Bfi The Crowded Day / Song of Paris (DVD + Blu-ray)

The third release of the BFI s pioneering Adelphi Collection is a double bill showcasing two early films by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno, Death on the Nile). The Crowded Day (1954) is an engaging, bittersweet comedy-drama focusing on the intertwined lives of a group of shop girls working in a London department store in the 1950s, with a wonderful cast including John Gregson, Joan Rice, Dora Bryan, Thora Hird, Prunella Scales, Sid James and Dandy Nicholls; Song of Paris (1952) is a charming romantic comedy which sees an archetypal Englishman - suavely played by Dennis Price - return from a jaunt abroad to face a dastardly foreign Count in a duel for the hand of a beautiful mademoiselle.