greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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"Whirlpool" is an intriguing blend of film noir and women's picture, Gene Tierney, the star of 'Laura', Preminger's first big success, here plays the well-dressed wife of a successful psychoanalyst, played with chilling remoteness by Richard Conte.

When arrested for shoplifting, she is saved from inevitable scandal by the intervention of a suave but lightly sinister hypnotist. However, the salvation proves deceptive and she soon finds herself enmeshed in a web of blackmail and murder. The script is by Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood's most brilliant screenwriters, who according to Hitchcock, was 'in constant touch with prominent psychoanalysts'. Preminger turns the story into an examination of people - and a marriage - under stress, and the conventional ending does little to dispel his somewhat bleak vision. The film may have a noirish theme, but the plot unfolds in a sumptuously photographed world of glossy interiors, luxurious decor and expensive clothes.

'A Walk in the Sun' tells the harrowing story of the US Infantry platoon of Texas Division after they hit the beaches of Salerno, Italy, in 1943. In their first six hours their objective is to march six miles inland to a Nazi defended farmhouse and blow up a nearby bridge. But nothing is as easy as it seems...

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Backroom rivalry at the Graftondale Royal Hospital surgical unit is unspoken but self-evident. Sir Arthur Gray (Michael Redgrave), a staunch traditionalist, is determined to keep things going his way in spite of his rival's ambitions to "turn the hospital into a laboratory".

Then, while carrying out a delicate heart operation, Sir Arthur has a momentary blackout.

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Set in the kingdom of Oudh during the last days of the Moghul Empire, 'The Chess Players' marked the first time that the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray worked outside of his native Bengal.

The story follows two Indian noblemen (Saeed Jaffrey and Sanjeev Kumar) whose obsession with the game of chess renders them oblivious to the treacherous and historic events happening around them. In one of his finest performances, Richard Attenborough stars as General Outram, the British officer who covertly manoeuvres on behalf of the East India Company to seize control of the region and depose its King.

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Rocky (Mark Stevens) and Dan (Edmond O'Brien), war buddies, are prowl car cops on night duty. Dan is a cynic who views all lawbreakers as scum; Rocky feels more lenient.

Both are attracted to the radio voice of communicator Kate Mallory (Gale Storm); but in person, Kate proves reluctant to get involved with men who just might stop a bullet. By lucky chance, Rocky and Dan cause big trouble for murderous racketeer Ritchie Garris (Donald Buka); but when he swears vengeance, Kate's fears may prove justified.

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When a detective scoffs at his suggestion that an 18 year-old criminal be referred for psychiatric examination Dr. Andrew Collins (Lee J. Cobb), the police psychiatrist, tells him the story of his encounter with Al Walker (William Holden).

Walker had a history of violence and killed the prison warden during an escape. He and his gang took the Collins family and their friends hostage but when Dr. Collins learns that Walker has a violent recurring dream, he offers to help him decipher the dream and determine exactly what has driven him to a life of crime and violence.

Cattleman Flint (Duke R. Lee) cuts off farmer Sims' water supply. When Sims' son Ted (Ted Brooks) goes for water, one of Flint's men kills him. Cheyenne (Harry Carey) is sent to finish off Sims, but finding the family at the newly dug grave, he changes sides.

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Patricia Roc stars as Celia Crowson, an ordinary young woman determined to do her part for the war effort. Leaving her home, she takes a job in a factory and finds herself living in a hostel with other volunteers. Her fellow volunteers come from all walks of life and positions of society.

They are all so very different - and yet united in their desire to defend Britain and see the menace of the Nazis defeated forever. The film follows the girls as they work together and discover the importance of friendship and true love.

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The stakes are higher than ever for the time-traveling exploits of William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter), and Theodore "Ted" Logan (Keanu Reeves).

Yet to fulfil their rock and roll destiny, the now middle-aged best friends set out on a new adventure when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it. Along the way, they will be helped by their daughters, a new batch of historical figures and a few music legends!

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Joe Hufford (Glenn Ford) gets involved in a nightclub brawl, kills a man in self defence, and is sent to prison for manslaughter, to the dismay of district attorney George Knowland (Broderick Crawford) who realises Joe had an incompetent lawyer who should have gotten him off by proving self-defence.

Later, Knowland becomes warden of the prison Joe is in, and makes him a Trusty and his chauffeur. Joe and the warden's daughter, Kay (Dorothy Malone), fall in love but Joe gets involved in a prison escape.

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When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr's sideshow sharpshooting act, he's a dead-bang goner. He and she go together, as Bart ultimately says, 'like guns and ammunition'.

The two become bank robbers on the run, eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller, selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to 'Bonnie and Clyde'. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star, meeting in a sexually charged carny shooting contest and soon driven by impulses of violence and arousal they don't fully understand. They're young, foolish, doomed - and point blank in Gun Crazy's unforgiving sights.

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Dorothy Arzner, the sole woman to work as a director in the Hollywood studio system of the 1930's and early '40's, brings a subversive feminist sensibility to this juicily entertaining backstage melodrama.

A behind-the-footlights look at friendship, jealousy, and ambition in the ruthless world of show business, 'Dance, Girl, Dance' follows the intertwining fates of two chorus girls: a starry-eyed dancer (Maureen O'Hara) who dreams of making it as a ballerina, and the brassy gold digger (a scene-stealing Lucille Ball) who becomes her rival both on the stage and in love. The rare Hollywood picture of the era to deal seriously with issues of female artistic struggle and self-actualization, Arzner's film is a rich, fascinating statement from an auteur decades ahead of her time.

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'I See a Dark Stranger' is a suspense-filled, highly entertaining spy drama about a highly-strung Irish girl, Bridie Quilty (Deborah Kerr) whose father delights in spinning tall tales about his role in the 1916 uprising against the English.

When Bridie comes of age she decides to leave her rural home and seek out the IRA, but she unwittingly falls in with a German spy called Miller (Raymond Huntley), believing that he is part of the IRA. Miller recruits Bridie and finds her a job working in a sleepy village pub near a British military prison. Aware of her stunning good looks, Miller asks Bridie to use her sex appeal in order to gather information from the servicemen that will allow him to spring a dangerous Nazi from prison. But when British Army Officer David Byrne (Trevor Howard) arrives in the village to recuperate, he falls in love with the quarrelsome Bridie. Suspicious that Byrne is an intelligence officer Miller decides that Byrne needs to be eliminated and asks Bridie to help him...

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From the director of Cyrano de Bergerac comes an equally sumptuous epic that was the most expensive French production of its time. In the midst of the 19th century, Italian soldier Angelo has escaped his Austrian enemies and fled to rural France where an outbreak of cholera sweeps the land.

Aided by a beautiful noblewoman he vows to protect her as she searches for her missing husband. As they embark on a thrilling and perilous quest they struggle to contain their growing feelings for each other. Filled with action, passion and breathtaking cinematography, The Horseman on the Roof is cinema at its best.

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The quintessential Marx Brothers comedy. Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and yes, Zeppo, are at their manic peak in this uproariously anarchic parody of college life.

As the fan-loving president of Huxley College, Groucho tries to keep the student body in line while attempting to keep his own body near a flirtatious floozie (Thelma Todd) who is secretly trying to rig the big football game between Huxley and arch rival Darwin University. Plot aside, and it usually is, Horse Feathers contains some of the greatest sequences in movie comedy history, including a classic schoolroom shoot-out between Groucho and students Harpo and Chico, as wed as an unforgettable football game finale. Other gems include each brother offering his personal rendition of "Everyone Says I Love You" and a speak-easy sequence that will forever give meaning to the word "swordfish".