Escape (1940 film)

Escape

Lobby card
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 Norma Shearer
Robert Taylor
Conrad Veidt
Alla Nazimova
Music by Franz Waxman
Cinematography Robert H. Planck
Edited by George Boemler
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
 November 1, 1940
Running time
 98 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,205,000[1][2]
Box office $1,357,000 (Domestic earnings)[1]
$1,007,000 (Foreign earnings)[1]

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 Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt and Alla Nazimova. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Grace Zaring Stone.

Plot

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 son Mark Preysing (Robert Taylor), an American citizen, 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. Knowing about his health problems, she taunts him with her love of Mark, which provokes him into having a heart attack, giving her new friends time to escape.

Cast

Box Office

According to MGM records the film earned $2,364,000 at the box office resulting in a profit of $345,000.[2]

External links

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Glancy, H. Mark "When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood 'British' Film 1939-1945" (Manchester University Press, 1999)
  2. 1 2 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
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