sjj's - Rented List

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Gregory Peck stars in this gripping retelling of the beloved Old Testament story. Although he has killed Goliath and prevailed in countless battles, there is one force that Israel's King David cannot vanquish: love.

Smitten with the beautiful Bathsheba David sends her soldier husband, Uriah into a hopeless battle, setting into motion his own downward spiral. Neglecting his kingdom and faith, David incurs the wrath of God, the destruction of his country and the ill will of his people, who expect Bathsheba to pay the ultimate price for adultery. Gorgeously filmed, rapturously acted and deeply moving, David and Bathsheba's tale of romantic obsession is as beautiful as it is timeless.

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MLK/FBI is the first film to uncover the extent of the FBI's surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Based on newly discovered and declassified files, utilizing a trove of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and unsealed by the National Archives, as well as revelatory restored footage, the documentary explores the government's history of targeting Black activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. Featuring interviews with key cultural figures including former FBI Director James Comey and directed by Emmy Award-winner and Oscar-nominee Sam Pollard, 'MLK/FBI' tells this astonishing and tragic story with searing relevance to our current moment.

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A woodcutter experiences a horrific series of events - an ambush, rape and murder.

In the telling of the tale however, each of the four participants give different views of what actually happened - is any of them telling the truth? Kurosawa's masterful film plays on the subjective nature of truth while unfurling a riveting tale of violence and greed.

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This trio of classic 1930's horror films - 'Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Black Cat', and 'The Raven' is also distinguished by a trio of factors regarding their production. Most notably, each film is based on a work by master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe.

Part of the legendary wave of horror films made by Universal Pictures in the 30's, all three feature dynamic performances from Dracula's Bela Lugosi, with two of them also enlivened by the appearance of Frankenstein's Boris Karloff. And finally, all three benefit from being rare examples of Pre-Code studio horror, their sometimes-startling depictions of sadism and shock a result of being crafted during that brief period in Hollywood before the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code's rigid guidelines for moral content. Director Robert Florey, who gave the Marx Brothers their cinema start with 'The Cocoanuts' in 1929, worked with Metropolis cinematographer Karl Freund to give a German Expressionism look to 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' (1932), with Lugosi as a mad scientist running a twisted carnival sideshow in 19th-century Paris, and murdering women to find a mate for his talking ape main attraction. Lugosi and Karloff teamed forces for the first time in 'The Black Cat', a nightmarish psychodrama that became Universal's biggest hit of 1934, with Detour director Edgar G. Ulmer bringing a feverish flair to the tale of a satanic, necrophiliac architect (Karloff) locked in battle with an old friend (Lugosi) in search of his family. Prolific B-movie director Lew Landers made 1935's 'The Raven' so grotesque that all American horror films were banned in the U.K. for two years in its wake. Specifically referencing Poe within its story, Lugosi is a plastic surgeon obsessed with the writer, who tortures fleeing murderer Karloff through monstrous medical means. Significant and still unsettling early works of American studio horror filmmaking, these three Pre-Code chillers demonstrate the enduring power of Poe's work, and the equally continuous appeal of classic Universal horror's two most iconic stars.

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Brutalized by poverty, gentle blacksmith Marcus (Preston Foster) turns to the arena in Pompeii and becomes a gladiator. The more men he kills, the more bitter and cynical he becomes. After his gladiatorial career ends he takes up slaving, and fighting as a mercenary in the far off land of Judea.

It is in Judea that he is fated to meet a great man - a man later crucified by his friend Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone) on a lonely hill outside Jerusalem. Before his life is through, Marcus will see his adored son (John Wood) turn to the forbidden teachings of that man, realise the true horror and cruelty of the Roman arena - and witness the terrible destruction of the city of Pompeii as Vesuvius erupts in its full, unrestrained fury...

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In 1975, in an America defined by both the self-mythologizing pomp of the upcoming bicentennial and ongoing socio-political turmoil, Bob Dylan and a band of troubadours - including luminaries such as Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and Joni Mitchell - embarked on a now-legendary tour known as the

'Rolling Thunder Revue', a freewheeling variety show that was part travelling counterculture carnival, part spiritual pilgrimage. Director Martin Scorsese blends behind-the-scenes archival footage, interviews, and narrative mischief, with a magician's sleight of hand, into a zeitgeist-defining cultural record that is as much a concert "documentary" as it is a slippery, chimerical investigation into memory, time, truth, and illusion. At the center of it all is the magnetic Dylan, a sphinxlike philosopher-poet singing, with electrifying conviction, to the soul of an anxious nation.

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Triple bill of American classics.

It Happened in Hollywood (1937)
While hospitalized young Billy (Bill Burrud) meets his silent movie idol Tim Bart (Richard Dix) but then the talkies came, destroying Bart's career. Now Bart must convince his young friend he is still a star.

Adventure in Sahara (1938)
Agadez is a lonely French outpost baking under the desert sun and commanded by the cruel and oppressive Captain Savatt (C. Henry Gordon). To it comes, at his own request, Legionnaire Jim Wilson (Paul Kelly) soon followed by his fiancée, Carla Preston (Lorna Gray), who has been tracing him from post to post. Legionnaires seize the fort and turn Savitt loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization. But Savitt gets through and returns to the fort at the head of an avenging troop of men. But Arabs surround Savitt and his men, and the mutineers, knowing that to leave the fort and aid them means their own death...
Power of the Press (1943)
During WWII, the publisher of the isolationist New York Gazette is murdered just as he was about to change the paper's policy and support the US war effort. His friend, a small town patriotic editor, is brought in to find the culprits.

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The Secret Garden, tells the story of Mary Lennox, a 10 year old girl sent to live with her uncle Archibald Craven, under the watchful eye of Mrs Medlock with only the household maid, Martha for company.

The film is set in 1940's England at Misselthwaite Manor, a remote country estate deep in the Yorkshire moors. Mary begins to uncover many family secrets, particularly after chancing upon her cousin Colin (Edan Hayhurst), who has been shut away unwell in a wing of the house. Whist exploring the grounds of the Misselthwaite Manor, Mary discovers a wondrous garden and meets a local boy Dickon (Amir Wilson), who helps her fix stray dog Hector's injured leg using the garden's restorative powers. The three children adventure deep into the mysteries of the garden a magical place that will change their lives forever.

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Though his people, the Israelites, are enslaved by the Philistines, Samson (Victor Mature), strongest man of the tribe of Dan, falls in love with the Philistine Semadar (Angela Lansbury), whom he wins by virtue of a contest of strength.

But Semadar betrays him, and Samson engages in a fight with her real love, Ahtur (Henry Wilcoxon), and his soldiers. Semadar is killed, and her sister Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), who had loved Samson in silence, now vows vengeance against him. She plans to seduce Samson into revealing the secret of his strength and then to betray him to the Philistine leader, the Saran (George Sanders).

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Bitter hatred divides two brothers. Prince Einar (Kirk Douglas) is the son and heir of a savage Viking chieftain. Prince Eric (Tony Curtis) is his unknowing half-brother, the bastard offspring of Einar's father and an English queen.

When the Vikings kidnap a princess (Janet Leigh), her beauty inflames the desires of both men, forcing a bloody duel that decides their fate...and the future of the English throne.

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Rome burns. Nero (Peter Ustinov) fiddles. Christianity rises.

Featuring 110 speaking parts, 30,000 participants and a filmed-on-location panoply of marching legions, magisterial pageantry and massive spectacle that includes the martyrdom of Christians thrown to the lions before cheering Coliseum throngs. Robert Taylor plays the Legion commander whose love for a Christian slave girll crosses the divide between Empire and a sect with a higher loyalty. Presiding over all is Nero. He is Caesar, madman, murderer - an imperial ruler of the spectacular, and spectacularly doomed, glory that was Rome.

When Prince John (Claude Rains) and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.

Drawn from the same events that later inspired 'Gladiator', the film charts the power-hungry greed and father-son betrayal that led to Rome's collapse at the bloody hands of the Barbarians.

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"Echo in the Canyon" celebrates the explosion of popular music that came out of LA's Laurel Canyon in the mid-60's as folk went electric and The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and The Mamas and the Papas gave birth to the California Sound.

Featuring Jakob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Beck and Norah Jones, the film explores the beginnings of the Laurel Canyon music scene. Dylan uncovers never-before-heard personal details behind the bands and their songs and how that music continues to inspire today.

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Wealthy Rollo Treadway (Buster Keaton) suddenly decides to propose to his neighbour across the street, Betsy O'Brien (Kathryn McGuire), and sends his servant to book passage for a honeymoon sea cruise to Honolulu.

When Betsy rejects his sudden offer however, he decides to go on the trip anyway, boarding without delay that night. Because the pier number is partially covered, he ends up on the wrong ship, the Navigator, which Betsy's rich father has just sold to a small country at war.