mcg's - Rented List
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Le Trou (1960)The Night Watch / The Hole
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... - Director:
- Jacques Becker
- Cast:
- André Bervil, Jean Keraudy, Michel Constantin
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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. - Director:
- Samuel Fuller
- Cast:
- Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter
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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? - Director:
- Arthur Penn
- Cast:
- Warren Beatty, Aram Avakian, Alexandra Stewart
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Spirit of the Beehive (1973)El Espiritu De La Colmena
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. - Director:
- Víctor Erice
- Cast:
- Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent
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The Sacrifice (1986)Offret
During the final hours before a nuclear war threatens to wipe out humanity, Alexander, surrounded by his family and friends as they descend into fear and turmoil, makes a deal with God: he will sacrifice all he holds dear to avoid the impending apocalypse. Tarkovsky's final film, 'The Sacrifice' is a visually breathtaking meditation on existential terror and a melancholic swansong from one of cinema's true auteurs. - Director:
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Cast:
- Erland Josephson, Tintin Anderzon, Helena Brodin
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Leslie Caron (Gigi) was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of Jane, a young pregnant French girl who moves to a seedy boarding house in London for a new start. Beautiful and withdrawn, Jane slowly gets to know the other residents of the house who, like her, are social outsiders in their own way. As she falls into a relationship with Toby (Tom Bell) a struggling young writer who lives on the first floor, and befriends Johnny (Brock Peters) a black jazz musician, Jane finds a new reason to five. She considers getting an abortion, but is unhappy with this solution. Eventually she comes to like her odd L-Shaped room, but still faces two problems: what to do with her baby, and what to do with Toby. - Director:
- Bryan Forbes
- Cast:
- Leslie Caron, Anthony Booth, Avis Bunnage
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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. - Director:
- Sidney Lumet
- Cast:
- James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Simone Signoret
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Amid an explosive political landscape, three young film buffs are drawn together by their shared passion for movies... and for each other! Left alone while their parents are on holiday, twins Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel) invite American exchange student Matthew (Michael Pitt) to stay with them. So begins an intense, erotic voyage of sexual discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and anything is possible! - Director:
- Bernardo Bertolucci
- Cast:
- Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel, Eva Green
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The Shop Around the Corner (1940)Shopworn Angel
Tell bickering Budapest gift-shop workers Alfred (James Stewart) and Klara (Margaret Sullavan) that they love each other and they might call you crazy. No lover can compare to the romantic, secret pen pal each knows only as Dear Friend. What Alfred and Klara don't know, of course, is that they are each other's Dear Friend. - Director:
- Ernst Lubitsch
- Cast:
- Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan
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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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Based on James Joyce's 1922 masterpiece, Leopold Bloom is Joyce's Jewish protagonist. Wandering the Dublin streets, he thinks about his dead son, his cuckolding wife, Molly, and his own impotence. During his travels he encounters a one-eyed man who taunts him with anti-Semitic remarks and a young student and poet, Stephen Dedalus. He and Dedalus go to a brothel where Bloom is beset by frightening fantasies. Afterwards the two men sit up all night talking at Bloom's house. When Dedalus leaves, Molly lies awake in bed thinking about her present and past loves, and the possibility of an affair with Dedalus... - Director:
- Joseph Strick
- Cast:
- Milo O'Shea, Barbara Jefford, Maurice Roëves
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With a screenplay adapted by Leonard Gardner from his own novel, John Huston's drama examines the meager hopes and resigned dreams of small-time boxers. In limbo between retirement and his youthful prime, alcoholic farm laborer Tully (Stacy Keach) shacks up with fellow outcast Oma (Susan Tyrrell) and keeps trying to make a boxing comeback, but his personal demons repeatedly overpower his ambitions. Meanwhile, fellow Stockton, CA resident and budding fighter Ernie (Jeff Bridges) takes Tully's advice to join trainer Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto)'s gym and make something of himself. Learning the tough lesson that winning is not as easy as it sounds, Ernie is still determined to get what he can out of boxing and, unlike Tully, not let disappointments get the best of him. - Director:
- John Huston
- Cast:
- Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell
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The Lady from Shanghai (1947)Take This Woman / Black Irish
Hired to work on a yacht belonging to the disabled husband of femme fatale Rita Hayworth, Welles plays an innocent man drawn into a dangerous web of intrigue and murder.- Director:
- Orson Welles
- Cast:
- Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane
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Nostalgia (1983)Nostalghia / Tempo di Viaggio
Tarkovsky's unforgettably haunting film, his first to be made outside Russia, explores the melancholy of the expatriate through the film's protagonist, Gorchakov, a Russian poet researching in Italy. Arriving at a Tuscan village spa with Eugenia, his beautiful Italian interpreter, Gorchakov is visited by memories of Russia and of his wife and children, and he encounters the local mystic, who sets him a challenging task. The film is filled with a series of mysterious and extraordinary images, all of which coalesce into a miraculous whole in the film's final shot. As in all Tarkovsky's films, nature, the elements of fire and water, music, painting and poetry all play a major role. - Director:
- Tonino Guerra
- Cast:
- Oleg Yankovskiy, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano
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Tortured by thoughts that her husband Jake (Peter Finch) may be having an affair Jo Annitage (Anne Bancroft) has a nervous breakdown in Harrods and her life begins to crumble all about her. But is her husband's infidelity really to blame? Or does Jo have deeper, more complex problems? Why does she have so main children - and is her seemingly perfect life all it appears on the surface? - Director:
- Jack Clayton
- Cast:
- Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason
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