Based on the life and times of mega rich recluse Howard Hughes.

Jesús Franco, Spain's crazed cult auteur, had made a couple of features before The Awful Dr Orloff, but this infamous thriller (reportedly Spain's first horror film) gave birth to Franco's brand of erotic horror and surreal madness.

The story of a mad surgeon who kidnaps and disfigures beautiful showgirls in an attempt to restore the face of his scarred daughter is clearly influenced by George Franju's Eyes Without a Face. The style, however, is a mix of foggy Universal monster movies and sexed-up Hammer horror, which Franco pushes to the limits of Spain's 1960s censorship restrictions (and beyond). A gaunt and hollowed Howard Vernon plays the sadistic surgeon Orloff (a role he revived in a number of sequels), and Ricardo Valle dons a phoney but freaky mask to play his grunting, blind, bug-eyed henchman, Morpho, who has a savage habit of taking a big bite of the victims.

It's a smooth, elegantly orchestrated thriller with handsome sets and vivid locations, and the fogbound cobblestone streets, dark alleys and eerily empty mansions create a genuinely spooky ambience. He also tosses in a wild, creepy, thoroughly modern experimental score. Franco went on to direct more than 150 films under a dozen pseudonyms, most of which make the brief flashes of flesh and perversity here look tame, but this trendsetting landmark is still considered one of his greatest.--Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

One of the top five screwball comedies of the 1930s, The Awful Truth helped to cement a genre that waxed golden until the end of the Second World War. Director Leo McCarey won an Oscar for Best Director for this 1937 romantic comedy--making it one of the most successful films of his career. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are a squabbling couple who separate because of supposed infidelities on both sides. They part but cannot really keep away from each other. Grant finds himself hooked up with a socialite, Dunne becomes engaged to a millionaire hick played by the hapless Ralph Bellamy (as if he ever stood a chance as the "other" man). When not dating others, or baiting one another in a verbal war, Grant and Dunne wage a custody battle over their pathetic pooch. Gags, double entendres, witty remarks, snide comments, and fast-paced dialogue helped this to garner six Academy Award nominations. The Awful Truth was awfully good to Dunne and Grant, as both were b! reaking out of much more serious moulds and this secured their positions. --Rochelle O'Gorman

The Bachelor got critically slammed when it played in cinemas, probably because reviewers couldn't help comparing it with the movie on which it's based, the brilliant Buster Keaton comedy Seven Chances. But on its own terms, The Bachelor is a modest and enjoyable picture about Jimmie (Chris O'Donnell), a happily single young man who suddenly gets an ultimatum from his grandfather's will: marry by his 30th birthday or lose an inheritance of 100 million US dollars. This is revealed the day before that very birthday. Unfortunately, Jimmie had already proposed to his girlfriend Anne (Renee Zellweger) and been turned down; she can see in his eyes that he isn't ready to get married and refuses to accept him until he is. So Jimmie needs to find a bride--fast. Though the commitment-shy man is a hoary clichè, The Bachelor successfully exaggerates Jimmie's fears to comic proportions. O'Donnell is his usual affable self, but it's Zellweger who seizes every scene she's in and makes something really enjoyable out it. The movie's greatest weakness is that she's such a small part of the second half. Still, there's good supporting performances from Hal Holbrook, Ed Asner, James Cromwell and Marley Shelton (as Zellweger's sister), and Peter Ustinov and Brooke Shields both have very funny scenes. The Bachelor skirts some dangerously chauvinistic territory at times, but by and large it's a pleasant comedy with some genuine good humour. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

A refreshing take on a well-tried formula, The Banger Sisters proves that there is always room for a polished new "women's picture", particularly one with a high astringent content. The eponymous sisters are a couple of girlfriends with a groupie past who haven't seen each other for years. Suzette (an ebullient Goldie Hawn) has remained a confirmed rock chick. When she's sacked from her bar job, she goes in search of Vinnie (Susan Sarandon) who has excised her past from her life as a staid wife and mother.

The performances are good and there are some cracking moments, not least as the initially resistant Sarandon seizes the memory of her youth and sheds her skin of respectability to the bewilderment of her husband and two daughters. Suzette's visit is the catharsis her old friend has long needed. (In many ways, of course, the most interesting aspect of the picture is the one we don't get to see: the long-term consequences of some pretty sleazy old revelations on a middle class family). But there's a pleasing poignancy in Hawn's decision to go home, her work done. And Geoffrey Rush, as usual, is outstanding as Harry, the neurotic writer she has picked up on the way and who could, just possibly, provide some stability in her itinerant life.

On the DVD: The Banger Sisters is presented in widescreen with a throbbing Dolby soundtrack. There are no extras. --Piers Ford