Alexander Granach
Actor · 1890 – 1945 · Werbowitz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Verbivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alexander Granach (April 18, 1890 – March 14, 1945) was a popular German actor in the 1920s and 1930s who immigrated to the United States in 1938. Granach was born Jessaja Gronach in Werbowitz (Wierzbowce/Werbiwci) (Horodenka district, Austrian Galicia then, now Verbivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine), to Jewish parents and rose to theatrical prominence at the Volksbühne in Berlin. Granach entered films in 1922; among the most widely exhibited of his silent efforts was the vampire classic Nosferatu (1922), in which the actor was cast as Knock, the lunatic counterpart to Renfield, effectively a substitute name for Dracula. He co-starred in such major early German talkies as Kameradschaft (1931). The Jewish Granach fled to the Soviet Union when Hitler came to power. When the Soviet Union also proved inhospitable, he settled in Hollywood, where he made his first American film appearance as Kopalski in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Granach proved indispensable to film makers during the war years, effectively portraying both dedicated Nazis (he was Julius Streicher in The Hitler Gang, 1944) and loyal anti-fascists. Perhaps his best role was as Gestapo Inspector Alois Gruber in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1943). His last film appearance was in MGM's The Seventh Cross (1944), in which almost the entire supporting cast was prominent European refugees.
Movies23
Movie7.7HorrorFantasyThe mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
Movie7.3DramaRomanceParis, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1939 · 227 votes
Movie7.5ComedyRomanceA stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Ninotchka
1939 · 450 votes
Movie7.0ThrillerMysteryAmerican crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.
Foreign Correspondent
1940 · 463 votes
Movie6.5WarRomanceSpain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
1943 · 216 votes
Movie6.9DramaThrillerDuring the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.
Hangmen Also Die!
1943 · 143 votes
Movie6.8DramaWarIn Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up seven crosses and, as the Gestapo returns each escapee he is put to death on a cross. The seventh cross is still empty as George Heisler attempts an escape to freedom in Holland.
The Seventh Cross
1944 · 43 votes
Movie6.5CrimeDramaA tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.
Movie6.3WarDramaAn anti-Nazi refugee on the run and a young Jewish couple race across Europe trying to escape Hitler's ever powerful influence.
So Ends Our Night
1941 · 13 votes
Movie5.7WarDramaAmbassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to the US as an advocate of socialism.
Mission to Moscow
1943 · 21 votes
Movie7.0Camera obscura
1921 · 1 votes
Movie6.5HistoryDramaAt the height of Reign of Terror Maximilien Robespierre orchestrates the trial and execution of several of his fellow leading French revolutionaries including Georges Danton.
Danton
1921 · 4 votes
Movie7.0DramaAt a mine on the shared edge of France and Germany, an underground explosion leads to the entrapment of a group of French miners. In an effort to save the trapped Frenchmen, German miners Wittkopp and Kasper take it upon themselves to traverse a crumbling war tunnel leading down into the mines. Yet, though the workers harbor no political biases against one another, their callous, less tolerant bosses hope to halt this cross-cultural rescue mission.
Movie6.5RomanceWarAn RAF squadron is brought down over occupied France. The flyers get to Paris in spite of the fact that the youngest, Baby, is injured. He must be hidden and his wounds cared for. The Gestapo has already issued orders for their arrest.
Joan of Paris
1942 · 13 votes
Movie5.5DramaCrimeA bucolic lawyer takes on big-city corruption, setting out to prove that an above-suspicion politician is actually a crook - all while falling in love with the politician's daughter.
A Man Betrayed
1941 · 14 votes
Movie6.0AdventureMysteryA murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.
Half Way to Shanghai
1942 · 3 votes
Movie5.1Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, has three adult children: Juan, who is virtuous and has a sweetheart who is a woman of the people, Lucrezia, who is virtuous and wants to marry Alfonso, and Cesare, who is wicked and lusts after Lucrezia, Juan's girlfriend, and probably others. Cesare has vowed to kill any suitor for Lucrezia's love, and he has three thugs to carry out his wishes. Bodies fall into the Tiber, into the Colosseum (with lions prowling), and onto the Vatican floors.
Lucrezia Borgia
1922 · 8 votes
Movie6.6ThrillerFantasyDuring a dinner given by a wealthy baron and his wife, attended by four of her suitors in a 19th century German manor, a shadow-player rescues the marriage by giving all the guests a vision what might happen tonight if the baron stays jealous and the suitors do not reduce their advances towards his beautiful wife. Or was it a vision?
Movie6.3DramaWarThe Hitler Gang adopts the style of a gangster film as it charts Adolf Hitler’s rise from small-time politico to dictator of Germany.
The Hitler Gang
1944 · 10 votes
Movie6.3DramaA painter working at the Louvre is struck by the Mona Lisa. When he meets a girl whom he believes bears a resemblance to the painting, and who wants him to become famous, he comes up with the idea of stealing the painting. Based on the real-life theft of 1911.
Movie8.0DramaThe hypnotist Svengali makes an artist's model sing, but cannot force her love.
Svengali
1927 · 1 votes
Movie7.0Historical film about Italian musician Niccolo Paganini.
Paganini
1923 · 1 votes
Movie5.6DramaHistoryFrom the director of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this is the Passion embedded in a contemporary story. An anarchist jailed for an attempted assassination is told the Passion story by the prison chaplain.