greatest-ever-made's - Rented List
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Waxworks (1924)Das Wachsfigurenkabinett
Waxworks (Das Wachsfignrenkabinett) was the final film Paul Leni directed in Germany before striking out for Hollywood and making such classic works of genre filmmaking as 'The Cat and the Canary', 'The Man Who Laughs', and 'The Last Warning'. Its sophisticated melding of genres was in fact what inspired Universal's Carl Laemmle to invite Leni to come to Hollywood in the first place, as Laemmle was hoping to capitalise on the emerging comedy-horror craze of the 1920's. Yet 'Waxworks' is, at heart, a pure example of German expressionism. Its stylised sets (designed by Leni), fantastical costumes, chiaroscuro lighting, and startlingly bold performances are paragons of the cinematic movement, and contribute heavily to the film's lasting appeal. The three separate episodes of 'Waxworks' are united by the character of a young poet (William Dieterle), who is hired by the owner of a wax museum to create backstories for a trio of the museum's figures: Caliph Harun al-Rashid (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt), and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). The stories are depicted in succession, the poet casting himself - as well as the daughter of the wax museum's owner - at the centre of each tale. Though the poet and the daughter play different characters in the corresponding plots, they are always lovers whose relationship is threatened by the personages of the wax figures. - Director:
- Leo Birinsky
- Cast:
- Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss
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When cattle rancher Shep Horgan (Ernest Borgnine) finds Jubal Troop (Glenn Ford) half-dead in a mountain pass, he rescues the drifter and offers him good honest work on his ranch. Shep is a good man - but his beautiful young bride Mae (Valerie French) is pure poison. She's been catting around with ranch hand Pinky (Rod Steiger) - and now she's got eyes only for Jubal. When Jubal is appointed ranch foreman, Pinky swears revenge. He convinces Shep that Jubal is sleeping with his wife. For a proud man like Shep, there's only one thing to do - pick up his Winchester and sort things out man-to-man... - Director:
- Delmer Daves
- Cast:
- Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger
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The Little Tramp punches in and wigs out inside a factory where gizmos like an employee feeding machine may someday make the lunch hour last just 15 minutes. Bounced into the ranks of the unemployed, he teams with a street waif (Paulette Goddard) to pursue bliss and a paycheck, finding misadventures as a roller-skating night watchman, a singing waiter whose hilarious song is gibberish, a jailbird and more. In the end, as tramp and waif walk arm in arm into an insecure future we know they've found neither bliss nor a paycheck but, more importantly, each other. The times and satire remain timeless in 'Modern Times'. - Director:
- Charles Chaplin
- Cast:
- Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman
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Cape Fear (1962)Cabo de miedo
Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum star in Hollywood's classic tale of revenge and murder. Robert Mitchum is unforgettable as Max Cady, an ex-con determined to exact a terrible revenge on Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) and his family. Sam is a small-town lawyer whose worst nightmare comes true when the criminal he helped put away returns to stalk his beautiful young wife (Polly Bergen) and teenage daughter (Lori Martin). Despite help from the local police chief (Martin Balsam) and a private detective (Telly Savalas), Sam is legally powerless to keep Max from playing his sadistic game of cat and mouse. Finally, Sam must put his family's lives at stake in a deadly trap that leads to one of the most suspenseful and heart-pounding confrontations ever committed to film. - Director:
- J. Lee Thompson
- Cast:
- Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen
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One heaves rocks through windows. The other happens by in the nick of time to offer his services as an expert window repairman. It's a system that works. So does everything else about this beloved Charlie Chaplin classic whose blend of laughs and pathos changed the notion of what a screen comedy could be. For the first time as a filmmaker, Chaplin stepped into feature-length storytelling with this tale of the down-but-never-out Tramp (Chaplin) and the adorable ragamuffin (6-year-old Jackie Coogan) who, rescued as a foundling and raised in the School of Hard Knocks by the Tramp, is this inseparable sidekick. Memorable scenes include a lesson in table manners, the bully brawl and the Tramp's angelic dream. - Director:
- Charles Chaplin
- Cast:
- Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan
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This volume contains seven of Chaplin's legendary early films as follows:
The New JanitorCharlie becomes a janitor only to be fired when he drops a pail of water on his boss' head. As he departs he hears a secretary's pleas for help...he saves the damsel in distress and thwarts a robbery.
The Rival Mashers (aka Those Love Pangs)
Charlie, intent on getting a girlfriend, finds that other men resent his attempts to steal their sweethearts. He attempts to drown himself but is rescued. He goes to the movies and finally wins the interest of two girls, but when he falls asleep, the girls slip away.
Musical Tramp (aka His Musical Career / Charlie as a Piano Mover)
Charlie is a piano mover assigned to deliver a piano and repossess another, but Charlie mixes them up and delivers the piano to the bad debtor and attempts to remove a piano from a millionaire's home. When this is protested, Charlie pushes the piano into a lake.
A Fair Exchange (aka Getting Acquainted)
Charlie is back in a park, accompanied by his formidable wife, Mrs. Sniffles. Mabel (Normand) is also in the park with her husband Ambrose. Charlie is attracted to Mabel while the jealous Ambrose is attracted to Mrs. Sniffles. It's a fair exchange.
His New Job (aka Charlie's New Job)
Charlie goes to a film studio to get a job. He doesn't get hired but wanders through the studio and is mistaken for a property man and is put to work. Later, he fills in for the lead actor and his blunders ruin the whole film...it will never be finished.
A Night Out (aka Charlie's Drunken Daze)
Charlie and Ben Turpin have been trying to drink the town dry. When Charlie returns to his hotel, he's so drunk that he doesn't know where he is and walks up to the front desk and drinks the ink. Hi-jinks continue as Charlie tries to get to his room.
The Champion (aka Charlie the Champion)
Charlie and his bulldog are very hungry. Out of pure hunger Charlie applies for the job of a sparing partner for a champion prize fighter. He beats the champ, because of a lucky horseshoe in his gloves, but is helped in a real match by his faithful bulldog.- Director:
- Charles Chaplin
- Cast:
- Charlie Chaplin, John T. Dillon, Al St. John
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Ninotchka (1939)Ninočka
Garbo Talks!, proclaimed ads when silent star Greta Garbo debuted in talkies. Nine years and 12 classic screen dramas later, the gifted movie legend was ready for another change. Garbo Laughs!, cheered the publicity for her first comedy, a frothy tale of a dour Russian envoy sublimating her womanhood for Soviet brotherhood until she falls for a suave Parisian man-about-town (Melvyn Douglas). Working from a cleverly barbed script written in party by Billy Wilder, director Ernst Lubitsch knew better than anyone how to marry refinement with sublime wit. "At least twice a day the most dignified human being is ridiculous", he explained about his acclaimed Lubitsch Touch. That's how we see Garbo's lovestruct Ninotchka: serenely dignified yet endearingly ridiculous. Garbo laughs. So will you. - Director:
- Ernst Lubitsch
- Cast:
- Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire
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Gay Lawrence (George Sanders) is the debonair and ruthless amateur detective known only as The Falcon. He learns that his brother Tom (Tom Conway) has been reported murdered on a ship arriving from South America. The Falcon swoops to investigate and stalks the would-be murderers before learning that his brother is still alive. His hunt leads him into murky waters with a variety of spies, spivs, and racketeers arriving into New York. The Falcon pursues the gangsters and comes off worse when protecting a diplomat, so the scene is set for the Falcon's mantle to be passed to his brother. When Tom takes over the case, his investigations lead to the doors of a fashion magazine and a ring of Nazi spies... - Director:
- Stanley Logan
- Cast:
- George Sanders, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph
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Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner with a sordid past. Persecuted by the townspeople, Vienna must protect her life and her property when a lynch mob led by her sexually repressed rival, Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit. Enter Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), a guitar-strumming ex-gunfighter who has a history with Vienna. - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge
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Five RAF pilots are shot down over occupied France. Led by their Squadron Leader, Free French hero Paul Lavallier (Paul Henreid), they decide to head for Paris to make contact with the resistance. Occupied Paris, however, is one of the most dangerous cities in the world - a city filled with spies, collaborators, informants and ruthless Gestapo agents. A city where one wrong word could easily cost you your life. As Paul desperately tries to find the resistance, he becomes involved with Joan (Michele Morgan), an innocent young barmaid who unwittingly gets caught up in his escape plans. Paul knows the Gestapo are already on to him and are playing a deadly cat and mouse game. What he doesn't know is that the Nazis are also watching Joan...As the Germans prepare to spring their trap, Joan is faced with an agonising choice - betray the man she has come to love or face a firing squad... - Director:
- Robert Stevenson
- Cast:
- Michèle Morgan, Eugenia Rafee, Paul Henreid
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Army of Shadows (1969)L'armée Des Ombres
Melville's most personal film, rooted in his wartime experiences in the French Resistance, Army Of Shadows is a hard, tense drama, depicting man's capacity for both bravery and evil. In the winter of 1942-1943, as France exist s under German occupation, an underground cell operates in the shadows. In the clandestine world of the Resistance, the freedom fighters work against their enemies under the constant risk of betrayal, ordinary men and women in an extraordinary situation. Suffused throughout with a mood of foreboding, the suspense, heightened with directorial mastery, reaches its peak as the Resistance attempt to free a prisoner from the Gestapo headquarters, in one of Melville's trademark set-pieces of iconic action. - Director:
- Jean-Pierre Melville
- Cast:
- Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel
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When Harvard Law School graduate P. Cadwallader Jones (Dennis O'Keefe) bungles his first assignment in the D.A.'s office, he is next assigned the tedious job of reviewing the closed case of a crooked city official (Peter Lorre) who vanished with $100,000. of the taxpayer's money. The cold case suddenly gets hot when the money begins to reappear, and a series of brutal murders ensues. There's plenty of fast-moving action in this crime drama laced with good old-fashioned Hollywood humour. - Director:
- William Morgan
- Cast:
- Dennis O'Keefe, Florence Rice, Peter Lorre
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Rebecca (1940)Rebeca, una mujer inolvidable
Whilst on holiday, young timid ladies companion (Joan Fontaine) meets handsome and wealthy widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) whose wife Rebecca has recently died in a boating accident. The two fall in love and marry. However, her joy is short lived when she returns to the de Winter estate and soon discovers that Rebecca still has a strange, unearthly hold over everyone there. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders
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Fanny by Gaslight (1944)Man of Evil
Returning to 1870's London after finishing at boarding school, Fanny (Phyllis Calvert) witnesses the death of her father in a fight with Lord Manderstoke (James Mason). She then finds that her family has for many years been running a bordello next door to their home. When her mother dies shortly after, she next discovers that her real father is in fact a well-respected politician. Meeting him and then falling in love with his young adviser Harry Somerford (Stewart Granger) leads to a life of ups and downs and conflict between the classes. Periodically the scoundrel of a Lord crosses her path, always to tragic effect. - Director:
- Anthony Asquith
- Cast:
- James Mason, Ann Stephens, Gloria Sydney
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It Happened in Hollywood / Adventure in Sahara / Power of the Press (1943)Once a Hero / Revolt in the Sahara / Power of the Press
Triple bill of American classics.
It Happened in Hollywood (1937)
While hospitalized young Billy (Bill Burrud) meets his silent movie idol Tim Bart (Richard Dix) but then the talkies came, destroying Bart's career. Now Bart must convince his young friend he is still a star.Adventure in Sahara (1938)
Agadez is a lonely French outpost baking under the desert sun and commanded by the cruel and oppressive Captain Savatt (C. Henry Gordon). To it comes, at his own request, Legionnaire Jim Wilson (Paul Kelly) soon followed by his fiancée, Carla Preston (Lorna Gray), who has been tracing him from post to post. Legionnaires seize the fort and turn Savitt loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization. But Savitt gets through and returns to the fort at the head of an avenging troop of men. But Arabs surround Savitt and his men, and the mutineers, knowing that to leave the fort and aid them means their own death...
Power of the Press (1943)
During WWII, the publisher of the isolationist New York Gazette is murdered just as he was about to change the paper's policy and support the US war effort. His friend, a small town patriotic editor, is brought in to find the culprits.- Director:
- Harry Lachman
- Cast:
- Richard Dix, Fay Wray, Victor Kilian
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