griggs's - Rented List

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Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) is pre-occupied with the plans she is making for a high-class dinner party.

Her husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore) is in failing health, and he is also worried because someone is trying to buy up the stock in his shipping business - even his old friend Carlotta (Marie Dressler) wants to sell her stock. Hoping to get help from businessman Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), he persuades Millicent, against her wishes, to invite Packard and his wife to the dinner. As Oliver's problems get worse, Millicent is increasingly quick-tempered because the plans for the party are not going smoothly. As the time for the dinner approaches, it appears that the hosts and the guests will all have plenty on their minds.

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Times are tough for cotton miller Archie (Karl Malden), but at least he has his child bride (Carroll Baker), who'll soon be his wife in title and truth. The one-year agreement keeping them under the same roof - yet never in the same bed - is about to end.

But a game with a sly business rival (Eli Wallach) is about to begin. In 'Baby Doll', as in 'A Streetcar Named Desire', director Elia Kazan and writer Tennessee Williams broke new ground in depicting sexual situations - earning condemnation from the then-powerful Legion of Decency.

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"Mediterraneo" tells the story of a group of inept Italian soldiers who are sent to occupy a tiny, isolated Greek Island during WWII.

Initially the island appears uninhabited but when it becomes apparent that there is a small Greek population, and moreover that all the young men have gone to war, the Italians begin to view their assignment with more enthusiasm. Each in their own far-flung corner of the gentle paradise, the soldiers embark on magical and sometimes unusual love affairs, whose endurance is threatened only by the encroachment of the war raging in the seemingly distant outside world.

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Marlon Brando captures the extraordinary contradictions and complexity of a decent man who becomes a Nazi officer. 'The Young Lions' tells the story of World War II from both sides. The American, represented by Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin. And the German, made tragically vivid by Brando.

Based on the novel by Irwin Shaw, 'The Young Lions' is a provocative, insightful movie. It is also one of Brando's all-time best.

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Struggling poet Vijay (Guru Dutt) is ridiculed by his brothers and scorned by publishers. Vijay finds encouragement in a sweet prostitute Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman). One day he meets his exgirlfriend Meena (Mala Sinha) and gets hired as servant by her husband Mr.Ghosh (Rehman) who is a publisher.

In a train mishap, the beggar clad in Vijay's coat dies while Vijay gets injured. Gulabo convinces Ghosh to print Vijay's poems, believing him to be dead. After recovering from injuries, Vijay's close friends and brothers refuse to recognize him for their ulterior motives and he is confined to mental asylum for claiming to be someone who is dead. He escapes from the mental asylum and arrives at the function held to honour him. There he denounces this corrupt and hypocrite world and declares that he is not Vijay.

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Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart ride high in this superb comedic western, both a boisterous spoof and a shining example of its genre.

As the brawling, rough-and-tumble saloon singer Frenchy, Dietrich shed her exotic love-goddess image and launched a triumphant career comeback, while Stewart cemented his amiable every-man persona, in his first of many westerns, with a charming turn as a gun-abhorring deputy sheriff who uses his wits to bring law and order to the frontier town of Bottleneck. A sparkling script, a supporting cast of virtuoso character actors, and rollicking musical numbers - delivered with unmatched bravado by the magnetic Dietrich - come together to create an irresistible, oft-imitated marvel of studio-era craftsmanship.

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Shipwrecked and adrift, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) finds himself a guest on Dr.

Moreau's (Charles Laughton)'s isolated South Seas island, but quickly discovers the horrifying nature of the doctor's work and the origin of the strange forms inhabiting the isle: a colony of wild animals reworked into humanoid form via sadistic surgical experiments. Furthermore, Parker quickly begins to fear his own part in the doctor's plans to take the unholy enterprise to a next level.

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The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table receives its most impressive screen treatment in Excalibur, from visionary movie maker John Boorman.

All the elements of Sir Thomas Malory's classic 'Le Morte D'Arthur' are here: Arthur (Nigel Terry) removing the sword Excalibur from the stone; the Round Table's noble birth and tragic decline; the heroic attempts to recover the Holy Grail; and the shifting balance of power between wily wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson) and evil sorceress Morgana (Helen Mirren).

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Based on a novel by George Bernanos, 'Diary of a Country Priest' marked the first in Director Robert Bresson's so-called "prison trilogy" (followed by 'Pickpocket' and 'A Man Escaped').

The film begins with the arrival of a young, sickly priest (Claude Laydu) at the godless parish of Ambricourt in Northern France. Here he becomes drawn into the complex domestic life of a wealthy Count (Jean Riveyre), his tormented wife, his manipulative daughter and his mistress, Miss Louise (Nicole Maurey). Narrated by excerpts of the priest's diary, the film follows his efforts to awaken the villagers from their spiritual lethargy, with their struggles, suffering and triumphs representing in a microcosm those of humankind itself. Bresson's intensely personal style, minimalist approach to dialogue and music, and use of non-professional actors marked a new kind of filmmaking, which was to influence such diverse directors as Paul Schrader, Richard Linklater and Andrei Tarkovsky.

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Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), a powerful warload, has become as legendary as the motto emblazoned on his war banners. "Swift as the wind, silent as the forest, fierce as the fire, immovable as the mountain". As he lies dying from his battle wounds.

Shingen orders his clan to find a double to replace him - to keep his death secret so that his enemies will not attack. The man chosen for this role is called Kagemusha (the shadow of the warrior). However this Kagemusha turns out to be a petty criminal who must somehow transfer himself into a great leader and command allegiance of 25,000 samurai warriors.

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Beijing, 1913. In a time of violent turmoil when local tyrants vie for supremacy, three women's lives converge in the local Peking Opera house. Together they hatch a revolutionary plan to stop president Yuan Shikai from reinstating the monarchy and proclaiming himself emperor.

With the help of a righteous freedom-fighter and a disillusioned palace guard, the rebels must use all their wits and brawn to protect their democratic principles and save the emerging Chinese republic.

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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.

A widowed fisherwoman (Emma Thompson), travelling alone through snowbound northern Minnesota, interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl (Laurel Marsden). Hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realises that she is the young girl's only hope.

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Wealthy mystery novelist Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) invites lower-class hairdresser Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) to his elegant English mansion to discuss Milo's affair with Wyke's wife.

But when Andrew proposes that Milo participate in a robbery scheme to benefit them all, the two rivals find themselves locked in an increasingly devious duel of wits and deceptions. Who is the player? Who is the pawn? And in the shocking and wicked final twist, who will win the deadliest game of all?

While on a weekend getaway at a remote cabin, Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm's (Rossif Sutherland)'s romantic retreat takes a dark turn when a sinister presence unveils the cabin's chilling past.