greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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"Little Caesar" is the tale of pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), a hoodlum with a Chicago-sized chip on his shoulder, few attachments, fewer friends and no sense of underworld diplomacy.

And Robinson - a genteel art collector who disdained guns (in the movie, his eyelids were taped to keep them from blinking when he fired a pistol) - was forever associated with the screen's archetypal gangster.

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Dave Purvis (William Talman) is the smartest crook there is and he's got a red-hot scheme to secure his retirement: rob an armoured car full of money, then fly off to the sun. But Dave's not as lucky as he needs to be: a cop car swings past, guns are fired and a policeman dies.

The dead man's friend Lt. Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw) vows pursuit: he's smart and tough and gets results. As the heat starts to rise, paranoia kicks in and the gang turns on each other. Can Dave escape before Cordell runs him to ground?

Ten dollars a pound is the going rate for freight, so charter pilot Steve Collins figures he's owed $1,150, cash on delivery. His cargo is Joan Winfield, an heiress whose elopement with a musician is kiboshed when Steve kidnaps her so he can fly her to her irate papa. But then Joan finds a parachute.

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Filmed in Japan, Sam Fuller's 1955 crime noir tells the story of Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack), a U.S. army operative sent to Tokyo as an investigator. A gang of American expatriates is robbing U.S. military ammunition and supply trains, and using military tactics to do it.

They're a ruthless bunch, killing not only any troops and police that get in the way but also their own wounded. Working undercover, Kenner must gain the trust of ex-soldier Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), who now heads the gang. The beautiful Japanese wife of a slain gangster is all too willing to help.

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Journeyman boxer Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) thinks that he has one last good fight in him in order to get a payout and retire from the ring.

His wife Julie (Audrey Trotter) pleads for him to quit whilst his manager Tiny (George Tobias) is so convinced that his man is going to lose that he has taken money from the mob in exchange for his man taking a 'dive'. Unaware that his manager has double-crossed him and that he will be a target for the mob if he wins, Stoker strains every sinew of his raw courage to knock out his opponent.

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A young reporter, Mike Ward (John McGuire) stumbles upon a murder victim and identifies a nervous cabbie (Elisha Cook Jr) as the person he saw previously arguing with the dead man. On the strength of Mike's testimony, the cabbie is convicted.

Mike however is haunted by the knowledge that he may have sent an innocent man to the electric chair for murder and that means the real maniac is still on the loose! Things take a turn for the worse when another murder is committed, a murder which may point, ironically enough, back to Mike...

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"House on Telegraph Hill" is an intriguing cliffhanger set in a spooky Victorian mansion below Coit Tower in San Francisco. Victoria Kowelska (Valentina Cortese) has lived through World War II bombings and relocation camps, and has finally emigrated to San Francisco Bay.

Now she should be blissfully happy with her devoted husband in their mansion overlooking the San Francisco Bay. But Victoria is not who she seems, her child belongs to someone else, and her husband and housekeeper are frightening her half to death.

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Feature is a classic of screen history and as uproariously funny today as it was seventy years ago. This film introduced Groucho's African lecture ("One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas, I don't know...

") and the card game which Harpo and Chico play with the wealthy society woman Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont).

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Cary Grant and a stellar cast romp through this classic farce based on Joseph Kesselrings 1941 Broadway hit and breezily directed by Frank Capra.

Frazzled drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Grant) has two aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) who ply lonely geezers with poisoned libations, one sociopathic brother (Raymond Massey) who looks like Boris Karloff, one bonkers brother (John Alexander) who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, one impatient new bride (Priscilla Lane)and only one night to make it turn out all right. In this circus center ring is Grant, twisting his face into a clown's gallery of flabbergasted reactions and transforming his natural athletic grace into a rubber-legged comic ballet. Youll die laughing.

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A dark mystery thriller with surrealistic overtones... The trail of an unsolved murder case, involving internal police corruption, leads new young female police chief Jun Shibata to a remote island.

Here the daughter of a couple, who were murdered under mysterious circumstances, executes her revenge on the remaining survivors.

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Marczewski's anti-totalitarian satire is a darkly comic examination of censorship.

Adapting the premise of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo to late 1980s Poland, the film centres on a provincial film censor who is horrified to discover that the actors in a trite romantic weepie are refusing to perform their roles. With shades also of Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, the film deftly combines social observation and surreal humour. Directed by one of Poland's leading intellectual - and much censored - filmmakers, this multi-award-winning feature is a key film of the seismic political changes of 1989, and an enthusiastic manifesto for the freedom of the artist - and ultimately, of all humanity.

The acclaimed Silent-Era classic "A Woman of Paris" is Chaplin's first drama (a genre he visited again in Limelight). Directing with keen-eyed finesse and appearing in only a bit role, Chaplin jabs at French high society while telling a tale of tragic love. The early Chaplin. The later Chaplin.

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In an effort to shore up a shaky truce between civilians and base personnel three hapless Army buddies find themselves appointed community public relations officers.

Unfortunately Sergeant Shannon Gambroni's (Tony Curtis) idea of community relations includes pursuing and wooing Ramona (Suzanne Pleshette) a sexy waitress whom Sheriff Harve (Ernest Borgnine) considers his personal property. When ammo and amour finally clash in an outrageous battle royal who will ultimately surrender?

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An elaborate game of mind control begins when the son of government agent Peter (Kirk Douglas) is kidnapped for his psychokinetic powers. Desperate to find him, the father hires a girl (Amy Irving) with similar psychic abilities. She soon reveals that his son is a prisoner at a secret U.S.

agency where he's being used for dangerous mind experiments - and programmed for elimination.

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Lisa (Elke Sommer) - an American tourist travelling in Spain - loses her tour party and seeks refuge in the tumbledown mansion of a blind countess after being guided there by the distinctly satanic butler of the house, Leandro (Telly Savalas).

The son of the Countess notices Lisa's striking resemblance to his dead lover and pursues her as a night of murder, strange eroticism and dark hallucinations begins.