trh's - Rented List

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Carole Lombard co-stars with Frederic March, in one of her most delightful movie outings and her only feature in colour. The hilarious screenplay by Ben Hecht and James H. Street has her cast as Hazel Flagg, a small town girl who mistakenly believes that she is dying of radium poisoning.

March plays a newspaper reporter who, in the best tradition of yellow journalism, talks his editor into bringing her to New York for one last fling.

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Josephine Norris (Olivia de Havilland) volunteers for a fire watch with Lord Desham (Ronald Culver) on the rooftops of London during the Blitz. When Lord Desham is nearly killed during the air raid, the ageing pair reminisce over the lost loves of their youth.

Josephine recalls her first and only love affair with World War I fighter pilot Captain Bart Cosgrove (John Lund). Their whirlwind romance during a fundraising tour for the American war effort lasts only a few days, but when Captain Cosgrove returns to the front, Josephine finds herself pregnant with an illegitimate child in an American backwater town. When she learns of Captain Cosgrove's death in action Josephine realises that she can never marry the father of her child, so she decides to contrive an adoption of the child to herself. But fate plays its own hand...

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When career thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets glamorous pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), their love soon takes on a professional dimension as they initiate a plot to rob beautiful perfume magnate Mariette Colet (Kay Francis).

But as Gaston gets ever closer to his intended prey, his romantic confusion, as well as the threat that his past will catch up with him, throws their plan into jeopardy.

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John J. Bramble (Franchot Tone), the sole survivor of a British tank crew, makes his way to a desolate town where he is given refuge by a hotel owner (Akim Tamiroff) and a French chambermaid (Anne Baxter) as they prepare to receive General Erwin Rommel (Erich Von Stroheim) and his German staff.

Posing as a hotel waiter, Bramble attempts to infiltrate Rommel's inner circle and report their battle plans to the Allies...

When a small-town idealist Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) goes to New York to collect a $20 million inheritance, he finds romance with wisecracking journalist Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur), becomes the target of ruthless businessmen and relatives, and finally decides to give his fortune away because it's so much trouble.

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As Joan (Sylvia Sidney) excitedly awaits the release of her thrice-convicted criminal lover Eddie (Henry Fonda), she has little idea of the tragic consequences that lie in front of them.

Once released, Eddie struggles against a society that refuses to give ex-cons a second chance and before long they are on the run, condemning themselves to an early demise.

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Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt, and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor, the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the Bulletin's readers and the wider American public.

Its real author, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) who has fabricated the letter in her final column, is rehired, and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional "John Doe." Gary Cooper is perfectly cast as Long John Willoughby, an injured and penniless former baseball pitcher lured into impersonating "John Doe" with the promise of medical treatment. In what would have undoubtedly been an Oscar winning performance, were it not for his own success that same year in Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York," Cooper excels himself here as Willoughby's initial indifference to his undertaking turns to genuine concern at his role. But, as he becomes an increasingly culpable pawn in an ever more treacherous game, just how can "John Doe" redeem himself?

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From the inimitable Billy Wilder (Double Indemnify, The Lost Weekend) comes this classic comedy that mixes romance with hard-boiled wit in a story about stiff-necked Iowa congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Jean Arthur -Shane) mired in jaded postwar Berlin.

As she investigates the morale of American troops, Phoebe is cynically wooed by fellow Iowan Captain John Pringle (John Lund), who is trying to cover up his affair with Nazi-tainted chanteuse Erika von Schlutow (Marlene Dietrich). Filled with sharp dialogue and satiric jabs, 'A Foreign Affair' is one of Wilder's most beloved comedies...

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James Cagney is C.R. "Mac" MacNamara, a top soft drinks executive shipped off to (then West) Berlin and told to keep an eye on his boss' 17-year-old Atlanta socialite daughter Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin) while she visits Germany.

Scarlett's tour seems endless, and Mac discovers she's fallen for a (then East) Berlin communist agitator and the young couple are bound for Moscow! Mac has to bust up the burgeoning romance before his boss learns the truth, all the while dealing with his wife Phyllis (Arlene Francis) and her own impatience with German living.

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Olivia de Havilland stars in a dual role as twin sisters - one of whom has committed a murder. Since each twin can provide an alibi for the other, a rumpled detective (Thomas Mitchell) and a handsome shrink (Lew Ayres) are compelled to get to the truth, a task not made easy by the siblings.

At first the duo seem physically and emotionally similar but soon subtle nuances begin to differentiate their personalities. In a tour-de-force performance De Havilland's fine acting peels away the layers of emotionalism that define each sister's character traits.

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In one of the most powerhouse performances in American screen-acting, the great Kirk Douglas stars as Chuck Tatum, a newspaper reporter who stumbles upon a potentially career-making story in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

When Tatum begins to influence the story's outcome, a descent begins that finds more than one man caught between a rock and a hard place. An electric narrative that stands as one of Wilder's tautest and most (melo)dramatic plots (penned with Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman), 'Ace in the Hole' plays today as both a prescient examination of the modern media landscape, and the public appetite for the disastrous news-story that leads to toxic wish-fulfillment.

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In early 18th-century England, a frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne, and her closest friend, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), governs the country while tending to Anne's ill health and volatile temper.

When new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, Sarah takes Abigail under her wing as she cunningly schemes to return to her aristocratic roots, setting off an outrageous rivalry to become the Queen's favourite.

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The year is 1959. A young boy, Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius), is obsessed by two things - his namesake fighting for the World Heavyweight boxing title and the fate of Laika, the dog sent in to space by Russia.

As his mother's health deteriorates and she no longer has the strength to cope with him, Ingemar is sent to stay with relatives in the country, much like Laika's journey into the unknown.

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After a successful shoplifting spree, Osamu (Lily Franky) and his son rescue a little girl in the freezing cold and invite her home with them. Osamu's wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) reluctantly agrees to shelter her.

Although the family is poor, they live happily together until an unforeseen incident upsets the delicate balance they have created, revealing long-buried secrets...

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When Babette (Stéphane Audran), a beautiful and mysterious French refugee, arrives in a remote Danish town the tight-knit, puritanical community begrudgingly let her in, providing her with shelter and work.

But after the town patriarch passes away and Babette insists on preparing a feast in his honor, a magical world of sensory revelations is thrown open to the villagers, changing their lives forever...