The New Avengers and The Professionals, this is 90 minutes of camp hokum crammed to bursting point with stars clearly having the time of their lives. Helena Bonham Carter, her face like an earnest, worried raisin, is the heroine Serena, with Marcus Gilbert as her paramour. But Diana Rigg's evil Lady Harriet steals the show. To be watched without shame.

On the DVD: A Hazard of Hearts is presented in 4:3 video format with a Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack which is splendid for Laurence Johnson's florid themes. The transfer has the appropriately soft-focus look and feel of a 1980s miniseries. The stately home settings certainly provide a sense of quality, but the disc has no extras. --Piers Ford

Pity poor Vic (Alan Bates): when he begins a relationship with Ingrid (June Ritchie), a typist at the Lancashire factory where he works as a draughtsman; his life comes apart at the seams. Ingrid's gossiping, malicious friends are bad enough, but her mother Mrs Rothwell (the terrifying Thora Hird) is something else. Vic has to marry Ingrid-she's pregnant--and the only place for them to stay is chez Rothwell.

There's a tenderness about A Kind of Loving which you don't find in the more abrasive "kitchen sink" films of the 60s. Vic is not a rebel like Arthur Seton in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning or a macho lunk like Richard Harris' rugby-league player in This Sporting Life. He's a likable, easygoing youngster who soon discovers that real-life love affairs are infinitely messier than he and his mates could ever have imagined. The acute, witty screenplay, adapted by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse from Stan Barstow's novel, shows how limited Vic and Ingrid's choices really are. They have no privacy or independence. Bounced into a marriage that neither necessarily wants, their romance quickly sours. Mrs Rothwell is truly the mother-in-law from Hell--a busybody and a tyrant. Look out for the Queen Victoria-like expression on her face when a drunken Vic throws up in her front room. Debut-feature director John Schlesinger captures the humour and the pathos in the young lovers' plight without ever making fun of them. --Geoffrey Macnab