Hitchcock's third feature is basically a variation on the Jack the Ripper story adapted from a novel by Anne Belloc Lowndes. A serial killer is on the loose in London, singling out blonde haired chorus girls and, as the hunt for him hots up, a stranger turns up seeking lodgings at the Bunter family's house. Mysterious he certainly is, but is he the murderer? Menacingly effective camera work, but lighter in tone than his later thrillers. Especially interesting is the way the younger Hitchcock is find out more...

Camp-it-up Hammer horror with Vincent Price on top form as a deranged actor who exacts stylishly horrible revenge on his critics. When he fails to win the Actor of the Year Award he takes a few leaves out of Shakespeare's books to bump off the judges one by one. Imaginatively over the top.

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When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...