bob's - Rented List
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Stage Fright (1950)Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright
Jane Wyman plays drama student Eve Gill, who tries to clear a friend (Richard Todd) being framed for murder by becoming the maid of flamboyant stage star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich). Filming in his native England, Hitchcock merrily juggles elements of humour and whodunit and puts a game ensemble (Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Joyce Grenfell, Kay Walsh and daughter Patricia Hitchcock) through its paces. No one turns a theatre into a bastion of dread like Hitchcock and 'Stage Fright' is proof positive. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd
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Rams (2015)Hrútar
In a secluded valley in Iceland, brothers Gummi and Kiddi live side by side, tending to their prized ancestral sheep. But a long-term grudge means that they haven't spoken to each other for four decades, passing messages via the sheep dog. When a lethal ovine disease suddenly appears in the valley, the authorities move in to cull all of the livestock. But Gummi and Kiddi don't give up easily and each brother tries to stave off the disaster in his own fashion: Kiddi by using his rifle, and Gummi by using his wits. As the authorities close in the brothers will need to come together to save the sheep - and themselves - from extinction. - Director:
- Grímur Hákonarson
- Cast:
- Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte Bøving
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In 1939, the editor of the New York Daily Globe sends Haverstock, a crime reporter, into Europe in the hope of getting a fresh angle. Naive and wholly ignorant of international affairs, Haverstock launches himself eagerly onto the London scene, where he meets and falls in love with Carol Fisher (Laraine Day), whose father heads an important peace organisation. Before long, Haverstock witnesses the assassination of a Dutch diplomat at terrifying close hand. Hot on the trail of the killer, he soon finds himself deeply embroiled in the evil workings of an international spy ring. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, George Sanders
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The Secret Hero (2012)The Secret Hero - Suskind - A True Story of Courage from the Holocaust / Süskind
Amsterdam, summer 1942. Walter Süskind (Jeroen Spitzenberger) can count himself lucky that he's found a job with the Jewish Council, which offers him and his family protection from deportation to Germany. One night, Walter witnesses the arrest of a Jewish family. The couple's children Roosje (Madelief Blank) and Simon (Ralph Moerman) manage to escape, but how will they survive in the occupied city? It is Süskind's task to arrange for the Jewish detainees to be sent to work in Germany. However, when he discovers the truth that it is the death camps waiting for his fellow Jews, he decides to double-cross the Germans. As a part of his new plan, he befriends a high-ranking SS officer, Aus der Fünten (Karl Markovics) and also gains the support and cooperation of the underground movement. With other co-conspirators, he devises cunning ways to help save many children from certain death. Many of his own people see him as a Nazi collaborator unaware of the huge risk he faces. The lives of Walter, his wife Hanna (Nyncke Beekhuyzen) and child are now endangered when the SS officer begins to suspect that Walter is not the trustworthy manager he seems to be. The SS officer has become attached to Walter and prefers to believe that Walter is really his friend. However, when his superiors convince him that Süskind is the brains behind this operation, the German officer explodes and feeling betrayed, he plans to take revenge on Süskind and his family. Can Süskind find a way to protect himself, his wife and daughter and escape the wrath of the SS Officer. An incredible true story of courage. - Director:
- Rudolf van den Berg
- Cast:
- Jeroen Spitzenberger, Karl Markovics, Nyncke Beekhuyzen
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As WWII enters its final stage, the US army sends two German prisoners in to the enemy to collect vital information. It is a mission wrought with potential dangers. Despite being almost on its knees, the German army refuses to admit defeat, and the Gestapo is as efficient and ruthless as ever in identifying and dealing with spies. In addition, the two chosen men are loose cannons; Tiger' appears willing to do anything if the price is right, and 'Happy', a world-weary soldier, has his own loyalties which he may not be able to keep secret. It is on these uncertain shoulders that the weight of the mission and the future of the war rests. Can they be trusted to discover the whereabouts of the formidable German unit moving towards the Western front? - Director:
- Anatole Litvak
- Cast:
- Richard Basehart, Gary Merrill, Oskar Werner
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Norman Wisdom is an assistant bank manager who lives the routine humdrum life of taking his work home with him, working as he eats meals, kissing his children goodnight on the cheek, his wife goodnight on her forehead and, next morning, work. On his way to a bankers' conference in Southport, he meets hippy-happy Sally Geeson. The brief interlude is over almost before it began, but it gives the man a new look on life, the chance of a better understanding with his wife and even a fresh approach to... his work. - Director:
- Menahem Golan
- Cast:
- Norman Wisdom, Sally Geeson, Sarah Atkinson
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The Traitor (1957)The Accused
It's a post wartime story of French resistance and a traitor; Anton Diffring is excellent as a concert pianist rather than his usual nasty Nazi and Christopher Lee is very good without his cape and fangs! Mr Wolfit gives a typical Wolfit turn but most interesting is perhaps the director Michael McCarthy, who also wrote the screenplay and passed away in 1959 at the tender age of 42 and seemed well set to go on to bigger and better things. - Director:
- Michael McCarthy
- Cast:
- Donald Wolfit, Robert Bray, Jane Griffiths
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It's more than 40 years since their classic crime capers in The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich and It's Not Cricket. The gentleman-sleuth duo may be retired but they still leap at the chance to investigate a new murder mystery. Caldicott (Michael Aldridge) lives in splendid luxury at Viceroy Court, Marylebone, while Charters (Robin Bailey) resides in leafy Reigate - and as ever they meet at their posh Pall Mall club. When the body of an old friend's daughter is found in Caldicott's flat, the pair forgo their regular Friday lunch to solve the crime. The mystery deepens, though, when Charters receives a phone call from the supposedly dead girl! Over the six entertaining episodes the plot thickens as the case is linked to a cargo of gold on a sunken German WWII U-Boat. And from there the excitement builds to a thrilling climax at Lords Cricket Ground - both on and off the pitch! - Director:
- Julian Amyes
- Cast:
- Robin Bailey, Michael Aldridge, Caroline Blakiston
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Double bill of British crime thrillers from the 1950s.
The Blue Parrot (1953)Suspense and romance erupt when a nightclub becomes the scene of a murder, and its owner and her American boyfriend the prime suspects. Classic crime thriller set against the postwar backdrop of spivs, black-marketeers, pawnbrokers and raincoat detectives.
Burnt Evidence (1954)
Duncan Lamont plays Jane Hylton's jealous husband. In a confrontation, Lamont accidentally shoots Hylton's lover. Convinced that he's a murderer, he heads for the hills as a police hunt begins...- Director:
- John Harlow
- Cast:
- Dermot Walsh, Jacqueline Hill, Ballard Berkeley
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As a little girl, Michelle Payne (Teresa Palmer) dreams of the impossible: winning the Melbourne Cup - horse racing's toughest two-mile race. The youngest of 10 children, Michelle is raised by single father Paddy (Sam Neill). She leaves school at 15 to become a jockey and after early failures she finds her feet, but a family tragedy, followed by her own near fatal horse fall, all but ends the dream. But with the love of her dad and her brother Stevie (Stevie Payne), Michelle will not give up. Against all the medical advice, and the protests of her siblings, she rides on, and meets Prince of Penzance. Together they overcome impossible odds for a shot at the dream: a ride in the 2015 Melbourne Cup, at odds of 100 to 1. The rest is history. - Director:
- Rachel Griffiths
- Cast:
- Teresa Palmer, Sam Neill, Sullivan Stapleton
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When gorgeous young French model Ann-Marie (Penny Irving) appears naked in public, she is snatched away by her new boyfriend, Mark E. Desade (Robert Tayman) and hurled into the secret women's prison run by his parents - a disgraced prison governess (Barbara Markham) and a blind, senile judge (Patrick Barr). Now she and her fellow inmates face the starkest of choices - submit or die. But Ann-Marie gambles everything on a third option - escape... - Director:
- Pete Walker
- Cast:
- Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks
- Formats:
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An American Pickle (2020)In a Pickle
Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen), a struggling laborer who immigrates to America in 1919, falls into a vat of pickles at his factory job and is preserved in brine for 100 years. He emerges in present-day Brooklyn to find that he hasn't aged a day. But when he seeks out his family, he learns that his only surviving relative is his great-grandson, Ben Greenbaum (also played by Rogen), a mild-mannered computer coder whom Herschel can't even begin to understand. - Director:
- Brandon Trost
- Cast:
- Seth Rogen, Sarah Snook, Molly Evensen
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Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) is a middle-aged professor at Oxford University. Stifled by his life of marriage and academia, he yearns for an affair with his beautiful and enigmatic student Anna (Jacqueline Sassard). He is locked into a battle for Anna's affection against her fiance, William (Michael York), whose youthful vitality he envies, and with his friend and academic rival Charley (Stanley Baker), whose media profile and sexual success he covets. - Director:
- Joseph Losey
- Cast:
- Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Jacqueline Sassard
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Relocated due to increasing danger in their southern European homeland, sisters Maria (Valentina Cortese) and Nora (Audrey Hepburn) settle in London - with Maria leaving Louis (Serge Reggiani), the young man she loves, to carry on the fight. In a chance meeting several years later Louis plays on Maria's love for him to involve her in a plot to bomb the man responsible for her father's death - a plot that doesn't go to plan. - Director:
- Thorold Dickinson
- Cast:
- Valentina Cortese, Serge Reggiani, Charles Goldner
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A later collaboration between James Mason and Carol Reed, 'The Man Between' is often considered a companion piece to The Third Man thanks to its atmospheric portrayal of a city struggling to survive in a grim post-war reality of poverty and mistrust The action is transposed to a divided Berlin, and to the beginning of the Cold War. Unlike the devilish Harry Lime, Mason's world-weary dealer Ivo Kern is ultimately still a decent man, compelled by his love for a naive schoolteacher (Claire Bloom) to make one last misguided trip through the Brandenburg Gate, with potentially tragic consequences. - Director:
- Carol Reed
- Cast:
- James Mason, Claire Bloom, Hildegard Knef
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