mcg's - Rented List

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Embittered ex-cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley) enlists ruthless killer Earle Slater (Robert Ryan, The Dirty Dozen) and gambling musician Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) to rob an upstate New York bank.

Trouble unfolds however when, fuelled by racist hatred, Earle clashes with Johnny and the planned heist spirals into chaos, leading to a violent climactic confrontation With its exceptional jazz score, acerbic social commentary and atmospheric visual style, 'Odds Against Tomorrow' is a high point in the film noir canon, and one of the most important films of its era to address racism.

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Charles Bubbles (Albert Finney) is a famous writer from a bleak industrial town. His divorced wife (Billie Whitelaw) and son live on a farm he bought for them near his home town while he lives in a London townhouse, detached from reality.

Wretched in his wealth, Charlie stumbles through life drunk, debauched and dull, until he decides to go home again to revisit his ex-wife and child in the North.

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Chicago Morning Post editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is about to lose his ace reporter and former wife Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) to Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy).

Then a late breaking story involving the impending execution of an anarchist who escapes and is hidden from the police by the former husband and wife throws the pair together once again.

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Three Brothers (Tre Fratelli) explores similarly knotty social and political territory through the seemingly straightforward story of three siblings returning to their native southern Italy to pay homage to their late mother.

However, their various professions - a judge in Rome (Philippe Noiret), a spiritual counsellor in Naples (Vittorio Mezzogiorno), a factory worker in Turin (Michele Placido) - have a profound effect on their response to this reunion.

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Based on John Steinbeck's novel and directed by Elia Kazan, 'East of Eden' is the first of three major films that make up James Dean's movie legacy.

The 24-year-old idol-to-be plays Cal, a wayward Salinas Valley youth who vies for the affection of his hardened father (Raymond Massey) with his favoured brother Aron (Richard Davalos).

Deanie (Natalie Wood) is a teenager eager to do what's right in her 1920s Kansas town. But the emotions she shares with boyfriend Bud (Warren Beatty) are too strong. Soon the conflict between respectable behavior and human desire will push Bud to physical collapse. And Deanie to madness.

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Written by Bunuel and his regular writing partner Jean-Claude Carriere, the film charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), a woman who comes to work in the Normandy estate occupied by Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne), his daughter (Francoise Lugagne), and the daughter's husband, the right

wing Monsieur Montiel (Michel Piccoli). Celestine quickly learns that M. Rabour is a more or less harmless boot fetishist, his daughter a frigid woman more concerned with the family furnishings than in returning the affections of her husband, who, in turn, can't keep his hands off the servants. Celestine picks her way through this minefield carefully, spurning the advances of all of the men until it's convenient for her.

When private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is visited by an old friend, this sets in train a series of events in which he's hired to search for a missing novelist (Sterling Hayden) and finds himself on the wrong side of vicious gangsters.

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Miner Frank Machin (Richard Harris) lodges with a widow, Mrs. Hammond (Rachel Roberts). His competitive nature and powerful physique lead him to join the local rugby team and, as his career progresses, so too his brutal nature distances him from those around him.

Success - and perhaps a new sense of insecurity - seems to make Frank harsher and cruder...

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From the celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky comes his most autobiographical work and one that is regarded by many as his magnum opus.

Reflecting upon his own childhood and the destiny of the Russian people, 'Mirror' is a sublime expression of memory, imagination, thoughts and dreams intertwined with real life and family relationships. A transcendent, inspired and multilayered masterpiece that continues to grow in stature, 'Mirror' has an exceptional resonance and rewards countless viewings.

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How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) the answer is: any way he can! His climb to wealth and privilege is the enthralling focus of this sumptuous Stanley Kubrick version of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel.

For this ravishing, slyly satiric winner of four Academy Awards, Kubrick found inspiration in the works of the era's painters. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era's designs and pioneering lenses were developed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. The result? Barry Lyndon endures as a cutting-edge movie that brings a historical period to vivid screen life like no other film before or since.

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1947. A young man, Gaspard Claude (Marc Michel), is convicted for the attempted murder of his wife, although he is innocent of the crime. He is sent to the notorious Sante Prison in Paris and is placed in a cell with four hardened criminals.

The latter have decided to escape from the prison by digging their way out of their cell. Reluctantly, they take Gaspard into their confidence and labour digging their way out of their cell. Then, just when escape appears certain, Gaspard is called away to see the prison governor...

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The film tells the tale of shady pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) who steals a wallet belonging to Candy (Jean Peters) who, unbeknownst to her, is carrying microfilm containing government secrets.

Anxious to recover the film, Joey, Candy's ex-lover and the man using her as courier, convinces her to find the thief.

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When an unremarkable stand-up comedian finds himself on the wrong side of the mafia he flees Detroit for Chicago and takes on the new name 'Mickey One' (Warren Beatty), a name picked up from a stolen social security card.

In Chicago Mickey lies low, living a rough life in a rough part of the city in an attempt to avoid being hunted down by the mafia. Despite these fears, Mickey eventually finds himself drawn to the stage once again, but knowing any level of publicity will likely lead the mafia straight to him, just how long can he continue to evade capture?

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Made under the Franco regime, Victor Erice's astonishing 1973 feature debut is quite simply one of the most remarkable, influential and purely poignant films to emerge from the 1970's. A bona-fide classic of European cinema, the film brought Erice instant and widespread acclaim.

An audacious critique of the disastrous legacy of the Spanish Civil War, The Spirit of the Beehive is set in a rural 1940's Spanish village haunted by betrayal and regret. Following a travelling cinema's screening of James Whale's Frankenstein, seven year-old Ana (the mesmerising Ana Torrent, later to grow into an international star of some standing) becomes fascinated with Boris Karloff's monster. Obsessed with meeting the initially gentle creation, she transfers her entrancement to tending a wounded army deserter. Atmospherically rendered by legendary Director of Photography Luis Cuadrado, it's impeccably performed by both Torrent and veteran actor Fernando Fernan Gomez in the role of her emotionally scarred, bee-keeping father. Existing in a highly evocative dreamlike state, it's a powerfully symbolic, richly allegorical tale that is as unique as it is beautiful.