Which film remake is next? Eddie Brandt knows

Of L.A.'s handful of well-regarded independent video-rental shops, Eddie Brandt's trumps its competitors in terms of inventory.

The L-shaped store, tucked into a windowless former graphics studio, stocks 66,000 DVD and VHS movies, most of which are displayed horizontally on floor-to-ceiling shelves to save space. (National chains like Blockbuster, in contrast, average 10,000 DVD and VHS copies at a time.) Its roster of 44,000 clients includes the director Quentin Tarantino, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, actors Carol Kane and Jimmy Smits, and every major film studio from Disney to Universal.

Mr. Tarantino, who sends the staff a lavish basket of baked goods every Christmas, has been renting kung fu movies and old "Ironside" episodes from the Brandts for more than a decade. He even thanks Eddie Brandt's in the end credits of his latest film, "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," which draws from spaghetti westerns, Sonny Chiba martial-arts classics, and other hard-to-find films the store stocks.

Eddie Brandt, the store's eponymous founder, still shows up for work regularly, but he leaves the day-to-day responsibilities to wife Claire, whom he met when they both worked as animators at Hanna-Barbera Productions in the 1950s, and their son, Donovan.

Their collection began with a box of old movie stills that they sold for a dime each out of a former thrift store. They added Beta-format videos in 1976 and starting prowling swap meets and garage sales for hard-to-find titles. In 1998, the store moved to its current location in an industrial section of North Hollywood. It's a one-story house with a mural of a drive-in theater facing the parking lot.

None of Eddie Brandt's customers seems to mind the narrow aisles and scuffed linoleum floors. They line up to check out in front of a plywood counter plastered with movie posters from "The Bank Dick" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Clerks toss the empty video boxes into a plastic laundry basket that sits next to a couple of badminton rackets.

"It's mecca," says Brian Currie, a screenwriter who came to Eddie Brandt's in search of an out-of-print film with a plot that matches a screenplay he is writing. "Not only did they have the movie I wanted, but [the staff] came up with another movie with a similar theme," he says. Clutching two VHS tapes to his chest, Mr. Currie declined to name the movies, citing the nascent stage of his screenwriting project.

Back inside the store, Donovan Brandt nods knowingly at Currie's hesitation to discuss his project. "We get that a lot," he says, chalking it up to the competitive nature of the entertainment industry.

Mr. Brandt's own taste in movies leans toward westerns from the 1940s and 1950s, science-fiction epics, and "just about anything but musicals." Ask him to recommend a good comedy and he'll point you in the direction of "Champagne for Caesar," a 1950 send-up of quiz shows starring Ronald Colman and Vincent Price.

"Let's face it," he sighs. "All the best films were made before 1963."

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