greybob's - Rented List
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Career first. Everything else second. According to vaudevillian Archie Rice (Laurence Olivier), the show must go on - even if it means stringing along his fellow performers, exploiting the hopes and money of a starlet and neglecting his own family. This is Archie's world, but not everyone wants to live in it. His only daughter (Joan Plowright) will do everything she can to breakthrough and bring him around; if only she can make him listen... - Director:
- Tony Richardson
- Cast:
- Laurence Olivier, Richard Baker, Brenda De Banzie
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A highly influential but critically neglected movement in British cinema history, "Free Cinema" not only re-invented British documentary in the 1950s but also served as a precursor for the better known British New Wave of social-realist feature films in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Born in February 1956, when a group, led by critic and filmmaker Lindsay Anderson, screened their short films at the National Film Theatre, Free Cinema proved so popular that five more programmes followed until 1959, featuring films by young British and foreign filmmakers. The BFI has brought together, for the first time, the eleven films of the three British programmes in this 3-disc boxset. This definitive collection includes a number of fascinating shorts made on a shoestring budget and a 16mm Bolex camera by first-time directors such as Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson (Momma Don't Allow), Claude Goretta and Alain Tanner (Nice Time), Michael Grigsby (Enginemen) and Robert Vas (Refuge England), as weN as the more ambitious, 35mm featurettes Together (dir. Lorenza Mazzetti), Every Day Except Christmas (dir. Lindsay Anderson) and We Are the Lambeth Boys (dir. Karel Reisz). The third disc features an exclusive 43-minute documentary with interviews, film extracts and previously unseen stills, as well as a specially curated collection of rarely seen films made in the spirit of the Free Cinema movement. - Director:
- Karel Reisz
- Cast:
- Chris Barber, George Potts, Jon Rollason
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An essential Second World War documentary from the Emmy Award winning team behind the PBS Series 'Battlefield' and Discovery Channel's 'Weapons of War'. 'The Battle of Stalingrad' was a major and decisive battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad. The battle took place between August, 1942 and February, 1943 and was marked by constant close-quarters combat and lack of regard for military and civilian casualties. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with estimates of combined casualties amounting to nearly two million. The heavy losses inflicted on Hitler's Wehrmacht made it a significant turning point in the war. After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East. The documentary features rare Soviet and German archive film footage, as well as unique primary sources to create a comprehensive account of the Battle of Stalingrad. - Director:
- Not Available
- Cast:
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Formats:
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Prior to the advent of television, newsreels were an essential part of the movie going experience. Shown at theatres prior to the feature, these short news films brought current events of the world visually to movie-watchers. As the most publicized woman of her generation, everything Marilyn Monroe did made headlines, and in the process she graced numerous newsreels. This collection brings together for the first time many of those newsreels as well as the original trailers of all her greatest films. Trailers teased the audience with highlights of forthcoming attractions and were usually edited to capture the viewer's attention, often utilizing superimposed descriptive text that seemed to explode from the screen. With films like Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or Don't Bother to Knock, one needn't go to far to get people's attention; simply showing Marilyn Monroe walk, talk, smile, or slip into something more comfortable was enough. In essence, these newsreels and trailers enable viewers of today to witness exactly the same thing that audiences did in the postwar era. As if that wasn't enough, this DVD set also includes 24 of Marilyn's finest vocal numbers as well as a gallery of movie posters and stills. All in all, it's an incredibly satisfying collector's piece that showcases Miss Monroe's enduring power as a symbol of the eternal feminine. - Director:
- Not Available
- Cast:
- Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller, Joe DiMaggio
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So many historic events made the 1950s a decade to remember. Here, in over 10 hours of programming, you can remember history in motion. The beginning of the decade sees Dior instated as king of the catwalks, shocking the world with his new length skirt, Prince Rainier acceding the throne of Monaco and the de Havilland comet setting the standard for jet airliners. Join Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart on holiday in Venice and Princess Margaret celebrating her 21st birthday. Experience the mourning of 2 nations: Argentina for their first lady Eva Peron and Britain for King George VI. Experience the splendour and ceremony of Queen Elizabeths coronation and the triumph of England winning back The Ashes after 20 years. Enjoy the 100th anniversary of the Varsity Boat Race, Donald Campbell smashing the world water speed record and then the landspeed record in 'Bluebird'. Towards the end of the decade, relive the excitement of John Wayne winning an Oscar, the height of Maria Callas' fame and the millionth citizen arriving in Australia. Enjoy these and many more prominent events of the 50s. History in motion - commemorative and informative - the perfect gift for yourself or for someone close to you. - Director:
- Not Available
- Cast:
- Prince Rainier, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart
- Formats:
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The Courier (2020)Ironbark
In this true-life cold war spy thriller, unossuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes entangled in one of the greatest international conflicts in history. Recruited by MI6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne forms a covert partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), and both men risk everything in a danger-fraught race against time to provide the intelligence needed to prevent nuclear confrontation and end the Cuban Missile Crisis. - Director:
- Dominic Cooke
- Cast:
- Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Ninidze, Rachel Brosnahan
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Diane Keaton stars as Carol Lipton, a bored Manhattan housewife who becomes convinced that her next-door neighbour has committed a murder. When her sceptical husband Larry (Woody Allen) rejects the idea, Carol turns to a flirtatious friend (Alan Alda) to help her search for clues. And as their enthusiasm for the case grows, so does their interest in each other. Spurred on by jealousy - and by a seductive writer (Anjelica Huston) who's also excited by the mystery - Larry reluctantly joins the chase, only to learn that much more than his marriage is at stake. A comic romp bursting with wry one-liners and inspired sight gags. - Director:
- Woody Allen
- Cast:
- Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Jerry Adler
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An illuminating and spectacular six-part odyssey tracing the development of Western civilisation - from the first cities of Mesopotamia to the fall of the Roman Empire. Academic and archaeologist Richard Miles travels through the Middle East, Egypt, Pakistan and the Mediterranean to discover how the mainstays of our society - community, democracy, commerce and technology - were forged and fought over in a series of classical cultures. Ancient Worlds tells the amazing stories of disappeared, ruined and modern cities - from Ancient Iraq to Augustan Rome, and from Phoenicia and the city states of Greece to today's Damascus - and reveals the compromise, ruthlessness, sacrifice and toil that made each city work. In an epic sweep of history against a panorama of stunning locations, Richard Miles, with the help of local experts and archaeologists, brings these legendary civilisations back to life to show how the successes and failures of the ancients shaped the world that we have inherited. - Director:
- Tim Dunn
- Cast:
- Richard Miles, Julie Berry, Vittorio Colombo
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The sensational 'discovery' of Hitler's diaries and subsequent realisation that they were forged caused a world-wide scandal in 1983. Alastair Reid's tongue-in-cheek five-part dramatisation, based on Robert Harris' best-selling novel, exposes the machinations that led to Stern magazine's announcement of the scoop of the century; the ensuing bidding war for serialisation rights, acrimony among the eminent historians who were taken in and, finally, the diaries' exposure as an elaborate hoax. - Director:
- Alastair Reid
- Cast:
- Jonathan Pryce, Alexei Sayle, Alison Doody
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Ray Winkler (Woody Allen) is an ex-con with big dreams and an inability to hold down dishwashing jobs. His wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullman), is a sardonic manicurist who reins Ray in, attempting to keep him grounded in reality. So when Ray comes to Frenchy with a half-baked plan to rob a bank, she's dead set against it: no way is she giving up their life savings so he can work with three dimwitted guys in a harebrained scheme. Yet Ray, with his neurotic charm, wins her over and even convinces her to run the front for their operation: a cookie store. Soon enough, their get-rich-quick scheme to rob a bank leaves them rolling in dough-but not the kind they had in mind. - Director:
- Woody Allen
- Cast:
- Woody Allen, Tracey Ullman, Hugh Grant
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What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930's and 40's and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for 'Snow White' and 'Catwoman' and a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII. Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life - from her beginnings as an Austrian-Jewish emigre to her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film 'Ecstasy' to her glittering Hollywood life to her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions - 'Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story' brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day. - Director:
- Alexandra Dean
- Cast:
- Nino Amareno, Charles Amirkhanian, Jeanine Basinger
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Man with a Movie Camera (1929)Chelovek s kinoapparatom
Voted the greatest documentary of all time in the 2014 'Sight and Sound' poll, Vertov's groundbreaking 'Man with a Movie Camera' uses an array of dazzling cinematic techniques to record the people of the city at work and at play, and the machines that keep the city going. Presented with Michael Nyman's celebrated score, this classic film is accompanied by an exciting selection of new extras, including Vertov's 'Three Songs of Lenin' and two of his radical mid-1920s documentary films, both of which feature equally radical new soundtracks by electronic experimentalists Mordant Music. - Director:
- Dziga Vertov
- Cast:
- Mikhail Kaufman
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Michael Palin travels the world in the footsteps of the great adventurer and writer. One hundred years after the birth of Ernest Hemingway, Palin follows his footsteps through the streets of Paris and lagoons of Venice to the snows of Kilimanjaro and bustle of Chicago. Evading bulls in Pamplona and pursuing marlin in Havana, his energetic attempts to match Hemingway's adventures don't always go to plan, but we do get to witness a journey brimful of humour and excitement - Director:
- David F. Turnbull
- Cast:
- Michael Palin
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In the early 1930s, Soviet propaganda films profoundly influenced the emerging luminaries of the British documentary film movement, shaping their ideas about film as an art form. In this specially curated edition, Viktor Turin's 1929 classic about the building of the Turkestan-Siberian railway, 'Turksib', is presented alongside a number of key British documentaries - including the celebrated 'Night Mail' - all of which were made in the wake of 'Turksib' by filmmakers whose debt to the film is very much in evidence. - Director:
- Victor A. Turin
- Cast:
- Arthur Clark, John Grierson, Stuart Legg
- Formats:
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Founded in 1929, British Movietone was the first sound newsreel service in Britain, shooting on 35 mm film. Hungry for news from the various war fronts during World War II, people flocked to cinemas to see as many news reports as they could. Despite a shortage in film supplies, British Movietone News covered the home front and all the theatres of war: from the Western Front and Occupied Paris, to Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. For the very first time, many of these new reels have been remastered and brought together for this special Collector's Edition - some unseen since the war. Sometimes heroic, sometimes sad, and sometimes hilarious; this collection is a testament of British spirit and humour that will delight both those who lived through the war and younger generations learning about this major event in British history. - - Director:
- Various
- Cast:
- Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, George Formby
- Formats:
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