lyn's - Rented List

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Based on a John le Carre novel and directed by Sidney Lumet, 'The Deadly Affair' is a cold war thriller centred in the world of espionage. When foreign Office official Samuel Fennan and his wife (Simone Signoret) are anonymously accused of Communist affiliations, their world is turned upside down.

Fennan is subsequently found dead from an apparent suicide, although Secret Service agent Charles Dobbs (James Mason) suspects otherwise. When Dobbs' suspicions hit a dead end with his superior officer, the veteran agent decides to resign his government post and join forces with retired CID inspector Mendel (Harry Andrews). As the two men continue their pursuit of the truth, their investigation unearths a spy ring and much more than they ever expected along the way.

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Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once again hit the Road to comedy, and this time they're really in hot water - guests of honor at a cannibal feast in the darkest heart of Africa. Hope and Crosby play Fearless and Chuck, American side-show performers stranded in the jungle.

After their human cannonball act starts a fire that burns down the circus, they become entangled with a larcenous pair of entertainers from Brooklyn (Dorothy Lamour and Una Merkel) anxious to separate them from their bankroll. Duped into accompanying the ladies on a safari, Chuck and Fearless soon find themselves in the clutches of savage tribesmen who pit Fearless against a gorilla in a wild wrestling match!

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This Bafta award-winning epic tells the tale of a society in turmoil, where money, power and corruption are the order of the day.

Set in the railway boom of the 1870's, it contains all the elements that made Trollope the most popular novelist of his day, the trials and tribulations of young love, the enduring values of honourable men. Augustus Melmotte (David Suchet), arrives in London with his wife and daughter. He appears charming and as noble as ever, but a deceitful financier lies beneath the surface. Wasting no time in frivolous activities, he charms an unwitting Paul Montague (Cillian Murphy) into investing in one of his schemes. But as Melmotte climbs the society ladder, his web of deceit captures his own daughter Marie (Shirley Henderson) and suitor Felix Carbury (Matthew Macfadyen), son of feckless novelist Lady Carbury (Cheryl Campbell).

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Hell on Wheels is the epic story of post-Civil War America, focusing on a Confederate Soldier, who sets out to exact revenge on the men who have murdered his wife.

His journey takes him west to Hell on Wheels, a dangerous and lawless town that services the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

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Roger Livesey brilliantly portrays a British officer, Clive Candy, through the trials and tribulations of three wars, three lovers and a lifelong friendship across enemy lines. During the Boer War, candy is sent to Berlin to trap a German spy.

There he befriends a German officer, Theo (Anton Walbrook), who marries the girl (Deborah Kerr) Candy is in love with. During the First World War, Candy marries a girl who resembles his lost love and helps Theo - now a POW - to get repatriated. Candy comes back in the Second World War as Brigadier General and once again encounters Theo. On joining a Home Guard exercise, Candy is captured, however, and the two are forced to either aid or betray each other.

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DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) returns, leading her diligent team of detectives as they investigate six complex and murderous crimes.

5. Vital Signs

The charred remains of local GP, Doctor Lucy Yo (Joyce Veheary), are found in the back of a burned out car that's been abandoned in a deserted quarry. Her husband states that she was called out to a patient on the evening in question but we soon discover from her colleagues at the surgery that there is no record of any patient. So who lured Doctor Yo out that night and who would want her dead?
6. The Way the Wind Blows
When the body of Lisa Millworth (Charlotte Baker) is found washed up on the shore of the River Tyne, DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) questions who would want a beloved mother, loyal friend and popular manager at a green energy company dead. With few clues to launch her inquiry, Vera soon learns that Lisa has been in the middle of a storm both professionally and personally.

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'Anno 1790' is an innovative take on the Nordic Noir crime drama genre in which the hero, Daadh, is a controversial surgeon and police commissioner who uses unconventional means to solve murder cases during the Age of Enlightenment.

It is Stockholm, 1790, and Europe is in turmoil after the French Revolution - a beacon of hope to the freethinkers across Europe, and a great threat to the reactionaries and those in power. Daadh observes the ever-changing world around him - a city where tumbledown buildings stand alongside stately manors, and whores and beggars walk the same streets as rich merchants and noble women. The murder cases and the methods of solving them differ from those of our time. But the motives stay the same: revenge, greed, love, jealousy and politics.

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A dream cast brings Anthony Trollop's Barchester novels charmingly to life in this engaging production from the golden age of Masterpiece Theatre. Featuring Alan Rickman in his breakthrough role as the odious Obadiah Slope.

The community of Barchester is shaken from its cosy complacency when a newspaper's crusade against the Church of England's practice of self-enrichment misfires. Overnight, Rev. Harding (Donald Pleasence) becomes a pawn in a battle between his younger daughter's beau, John Bold, and his older daughter's husband, Archdeacon Grantly (Nigel Hawthorne). Little do they realise that the worst is yet to come, until a regime change delivers Barchester into the hands of a most unholy trinity: the weak-willed Bishop Proudie, the domineering Mrs. Proudie, and the insufferable Rev. Obadiah Slope.

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Cheryl Campbell stars in this enriching and award-winning adaptation of Vera Brittain's autobiography, set between 1913 and 1925.

At the outbreak of the First World War, a young Vera finds herself torn between her studies at Oxford, and the decision she will take to enrol as a volunteer nurse, caring for casualties from the Front. Little does she realise that the faces passing before her will include those closest to her. Devastating in its portrayal of the impact of war on a whole generation, Testament of Youth is a passionate, powerful and personal record Vera Brittain's experiences during the First World War and serves as a moving memorial to a lost generation.

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Marking the centenary of the First World War, the internationally renowned director Peter Jackson (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies) uses the voices of the veterans combined with original archival footage to bring to life the reality of war on the front line for a whole new generation.

Footage has been colourised and transformed with modern production techniques to present never before seen detail.

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Crowds hungry for blood cheer in Paris, in 1792, as the heads of hundreds of aristocrats - men, women and children - fall under the blade of the guillotine. The French Revolution has entered its phase of terror.

A mysterious rescuer known only by his alias of The Scarlet Pimpernel, aided by a series of brilliantly effective disguises, is proving the scourge of the Revolution as he daringly snatches aristocrats from the very jaws of death under the noses of the executioners. Sir Percy Blakeney (Anthony Andrews), a foppish English gentleman, an ardent follower of fashion and leader of London society, is paying one of his many social visits to Paris when, with surprising bravery, he rescues a handsome young man, Armand St. Just (Malcolm Jamieson), from the hands of thugs. This results in his first meeting with Armand's sister, the stunningly beautiful Marguerite St. Just (Jane Seymour), Frances most celebrated actress. At one of her soirees, Sir Percy meets for the first time Paul Chauvelin (Ian McKellen). Ambitious and ruthless, he is Robespierre's Chief Agent for the Committee of National Security. Chauvelin, too, loves Marguerite and plans to marry her. He and Percy cross verbal swords with Percy emerging the victor. Robespierre audiorises Chauvelin to seek out and destroy the Pimpernel and his Agent leaves for England. To Chauvelin's fury, Sir Percy marries Marguerite and takes her back to London where she becomes the toast of society. Armand, realising die injustices of the Revolution, has meanwhile learned the identity of his brother-in-law and, although Chauvelin's assistant, secredy joins forces with the Pimpernel Due to Chauvelin's evil machinations, Percy becomes estranged from his bewildered wife. Learning Armand is in league with the Pimpernel, Chauvelin blackmails Marguerite into leading him to his enemy. Still not realising the Pimpernel is her husband, she tries to help him escape. In a deserted fortress off the shores of France, Chauvelin sends Percy to face the firing squad. As he kisses Marguerite farewell, he vows to return.

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The target of a sinister plot, young Edmond Dantes (Pierre Niney) is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After fourteen years in the island prison of Château d'If, he manages a daring escape.

Now rich beyond his dreams, he assumes the identity of the Count of Monte Cristo and exacts his revenge on the three men who betrayed him.

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Directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh, 'King of Thieves' is the incredible true story of the spectacular Hatton Garden diamond heist - the biggest and most daring in British history.

The astonishing heist pulled off by a crew of retired crooks begins as a nostalgic last hurrah but quickly becomes brutal when greed and backstabbing take over.

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One man and his computer take on a ruthless multi-national conspiracy in the classic TV techno-thriller.

Henry Jay is a man without any noticeable flair - a stamp collector who expects to spend his working life in the Department of Commercial Development, earning occasional promotions and regularly catching the 6:15pm from Waterloo to his nice semi in the suburbs. But in compiling a long and boring report on "Computer Fraud in the Age of Electronic Accounting", Henry begins to uncover a vast and corrupt network of businessmen and politicians. There are, as Henry soon discovers, many reasons to ignore the matter - a rising body count, a link to British intelligence and a threat on his own life. But armed with just a computer and a civil servant's tenacity, Henry picks up the trail and pits himself against a nebulous, cold-blooded enemy.

Against all odds, a veterinary student (Robert Pattinson) and a beautiful circus performer (Reese Witherspoon) meet and fall in love, but their affair incurs the wrath of her dangerously volatile husband (Christoph Waltz).