greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Marlene Dietrich is Agent X-27, the Mata Hari of Austria, in this exciting tale of espionage and romance, also starring Victor McLaglen. A widow forced to turn to prostitution to support herself, Dietrich is solicited by the Austrian Secret Service to become a special agent.

With her ample charms and extraordinary beauty, she ferrets out secrets from the enemy, saving thousands of lives and altering the course of the war. But she meets her mental match in a Russian agent named Kranau (Victor McLaglen), who continually outwits her and proves to be her downfall. Dietrich pays the ultimate price for falling in love with the debonair spy in this Josef von Sternberg hit.

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Double bill of USA classics.

Shockproof (1949)

Having served a five year stretch in prison for her part in a murder, Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight) is released into the custody of parole officer Griff Marat (Cornel Wilde), who offers her the prospect of a new life with his support. One of the conditions of Jenny's parole is that she no longer sees her former boyfriend, Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), a gambler and crook for whom she was willing to go to jail. Still in love with Wesson, Jenny feels bound to continue seeing him, in spite of Marat's warnings that she risks going straight back to prison. Jenny soon finds herself torn between her former lover and Marat, who shows her nothing but kindness and respect. When Wesson threatens to tell Marat of her promise to escape with him, Jenny shoots him in a moment of madness. Unable to turn Jenny over to the police, Marat decides to help her escape across the state border. In doing so, he knows that he himself has become an outlaw. But it is too late to turn back.
Scandal Sheet (1952)
Broderick Crawford plays tabloid editor Mark Chapman, whose burgeoning success is threatened by the arrival of his wife Charlotte (Rosemary DeCamp), whom he deserted 20 years earlier. Hoping to keep Charlotte's mouth shut, Chapman accidentally kills her. He does his best to cover his tracks, but his best is none too good, and another murder follows. Meanwhile, Chapman's star reporter Steve McCleary (John Derek) is busy investigating the still-unsolved murder of Charlotte. Though Steve holds no grudge against his boss, the same cannot be said of feature writer Julie Allison (Donna Reed), who resents Chapman's sensationalist methods. Slowly but surely, the noose tightens around Chapman's neck, thanks to the diligence of McCleary and, indirectly, the inquiries of Julie.

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Set against the background of Spain's Carnaval, young army officer Antonio Galvin (Cesar Romero) is warned against getting involved with the seductive and sultry Concha Perez (Marlene Dietrich), whom he has just encountered.

Although Don Pasqual (Lionel Atwill), the older officer warning him, tries his best to dissuade the younger man, telling him of her gold-digging ways, his pleas fall on deaf ears as Antonio soon becomes bewitched. When, days later, he stumbles upon the couple in the street, all of Pasqual's past jealousies and hurt resurface, forcing him to confront Antonio in a final, desperate bid for Concha's love.

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Pin up queen Betty Grable has the title role in this splashy musical that features Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown and Eugene Pallette. Grable is front and centre as Lorry Jones, a secretary whose penchant for stretching the truth often gets her into trouble.

When she falls in love with a war hero (John Harvey) who thinks she's an actress (and then also becomes his secretary), she's really got her hands full! While Lorry struggles to unravel this impossibly complicated situation, we're treated to one dazzling production number after another, plus an array of imaginative sets and colourful costumes.

During the filming of The Seven Year Itch, while Hollywood censors kept a careful eye on the notoriously racy production, Marilyn was pure perfection as a sexy, yet innocent, starlet living upstairs from a married man who had just sent his wife and son away for the summer.

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A spectacular account of Attila the Hun's final attack on Christian Rome. Jack Palance is in full swagger as 'Scourge of God' Attila the Hun, who seeks to conquer the Roman Empire's 5th century power bases of Rome and Constantinople.

Centurion Marcian (Jeff Chandler) is captured by Attila on his way to Constantinople to warn the Eastern Emperor Theodosius of an attack by the barbarian tribes. Attila, impressed by his enemy's wiliness, honesty and courage, is powerless to prevent his escape. The two men meet again at the court of Theodosius (George Dolenz), where they fall under the spell of the Emperor's scheming sister Pulcheria (Ludmilla Tcherina). At a feast for the barbarian kings, Theodosius and Attila strike a deal that Constantinople will not be sacked - so Attila turns his attentions to Rome. As Attila prepares his assault, he is wracked by foreboding as he recalls a childhood vision of his death beneath the shadow of a cross. When he learns of a betrayal by his daughter Kubra (Rita Gam), it seems his fate is sealed. Douglas Sirk's first foray in Cinemascope is both lavish and savvy, with Palance's Hun a fine balance of ferocity, vulnerability and doubt.

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Marlene Dietrich stars as Helen, a former nightclub entertainer married to an American scientist, Edward Faraday (Herbert Marshall), who has been diagnosed with radium poisoning.

To earn money for her husband's European cure, Helen returns to the stage billed as "The Blonde Venus" and is an overnight success. She also finds herself powerfully attracted to a dashing politician named Nick Townsend (Cary Grant) who is captivated by her and offers financial support. Townsend moves Helen and her son into a beautiful apartment, and when Edward returns unexpectedly from Europe to find his child and unfaithful wife gone, he demands she relinquish the boy to him. As a woman torn between her husband, her lover, her career and her child, Dietrich turns in a dazzling performance that makes this one of the screen goddess's most popular films.

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Elegant French criminal, François Eugène Vidocq (George Sanders) takes his name from a tombstone and pursues a career of stealing rich women's hearts...and their jewellery! We follow the career of Vidocq, from his birth in a French jail in 1775 to his appointment as the chief of police for Paris.

An appointment that gives Vidocq the opportunity to deprive Parisian's of their money by robbing their bank! Assisted by his partner in crime Emile (Akim Tamiroff), Vidocq poses as a lieutenant to rob a showgirl of her ruby garter and steals the jewels of a marquise who invited him to stay in her home as a guest. When the marquise's granddaughter falls in love with Vidocq, the French Raffles has to decide whether to choose her and a life without blemish, the vivacious showgirl, or the beckoning bank vault!

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Tormented for years by a sense of guilt after inadvertently bombing a German orphanage during World War Two, Parson Dean Hess (Rock Hudson) leaves his pulpit and wife (Martha Hyer) to return to the Air Force as a training officer during the Korean War.

Posted near the remote village of Yungsan in South Korea, Col. Hess is tasked with instructing the inexperienced Korean pilots but his mission takes a personal twist when he stumbles upon an opportunity to help local orphans. Between his battle against an evil foe and his determination to save the children, Hess may just find the redemption he so desperately seeks.

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It's full steam ahead with Marlene Dietrich as the mesmerising Shanghai Lilly in this exotic high drama directed by Josef Von Sternberg. After being jilted by Captain Donal Harvey (Clive Brook), Lily gains a reputation as notorious adventuress.

Things heat up when the former lovers are reunited on a train en route to Shanghai. They share accommodation with a motley group of international passengers, including a dubious merchant who unsuccessfully propositions Lily. When the train is overtaken by Chinese rebels, Captain Harvey is held hostage and the merchant turns out to be the rebels' leader. So Lily strikes a tantalising bargain in order to save the man she never stopped loving.

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When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, lead by Sidney Mussberger (Paul Newman), comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money: appoint a moron to run the company.

When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), who just started in the mail room. Norville is whacky enough to drive any company to ruin, but soon, tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries.

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Douglas Sirk directed thriller in which several people harbour a secret that could stop an innocent woman from being hanged. Convicted murderess, Valerie Cams (Ann Blyth), is being transported to Norwich to be executed when a flash flood strands her and her guards at a convent hospital.

As Nurse Sister Mary (Claudette Colbert) grows to know Valerie, she becomes convinced of her innocence and sets out to find the real killer...

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James Cagney is C.R. "Mac" MacNamara, a top soft drinks executive shipped off to (then West) Berlin and told to keep an eye on his boss' 17-year-old Atlanta socialite daughter Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin) while she visits Germany.

Scarlett's tour seems endless, and Mac discovers she's fallen for a (then East) Berlin communist agitator and the young couple are bound for Moscow! Mac has to bust up the burgeoning romance before his boss learns the truth, all the while dealing with his wife Phyllis (Arlene Francis) and her own impatience with German living.

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Frederique is a cool, rich predatory lesbian who picks up a young student, Why, taking her back to her elegant villa in St. Tropez. They lived happily together for some time, annoyed only by the lunatic pranks of the two resident camp buffoons.

At the party, Why is attracted to a young architect who readily seduces her. Frederique is rather amused by her young campions budding romance; but she later visits Paul and allows him to seduce her as well. Slowly and initially reluctantly he enters their lives and an uncertain, unsettling menage-a-trois is formed.

It's a tale of power and passions when a Russian siren (Linda Darnell), who wants the finer things in life, sinks her hooks into a judge (George Sanders), a decadent aristocrat (Edward Everett Horton) and an estate superintendent (Hugo Haas), with surprising results.