greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Jim Gray (Robert Mitchum) has been summoned by his old friend Tate Rilling (Robert Preston), who needs another set of guns to help in a dispute with his neighbour, John Lufton (Tom Tully).

But Tate's got more on his mind than a simple feud: his scheme is to drive Lufton off his land and he doesn't care how he does it. Jim reluctantly supports Tate at first but, disgusted by his greed, switches sides. Joining Lufton - and his feisty daughter Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes) - Jim finds himself squaring off to his old friend.

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Taking his son-in-law to one side for a quiet chat about marital strife, Sir Humphrey (Laurence Harvey) listens to the young man's tale of woe and offers reassurance that he is not the first to be baffled by the foibles of women ably illustrating his point by recounting some rather sticky moments

when he too was on the verge of giving up all hope of comprehending the feminine sex...

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Country squire, Henry Maurier (Charles Boyer), is regarded as a saint for putting up with his neurotic, invalid wife Emily (Rachel Kempson). But when Emily's brother visits them with his voluptuous mistress, Doris (Ann Blyth), the ageing squire falls instantly in love with the young temptress.

That very night Emily dies suddenly of chronic heart disease, and Henry is left free to seduce and later marry Doris - much to the annoyance of their neighbour, Janet (Jessica Tandy) who has secretly loved Henry for many years. When a post-mortem shows that Emily's death was precipitated by arsenic, Henry is arrested for murder and placed on trial for his life. But is he guilty?

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"An Act of Murder" stars Fredric March as a husband faced with an impossible predicament in this controversial drama that was well ahead of it's time.

Calvin Cooke (March), a no-nonsense judge in a small Pennsylvania town, finds his thoughts turning to end the life of his beloved wife Cathy (Florence Eldridge) when he learns that she has an incurable disease and is suffering from unbearable pain. He decides to move forward with his plan and then surrenders himself to the police. Defended by a brilliant attorney (Edmund O'Brien), Cooke goes on trial for his life in a case that will decide if he's legally guilty of murder or morally innocent of killing his wife.

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Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) are newlyweds, but Rosemary has no idea that her wedded bliss is about to come to a horrific end. Her husband's ambition as a struggling actor is about to plunge her into an abyss of terror like she has never known.

In exchange for a taste of fame, Guy makes a deal with the devil that puts his wife and soul in jeopardy. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, her husband becomes odd, her neighbours (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) border on obsessive, and her normal life turns into a surreal nightmare. Slowly, she begins to realise that a seed of evil has been planted... and she is its host.

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Investigating a murder in a small English town, a brusque Police Inspector (John Mills) discovers that virtually everyone he encounters has something to hide.

Setting the template for British crime thrillers for decades to come (including recent TV hit, Broadchurch), director John Guillermin's audacious, often salacious, drama is untypical of mainstream British cinema of its time. An intelligent and gripping police-procedural thriller and macabre melodrama, 'Town on Trial' is a rare treat which is ripe for rediscovery.

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Compelling 1950's drama that tells the story of the contribution made by Police women during a period of great social upheaval through three entwined stories.

Edna Hurran (Eleanor Summerfield) is enjoying an evening stroll with her husband along the River Thames when a young girl falls in, Edna saves the girl but her heroism draws her to the attention of the Police and her story unravels. Young mother Bridget Foster (Peggy Cummins) yearns for some excitement in her life, caught shoplifting she falls under the spell of Ray (Terence Morgan) a villain who seeks to exploit her but the Police have Ray firmly in their sights. Brave WPC Susan (Anne Crawford) risks her life to save a small child who wanders onto a window ledge, investigating the incident brings the young police woman into a world of child neglect.

'Equinox Flower' is Yasujirô Ozu first foray into colour cinema and is a gentle observation of intergenerational conflict between a father and his daughter over her impending unapproved marriage.

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Veteran Chicago detective Jim Brannigan (John Wayne) is dispatched to London to bring back notorious gangster Ben Larkin (John Vernon), and is assured that the whole operation will run smoothly. However, when things don't go to plan, Brannigan finds himself in the crosshairs of Larkin's thugs.

Reluctantly teaming up with by-the-book Commander Swann of Scotland Yard (Richard Attenborough), but determined to recapture Larkin no matter what, Brannigan tears through London, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

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'The End of Summer', the penultimate film by Yasujiro Ozu, examines the difficulties faced by the Kohayagawa family as they struggle to adapt their traditional values to a rapidly changing post-war Japan.

As the family's generations-old sake making business begins to fail in the face of increasingly fierce competition, Manbei, the incorrigible elderly patriarch, rekindles an affair with an old flame, much to the disapproval of his daughter Fumiko. He is further distracted by his attempts to marry off his two other daughters: Akiko, the eldest and a widow with a small son, and Noriko, the youngest who is still single.

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Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) is a retiring horror-star bidding farewell to the limelight. Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) is an unassuming but disturbed Vietnam veteran who suddenly embarks on a murderous shooting rampage.

As Byron makes one final public appearance, their worlds collide as Bobby brings carnage to a suburban Los Angeles drive-in cinema.

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It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) is returning to a loveless marriage; Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him; and young sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) is tormented by the loss of his hands. Can these three men find the courage to rebuild their world? Or are the best years of their lives a thing of the past?

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When pirate Captain Harry Black (Harris Yulin) gets fatally wounded in battle, he passes on his ship, a crew of bandits and one third of a treasure map to his daughter, Morgan (Geena Davis). But before she can hunt for the treasure, she must find the missing sections of the map.

With the help of a small loyal band of her crew and petty thief William Shaw (Matthew Modine), Morgan sets out to command the ship against mutiny, retrieve the missing maps and fight off her villainous Uncle Dawg Brown (Frank Langella) and his band of henchmen to find the hidden treasure of Cutthroat Island.

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Arctic researchers discover a huge, frozen spaceling inside a crash-landed UFO, then fight for their lives after the murderous being (a pre-Gunsmoke James Arness) emerges from icy captivity.

Will other creatures soon follow? The famed final words of this film are both warning and answer: "Keep watching the skies!"

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Dr. Jeff Cameron (Robert Mitchum) breaks the golden rule when he falls in love with his patient, the beautiful heiress Margot Lannington (Faith Domergue). After a whirlwind romance, he goes to confront her father who seems determined to separate them.

Five minutes later he receives the biggest shock of his life - and Edward Lannington (Claude Rains) lies dead...
Now Jeff and Margot are on the run for murder, with 500 miles of bad road between them and the Mexican border. It's a road with many sudden twists and chilling revelations - as Jeff begins to realise that Margot has more secrets she's keeping from him...