greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas), the owner of the popular Piccadilly Club finds his lead male attraction, Victor Smiles (Cyril Ritchard) has quit and that the public has judged Victors partner Mabel (Gilda Gray) as over the hill.

Though they are lovers, Valentine must find another dancer to replace Mabel or face an uncertain future. When a customer (Charles Laughton in his first feature film) complains of a dirty dish, Valentine discovers the answer to all his problems down in the clubs scullery...

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Eric Stanton (Dana Andrews), a press agent down on his luck, drifts into a small Californian coastal town. He meets June (Alice Faye), a wealthy but reclusive woman, and has his eye on Stella (Linda Darnell), a sultry waitress.

In love with Stella but broke, Eric marries June for her money, planning a rapid divorce. However when Stella is murdered, the story takes an unexpected turn.

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The story of the fragile sentimentalism of a former prostitute who visits her sister only to be taunted mercilessly by her childish brother-in-law.

A Streetcar Named Desire: The Original Director's Version is the Elia Kazan/ Tennessee Williams film moviegoers would have seen had not Legion of Decency censorship occurred at the last time. It features three minutes of previously unseen footage underscoring, among other things, the sexual tension between Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) and Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), and Stella Kowalski's (Kim Hunter) passion for husband Stanley.

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When the murder of a priest results in a botched police investigation, prosecutor Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) leads an effort to bring the killer to justice.

Once blackmail creeps into the investigation, all bets on an unclouded trial are off, resulting in an expolosive finale that remains one of the toughest in Kazan's work.

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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.