greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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During the nineteenth century, a young woman named Madeleine embarks on a secret affair with a penniless Frenchman. Being from a respectable family, their affair is carried out in secret whilst her father parades various suitors in front of her.

The frenchman is keen to marry, and while Madeleine suggests an elopement, he wishes to gain her father's concent. This is not part of her plans, but he blackmails her with threats of revealing their affair. A few weeks later, he dies of arsenic poisoning . Madeleineis the prime suspect...

John Wayne and Sophia Loren ignite the screen in this action-packed Hollywood Classic. Guide Joe January (Wayne) and treasure hunter Paul Bonnard (Rossano Brazzi) seek Ophir's treasure in the Sahara desert. Tension rises as Dita (Loren) falls for both men, testing their bond.

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Tensions rise in a love triangle involving a fading older movie star, Vanessa Windsor (Hedy Lamarr), her alcoholic daughter Penny (Jane Powell), and Chris (George Nader), the handsome young movie extra who rescues each from separate dangers.

Desperate to cling to his love, Vanessa sets Chris up in a life of luxury, but he struggles against the humiliation and limited future of life as a kept man. His ambivalence drives him into the arms of Penny - a double betrayal that pushes Vanessa over the edge.

When clairvoyant John (Edward G. Robinson) tells wealthy heiress Jean (Gail Russell) that she will die within a week, her lover, Elliot (John Lund), is sceptical, believing John to be a con artist who is only after money. But, as the foretold night arrives, Jean waits in fear for her life...

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Cameraman illuminates a unique figure in British and international cinema; Jack Cardiff, a man whose life and career are inextricably interwoven with the history of cinema.

Jack's life and work helped elevate cinematography to an art form and made history with his ground breaking vision and technical wizardry on A Matter Of Life And Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The African Queen and many others. Amongst many fascinating revelations and anecdotes, Jack relates what it was like to work with Hollywood's greatest icons, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren. Packed with stunning clips from newly restored classic movies and over twenty original interviews with the world's greatest actors, directors and technicians, Cameraman explores Jack's life and work in compelling detail - a unique and invaluable testimony to an exceptional life.

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Robert Wagner, Broderick Crawford and Buddy Ebsen star in this absorbing drama about a recruit who comes of age during WWII. Sam Gifford (Robert Wagner) is a young, successful cotton planter who lacks compassion for others, especially his own sharecroppers.

But once in combat, he answers to a sadistic officer (Broderick Crawford), and must rely on the friendship of a "cropper" (Buddy Ebsen). Nominated for a 1956 Oscar for Best Music, "Between Heaven and Hell" is an action-packed story of men in battle - sometimes with themselves.

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In a tour de force of fearless vulnerability, Katharine Hepburn portrays the conflicting emotions that stir the heart of a lonely, middle-aged American tourist who is forced to confront her insecurities when she is drawn into a seemingly impossible affair with a charming Italian shopkeeper (Rossano

Brazzi) amid the ancient city's canals and piazzas. Lean's personal favorite among his own films, 'Summertime' is an exquisitely tender evocation of the magic and melancholy of a fleeting, not-quite-fairy-tale romance.

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Feature is a compelling, stylish thriller that sees two callous law students murder a young boy in cold blood to prove their intellectual superiority. Having been raised by wealthy, snobbish families Artie Straus is a sadistic bully and Judd Steiner a timid introvert.

The two college friends concoct the "perfect crime" the murder of a young boy, but their arrogance and conceit leads to their arrest. The inimitable Orson Welles plays the criminal defense lawyer, based on the famous Clarence Darrow, who takes on their almost impossible case. This courtroom drama directed by Richard Fleischer is based on the notorious and horrific 1924 murder trial of thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb.

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This science-fiction "inner space" thriller, one of the most amazing ever conceived, follows a crew of medical scientists on an incredible submarine journey through the human body and into the brain to perform a delicate repair operation.

The team must combat the elements of the living body as well as a saboteur in their midst. But first they have to be miniaturised to microbe size for their fantastic adventure.

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A coolly riveting crime saga from director Richard Fleischer, 'Violent Saturday' tells a brutal noir tale against blazing, sun-drenched Arizona landscapes. Three criminals arrive in the small mining town of Bradenville, planning on robbing its only bank.

But as they start scouting the area and gathering the information they need, the lives of others in the town threaten to get mixed up in their scheme, in a tangle that could lead to disastrous consequences.

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Chekhov One-Act Plays

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's birth, the best of British comic talent perform four of his one-act plays. Focusing on attitude, manners and hypocrisy, these Chekhov 'tragifarces' mix satirical comedy with psychological drama. Full of great characters and biting dialogue and performed by renowned comic actors, the plays remain as hilarious and sharp as ever.
The Proposal
A nervous hypochondriac visits his neighbour to ask for her hand in marriage. But his romantic endeavours are scuppered when the couple, and also her father, find themselves in a circle of petty arguments, disagreements...and an unstoppable bout of one-upmanship.
The Bear
A rude and boorish landowner calls on a widow to collect on an 1011 owed to him by her late husband. When the grieving widow is unable to pay him, he simply refuses to leave - and the passionate, fiery altercation they embark on leads them to agree to fight a duel to the death with pistols.
The Dangers of Tobacco
A brow-beaten husband of a domineering wife delivers, at her command, a lecture on the harmful effects of smoking tobacco. But as he struggles to stick to the intended subject matter of his speech, we learn of his regrets, yearnings...and of his miserable life 'under the thumb'.
A Reluctant Tragic Hero
A frustrated family man, exhausted from running constant and countless errands for friends and family, visits his good friend to let off steam and hopefully garner some much needed sympathy. But his rant only serves to see him leaving with more problems than he actually arrived with.

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In 1902 London, unhappily married Philip Marshall (Charles Laughton) meets young Mary Gray (Ella Raines), who is unemployed and depressed. Their deepening friendship, though physically innocent, is discovered by Philip's wife who threatens him with exposure and scandal, driving him to kill her.

Thereafter, fortune seems to smile on Philip Marshall; but does fate have a surprise in store?

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Four more tales of terror from the vaults of Universal Pictures, starring Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, and Rondo Hatton. A maniacal hunter and collector of wild animals uses them to dispose of rivals and enemies in the shockingly violent 'Murders in the Zoo' (dir. A. Edward Sutherland, 1933).

Bela Lugosi stars in a creepy tale of strange characters, secret passages and a murderer who masters the art of "mind over matter" in 'Night Monster' (dir. Ford Beebe, 1942). What started out as a treasure-making scheme ends up deadly for a group of people stuck in a haunted castle with a killer known as "the Phantom" in 'Horror Island' (dir. George Waggner, 1941). And finally, Rondo Hatton is "the Creeper", a giant of a man used as an instrument of evil by a mad sculptor in 'House of Horrors' (dir. Jean Yarbrough, 1946).

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This double-feature brings together two of producer Val Lewton's classic RKO horror films... In 1943's 'The Ghost Ship', Tom Merriam (Russel Wade), the young third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia, witnesses the murder of a crewman by the ship's captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix).

Merriam realizes Stone is going insane, but the rest of the crew won't believe him...or that he may be the mad captain's next victim! Boris Karloff reunites with Lewton for a third and final time in 1946's 'Bedlam', set in 1761 at a London asylum. Karloff gives an unfortgettable performance as the doomed overseer who fawns on high-society benefactors while ruling his mentally disturbed inmates with an iron fist. Restored from their original nitrate negatives, both showcase Nicholas Musuraca's cinematography under the inspired direction of Mark Robson.

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Bereaved mother Julia (Mia Farrow) flees her controlling husband Magnus (Keir Dullea), re-establishing herself in an old house in leafy west London and befriending antique dealer Mark (Tom Conti).

Yet Julia finds herself troubled by apparitions of a ghostly, blonde-haired child, sending her on a strange journey of self-discovery - with dreadful consequences.