greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Fred Astaire dances through magical musical numbers and teams with George Burns and Gracie Allen in a star turn; this is the creation of a tour-de-force of comedy and laughter.

Graced by the beauty of the legendary Joan Fontaine, playing Lady Alyce Marshmorton the owner of Tottney Castle who finds herself in a romantic dilemma. This film is an interesting slice of 1930' s cinema history and an exemplary light comedy of the period. Reginald Gardner and Montagu Love compliment the cast adding grace, style and a sophisticated atmosphere. All this is done in the devil-may-care madcap style of the louche' world of the thirties.

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Vienna, 1955 - a city under occupation by the four Allied powers. Through the chaos Dr. Falke (Anton Walbrook) moves gracefully - an elegant man-about-town and friend to the highest echelons of power.

He is decidedly less graceful, however, when he is deposited by a friend in the lap of a giant Soviet statue, rather the worse for drink and dressed as a giant bat. Falke swears revenge...

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Roderick Raskolnikov (Peter Lorre) has graduated from university as a noted expert in criminology, but nonetheless lives in extreme poverty. Desperate and anguished, he murders a miserly pawnbroker, stealing her valuables before fleeing into the night.

The next day, he encounters Inspector Porfiry (Edward Arnold), the detective assigned to the murder, and is asked by Porfiry to consult on the case when an innocent man is arrested as a suspect. How long until the conflicted, guilt-ridden Raskolnikov arouses the master detective's suspicions?

Al Roberts (Tom Neal) decides to hitchhike to California to follow his girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake). After discovering one of the drivers who has given him a lift dead, Al assumes his identity for fear of being charged with his murder. This leads him into trouble and blackmail along the way.

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Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan range of mountains, there to set up a mission in an abandoned harem.

This is her first position of authority and she finds both her physical and her spiritual limits being taxed as she has to maintain order and discipline in a claustrophobically hostile environment. Slowly but surely, however, the privations and hardship they must endure, the extremes of climate and the peculiar amorality of the local natives all combine to slowly corrupt the women's faith, pushing them further into jealousy, anger and madness...

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Kitty (Betty Grable) and Jack (Dan Dailey) are a popular husband-and-wife entertainer team making their move from radio to television. However, as exciting as this progress is, they believe their lives will be complete when they can start a family.

But when they decide to adopt - a process fraught with problems and disappointments - they are ultimately rewarded with an overabundance of babies! Peppered with songs and dances, this dazzling film also features a spectacular all-star cast, including Mitzi Gaynor in her first film role.

A young soldier's fast-struck love affair with a New York City nightclub singer, despite his long-standing betrothal to a wealthy childhood friend, provides the catalyst for this dizzying parade of home-front melodrama, comic set-pieces and mind-boggling musical numbers (including 'The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat' and 'The Polka-Dot Polka').

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Can an aspiring model find happiness on a billboard?! That's what Gladys Glover (Judy Holiday) finds out in this delightful romantic comedy.

Unable to find steady work as a model, Gladys devises an ingenious gimmick: she uses all of her savings to rent a large billboard overlooking New York City's Columbus Circle featuring her name. As it turns out, that billboard is in high demand - Evan Adams III's (Peter Lawford) company wants it for himself. With interest in more than just her career, Adams strikes a deal with Gladys whereby she acquires additional billboard locations. Under the guidance of a slick promoter (Michael O'Shea), Gladys becomes a national celebrity. Then she realises she must decide between her boyfriend (Jack Lemmon) and this exciting new life.

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Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), a middle aged, world-weary, psychology professor, who finds himself suddenly captivated by a portrait of a beautiful young woman in the window of a local gallery.

In a strange twist of fate the woman in the picture (a radiant Joan Bennett) appears before Richard and invites him back to her apartment. Everything seems to be going fine until Wanley is attacked by her possessive boyfriend and ends up murdering him in self-defence. Alice convinces Richard to cover up the crime, but as Richard's district attorney friend (Raymond Massey) investigates and the boyfriend's bodyguard (Dan Duryea) begins to apply pressure to Richard, the walls begin to close in...

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Advertising man Jim Blandings (Cary Grant) and his wife, Muriel (Myrna Loy), harassed by city living, decide to move to the country. Jim goes to Connecticut to look at old houses and is enticed into buying a run-down farm.

It soon becomes apparent that Jim has not only been overcharged, but he has also been sold a lemon. Muriel, loudly seconded by Bill Cole (Melvyn Douglas), Jim's attorney, advises him that the situation is not as bad as it appears. As Jim and Muriel try to decide what needs to be done to the house, and how they should go about making the improvements, the dream house looks more and more like a nightmare. Estimates from the local contractors - whom all advise a quick and merciful death for the collapsing relic - rise higher and higher. Jim discovers that he only owns 31 acres of land, whereas he thought he was buying 50. And to top it all off, he wonders just how fond Bill and Muriel are of each other. Jim refuses to give up hope. The old house swallows more of his time and money than he thought possible, but, through his persistence, Jim finally gets his dream house.

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Nervous spinster Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) is stunted from growing up under the heel of her puritanical Boston Brahmin mother (Gladys Cooper), and remains convinced of her own unworthiness until a kindly psychiatrist (Claude Rains) gives her the confidence to venture out into the world on a

South American cruise. On board, she finds her footing with the help of an unhappily married man (Paul Henreid). Their thwarted love affair may help Charlotte break free of her mother's grip - but will she find fulfillment as well as independence?

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Nick and Nora Charles cordially invite you to bring your own alibi to The Thin Man, the jaunty whodunit that made William Powell and Myrna Loy the champagne elite of sleuthing, Bantering in the boudoir, enjoying walks with beloved dog Asta or matching each other highball for highball and clue for

clue, they combined screwball romance with mystery. The resulting triumph nabbed four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and spawned five sequels. Credit W.S. " Woody" Van Dyke for recognizing that Powell and Loy were ideal together and for getting the studio's okay by promising to shoot this splendid adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel in three weeks. He took 12 days. They didn't call him "One-Take Woody" for nothing.

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Denigrated by the public, vilified by the critics, re-cut at the insistence of its producers, and finally banned by the French government as 'demoralising' and unpatriotic, La Regle du jeu was a commercial disaster at the time of its original release.

On the surface, a series of interlinked romantic intrigues taking place at a weekend shooting party in a country chateau, the film is in fact a study of the corruption and decay within French society on the eve of the outbreak of World War II.

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When callous thugs beat Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) senseless and viciously murder the gorgeous blonde he's been trying to help, the hard-boiled detective retaliates the only way he can: by hitting first and asking questions later.

Cutting a brutal swathe through the city's sleazy underside, Hammer uncovers a mysterious black container whose deadly contents not only solve the murder...but trigger an apocalyptic climax as well!

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The backdrop is 1930's Hollywood.... a time when movie moguls ruled the studios and stars do what they're told for the sake of their latest picture.

In this witty, tongue-in-check, musical comedy, Tyrone Power is Jimmy Sutton, the consummate studio publicist who knows how to get headlines - even if he has to make them up. Rudy Vallee is Roger Maxwell, the singing film star who needs all the attention he can get. And Sonja Henie is the Minnesota school teacher who miraculously lands the most coveted role in Consolidated Studio's newest picture Innocent and eager, she has no idea her exciting new "romance" with Roger was dreamed up by Sutton for the maximum news coverage. Snappy dialogue and a wonderful Irving Berlin score make Second Fiddle a charming fictional account of Hollywood in its heyday.