Escape (1940 film)

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Escape
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Produced by Mervyn LeRoy
Lawrence Weingarten (uncredited)
Written by Arch Oboler
Marguerite Roberts
Grace Zaring Stone (novel) (as Ethel Vance)
Starring Robert Taylor
Norma Shearer
Conrad Veidt
Alla Nazimova
Release date(s) November 1, 1940
Running time 98 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
IMDb profile

Escape is a 1940 drama film about an American in pre-World War II Nazi Germany who discovers his mother is in a concentration camp and tries desperately to free her. It starred Robert Taylor, Norma Shearer, Conrad Veidt and Alla Nazimova.

[edit] Plot summary

Famous German stage actress Emmy Ritter (Alla Nazimova) is held in a Nazi concentration camp. She is scheduled to be executed soon, but the sympathetic camp doctor, Ditten (Philip Dorn), has been a fan since childhood and offers to deliver a letter from her to her children...afterwards.

Emmy's American citizen son Mark Preysing (Robert Taylor) travels to Germany in search of his mother, but nobody, not even frightened old family friends, want anything to do with him. A German official tells Mark that she has been arrested and advises him to return to the United States.

The postmark of a returned letter guides Mark to the region where she is being held. There, he meets by chance Countess Ruby von Treck (Norma Shearer), an American-born widow, but she also does not want to become involved, at least at first. Then, she asks her lover, General Kurt von Kolb (Conrad Veidt), about Emmy and learns that she has been judged a traitor in a secret trial and sentenced to death.

At a concert, Mark encounters Doctor Ditten, who takes the opportunity to deliver Emmy's letter. Then, Ditten drugs Emmy into a coma, making it appear as if she has died. He tells Mark what he has done. Mark sends longtime family servant Fritz Keller (Felix Bressart) to collect the coffin, but the American's nervousness raises the suspicion of the political police and he is brought to the camp for questioning. Fortunately, he is allowed to take his mother's body away.

When the road is blocked by snow, Mark is forced to find heat and shelter for his mother at the house of the Countess. The next day, he meets von Kolb, who is jealous of the younger man. Later, when Mark and a disguised Emmy leave for the airport, Von Kolb guesses what is happening (from Mark's earlier lack of reaction to the news of his mother's "death") and confronts the Countess. She begs him not to interfere, but he is implacable. She finally resorts to provoking him into having a heart attack, buying enough time for her new friends to escape.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links


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Films Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Little Caesar (1931) • Five Star Final (1931) • Tonight or Never (1931) • Two Seconds (1932) • Three on a Match (1932) • I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) • Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) • Tugboat Annie (1933) • The World Changes (1933) • Anthony Adverse (1936) • Waterloo Bridge (1940) • Escape (1940) • Blossoms in the Dust (1941) • Random Harvest (1942) • Madame Curie (1943) • Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) • The House I Live In (1945) • Without Reservations (1946) • Little Women (1949) • Quo Vadis (1951) • Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) • Mister Roberts (1955) • The Bad Seed (1956) • Toward the Unknown (1956) • No Time for Sergeants (1958) • The FBI Story (1959) • A Majority of One (1961) • Gypsy (1962)