ryan-the-american's - Rented List

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Having just served a prison term for possession of heroin, poker dealer Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) vows to stay clean and find success as a jazz drummer. His wife (Eleanor Parker), left disabled by a car crash, is equally determined he should remain in the lucrative gambling business.

Pressurised by his wife after being asked to deal in a high-stakes game, Frankie's fear of failure leads him straight back to the nearest fix...

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Overworked true crime magazine editor George Stroud (Ray Milland) has been planning a vacation for months.

However, when his boss, the tyrannical media tycoon Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), insists he skips his hols, Stroud resigns in disgust before embarking on an impromptu drunken night out with his boss's mistress, Pauline York (Rita Johnson). When Janoth kills Pauline in a fit of rage, Stroud finds himself to have been the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time: his staff have been tasked with finding a suspect with an all too familiar description...Stroud's very own!

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Paris, August 1944. With the allied army closing in, German commander and art fanatic Colonel Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) steals a vast collection of rare French paintings and loads them onto a train bound for Berlin.

But when a beloved French patriot is murdered while trying to sabotage Von Waldheim's scheme, Labiche (Burt Lancaster), a stalwart member of the Resistance, vows to stop the train at any cost. Calling upon his vast arsenal of skills, Labiche unleashes a torrent of devastation and destruction - loosened rails, shattered tracks and head-on collisions - in an impassioned, suspense-filled quest for justice, retribution and revenge.

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"Giant" is a movie of huge scale and grandeur in which three generations of land-rich Texans love, swagger, connive and clash in a saga of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly rich oil tycoons.

It's also one of the most beloved works of director George Stevens, who won an Academy Award for this film, one of 10 Oscar nominations the film earned.

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The Best Picture of 1945 has lost none of its bite or power in this uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism.

Ironically, this brilliant Billy Wilder film was almost never released because of poor reaction by preview audiences unaccustomed to such stark realism from Hollywood, but the film has since gone on to be regarded as one of the all-time great dramas in movie history. Ray Milland's haunting portrayal of would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a self-destructive three-day binge.

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Bogie's on the run and Bacall's at his side in Delmer Daves' stylish film-noir thriller that's the third of four films Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together. Bogart is Vincent Parry, a prison escapee framed for murder who emerges from plastic surgery with a new face.

Bacall is Irene Jansen, his lone ally. In sharp support, Agnes Moorehead plays a venomous harpy finding pleasure in the unhappiness of others. The leads' chemistry is undeniable, augmented here with exceptional tenderness. Exceptional too are San Francisco locations and creative camerawork that shows Vincent's point of view - but not his face - until bandages are removed. Lest Irene get ideas, post-surgery Vincent tells her: "Don't change yours. I like it just as it is". So do we.

Following the accidental death of her daughter's lowlife boyfriend, respectable mother Lucia Harper instinctively hides the body to protect her family. Before long a stranger calls, sent by his partner to blackmail her. The comfort and security of Lucia's world appears to be in danger of collapsing.

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After his release from the asylum, to celebrate his return to the real world, Neale (Ray Milland) visits a local carnival, only to accidentally receive the "prize" of a cake which was meant for a Nazi agent.

When he discovers the error, he turns for help to a detective, whose investigations only serve to make the situation more complicated. Neale soon winds up on the run from both the Nazis and the police, who mistakenly believe him guilty of murder. He is led to Scotland Yard, where his fate entwines further with a Nazi front organization, and an unlikely love affair.

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Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day.

Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers - all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson. Presented here in the most complete form possible and restored to its original early-Technicolor glory, 'King of Jazz' offers a fascinating snapshot of the way mainstream American popular culture viewed itself at the dawn of the 1930's.

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The Glass Key is based on the popular Dashiell Hammett novel. The Glass Key follows the story of Paul Madvig - a cone-corrupt politician who's decided to give up his past and join forces with Ralph Henry, a respectable candidate in an upcoming election.

However, Madvig's crooked history is hard to forget when he finds himself at the centre of a murder plot. In this early collaboration between Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, unforgettable performances and masterful directing by Stuart Heislen make this a truly classic film noir.

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The war is over. Nobody won. Only the inhabitants of Australia and the men of the U.S. submarine Sawfish have escaped the nuclear destruction.

Captain Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) takes the Sawfish on a mission to see if an approaching radiation cloud has weakened, but returns with grim news: the cloud is lethal. With the days and hours dwindling, each person confronts the grim situation in his or her own way as the final chapter of human history is coming to a close...

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"Why do you make me do it?" New York cop Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) asks the hoodlum he's about to smash senseless. Jim has seen it all on the city's shadowy streets: killers, thugs, pimps, sadists. And the experience has cost him his soul.

Ironically, his redemption may come in his next case, a brutal murder that brings him into the open sky and white light of the countryside...and into the arms of a beautiful blind woman.

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Divorced and disillusioned, Roslyn Tabor (Marilyn Monroe) befriends a group of "misfits", including an ageing cowboy (Clark Gable), a heartbroken mechanic (Eli Wallach) and a worn-out rodeo rider (Montgomery Clift).

Through their live-for-the-moment lifestyle, Roslyn experiences her first taste of freedom, exhilaration and passion. But when her innocent idealism clashes with their hard-edged practicality, Roslyn must risk losing their friendship... and the only true love she's ever known.

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This sizzling screen version of Bizet's opera Carmen, updated for an all-black cast, stars Dorothy Dandridge, whose vibrant performance resulted in the first Oscar nomination for a black actress.

She stars in the title role as a passionate sexy creature who lures handsome Gl Joe (Harry Belafonte) away from his sweetheart (Olga James) Following a brawl with his sergeant, Joe deserts his regiment with the sultry femme fatale. Carmen soon tires of him and takes up with a heavyweight prize-fighter (Joe Adams), triggering Joe's tragic revenge.

Ruined aristocrat John Barry more. Terminally ill clerk Lionel Barrymore. Ruthless tycoon Wallace Beery. Scheming stenographer Joan Crawford. And disillusioned ballerina Greta Garbo. Teaming them was a masterstroke whose success fostered more star-packed extravaganzas.