greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Double bill of musical comedies from the 1940s starring double act Ethel Revnell and Gracie West.

The Balloon Goes Up (1942)

Ethel Revnell and Gracie West were a popular female double act. Ethel was just over six feet tall, while Gracie was considerably shorter, at just under five feet. They began their career in concert party. Their most popular variety characters were "Ethel and Grade", malevolent cockney schoolgirls. In this film the double act masquerade as WAAFs on a balloon site to help the authorities capture a group of fifth columnists.
Up with the Lark (1943)
The British music-hall comedy team of Ethel (Ethel Revnell) and Gracie (Gracie West) were busy starring in the popular BBC radio series, The Long and the Short of It. Ethel was the "long" and Gracie the "short" when they starred in a group of high-grossing feature films. In this film, a 1943 New Realm Production, the famous duo disguised as land girls pursue a gang of black marketeers to their secret headquarters in the country -the film includes some wonderful musical interludes. Written by Val Valentine who also wrote some of the St Trinians films.

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Deanna Durbin stars as the daughter of Christian Missionaries in war torn China in this moving and intensely dramatic film favourite. Forced to flee after the Japanese invaders arrive, Ruth Kirke (Deanna Durbin) tries to save as many orphaned Chinese children as she can.

She bundles them on board an American steamship bound for San Francisco and its kindly captain agrees to sponsor the children once they land in America. However, when a Japanese submarine sinks the steamship and the captain is killed, Ruth and her orphans survive only to find their way into America blocked by US Immigration officials. Now Ruth must use every means at her disposal to help the children to safety and happiness in America including pretending that she and the steamship captain were secretly married...

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Haunted by demons past and present, artist Johan Borg (Max Von Sydow) fights a losing battle to retain his sanity and maintain his artistic prowess. His wife Alma (Liv Ullmann), desperate to help him, finds herself starting to share his hallucinations.

But as Johan's mind continues to unravel, Alma is forced to choose between her love... and her life.

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"The Lion in Winter", is set in England during Christmas 1183. Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is deliberating over who to chose as his successor, and plans a family reunion in the hope to resolve this.

His scheming wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), and 3 sons: Richard the Lion-Hearted (Anthony Hopkins), Prince Geoffrey (John Castle), and Prince John (Nigel Terry) are all in attendance, and are all vying for the throne. Princess Alias (Jane Merrow) - Henry's mistress whom he wishes to marry and her brother, the young and crafty King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton) are also at the reunion. With much at stake, rebellion, treachery and deception is rife as everybody fights for their position on the throne.

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Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story) honed his craft in the early 1930s, a time when young Japanese directors were experimenting with cinematic conventions. This two-disc set features three gangster-genre films in which Ozu mixes a Hollywood-infused dynamism with elements of his later style.

Walk Cheerfully (aka 'Hogaraka Ni Ayume') 1930
Kenji 'the Knife' Koyama, leader of a gang of hooligans, falls for the virtuous Yasue. Will he go straight to win her heart or carry on his life of petty crime? Reminiscent of Sternberg's Underworld with its expressionist lighting, 'Walk Cheerfully' combines international cinematic influences with Ozu's own comic touches.
That Night's Wife (aka 'Sono Yo No Tsuma') 1930
Young father Shuji turns to crime to pay his daughter's medical bills. Enter Detective Kagawa for a tense night-time stand-off with Shuji's wife, Mayumi. 'That Night's Wife' demonstrates Ozu's dramatic mastery as the film reaches its emotional climax.
Dragnet Girl (aka 'Hijosen No Onna') 1933
Typist by day, gangster's moll at night, sweet-faced Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) is forced to reassess her life when her boyfriend strays. Hugely popular when it was released, 'Dragnet Girl' remains one of Ozu's most enduring silent films.

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Under Mann's superb direction, Stewart departs from his well-loved "ordinary hero" role and gives a riveting performance as a resolute vigilante obsessed with finding the man responsible for his brother's death.

Among the suspects are an arrogant cattle baron (Donald Crisp), his sadistic son (Alex Nicol) and his ranch foreman (Arthur Kennedy). One explosive confrontation, in which Stewart is dragged by a wild horse and shot in the hand at close range, is one of movie history's most memorable sequences.

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At the Victorine Studios in Nice, a French movie-maker, Ferrand (Francois Truffaut) starts shooting his latest film: "Meet Pamela". As ever, this proves eventful from the outset: ups and downs on the shoot, actors whims, complicated love-lives and the producer putting on the pressure...

Ferrand wonders whether his film will ever get made. In 'Day for Night', Truffaut provides the answer to the question asked by all film lovers "what goes on behind the cameras?". He films the shoot as it really is, straightforwardly, without artefacts, with honesty and accuracy, making it seem like a documentary. Often funny, sometimes tragic, 'Day for Night' is one of Truffaut's most autobiographical films and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1973.

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Los Angeles, 2008. Southland Tales is a darkly comic, futuristic epic set over the course of three days as the city stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster, in an America under the thumb of the sinister all-seeing agency US-Ident.

A large ensemble cast of characters includes Boxer Santaros, an action star stricken with amnesia, Krysta Now, a porn star with her own reality TV project, and Roland Taverner, a cop who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.

Buffalo Bill (Paul Newman) plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President (Pat McCormick) and General Custer.

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Mann's film tells of Jeff Webster (James Stewart) and his sidekick Ben Tatum (Walter Brennan), two stoic adventurers driving cattle to market from Wyoming to Canada who become at loggerheads with a corrupt judge (John McIntire) and his henchmen.

Ruth Roman (Strangers on a Train) plays a sultry saloon keeper who falls for Stewart, teaming up with him to take on the errant lawman.

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A storm of excitement swirls around James Stewart in this dynamic tale of adventurous wildcatters searching for black gold in the gulf of Mexico.

Dan Duryea teams up with Stewart as a pair of oil trouble shooters who must stand up to devastating hurricanes, dangerous love affairs and a hostile town of Cajun fishermen to strike pay dirt. The alluring Joanne Dru co-stars as a Louisiana firebrand who fears Stewart's explorations will destroy her way of life, but can't help the attraction she feels for the magnetic fortune seeker.

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Lt. Mark Benson (Robert Ryan) is the leader of a platoon that has just been given orders to advance to Hill 465, where they are to join awaiting troops and advance on the territory. While Benson and his men are weary, they have little choice but to comply.

Needing a transport for their weapons, Benson and his men commandeer a truck, only to discover that it's not empty - Sgt. "Montana" Williamette (Aldo Ray) has been ordered to escort a colonel (Robert Keith) suffering from extreme battle fatigue to a field hospital for examination and treatment. While Benson's loyalty is to his troops and his mission, Montana refuses to turn over the truck; the colonel is one of the only men he's been able to rely on during his stretch in the Army, and he is determined to stand by him in his time of need. Either way, the men find themselves frequently confronted by danger, and their numbers are decimated when they're ambushed by enemy troops.

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It's the legendary James Stewart at his leading-man finest in this timeless western that set the standard for all that followed.

Frontiersman Lin McAdam (Stewart) is attempting to track down both his father's murderer and his one-of-a-kind rifle, the 'Winchester '73', as it passes among a diverse group of desperate characters, including a crazed highwayman (Dan Duryea), an immoral gunrunner (John Mclntire), a savage young Indian chief (Rock Hudson) and McAdam's own murderous brother (Stephen McNally). Featuring Shelley Winters as the rifle's only rival for McAdam's interest and Tony Curtis in one of his first screen performances, the gripping tale of the men (and gun) who won the West is one of Stewart's most memorable films and one of the genre's most enduring classics.

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Set against the outbreak of World War I, 'A Promise' centres on Charlotte Hoffmeister a married woman who falls in love with her husbands protege, Friedrich Zeitz (Richard Madden).

Bound by duty and divided by the impending war, the young lovers pledge their devotion to each other in spite of what their future holds. Adapted from Stefan Zweig's novel Journey into the Past and directed by Patrice Leconte, 'A Promise' is a passionate and romantic drama about forbidden love.

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"Women Talking Dirty" is a touching comic story of two women, who truly test the meaning of the phrase "best friend." Together, Ellen (Gina McKee) and Cora (Helena Bonham Carter) help each other with all that life throws at them - lovers, divorce, children, debts and too much vodka.

A colourful and quirky set of friends (James Nesbitt, Richard Wilson) share in their ups and downs, and force the pair to unravel a dark secret that they unknowingly share.