Alexander Granach
Also Known As: Aleksandr Granakh , Александр Гранах, Schaje Granoch
Biography: 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.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Werbowitz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Verbivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine]
Adult: No
Birthday: April 18, 1890
Age: 135 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: March 14, 1945
Popularity:
Known For:
Nosferatu
Overview: The mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen. After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok's servant, Knock, prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
Genres: Horror Fantasy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1922-02-16
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Ninotchka
Overview: A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-23
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Hangmen Also Die!
Overview: During 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.
Genres: Drama Thriller War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-04-15
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A Man's a Man
Overview: About a civilian who is press-ganged into a machine-gunner's squadron and transformed into the perfect soldier.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-12-31
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Voice in the Wind
Overview: Former concert pianist, victim of Nazi torture, pursues a confused, melancholic existence on the island of Guadalupe.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-03-03
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Kameradschaft
Overview: At 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.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-11-17
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Joan of Paris
Overview: An 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.
Genres: Romance War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-01-20
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Warning Shadows
Overview: During 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?
Genres: Thriller Fantasy Drama Horror
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-10-16
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The Seventh Cross
Overview: In 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.
Genres: Drama Thriller War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-07-24
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Nosferatu: The First Vampire
Overview: The horror classic, Nosferatu, remastered with a soundtrack by Type-O Negative and hosted by David Carradine.
Genres: Horror Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-03-15
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Half Way to Shanghai
Overview: A murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.
Genres: Adventure Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-09-18
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Earth Spirit
Overview: When the old, wealthy Doctor Schön takes Lulu under his wing, he has no idea that she will be his certain death. Young and beautiful, Lulu is endowed with tremendous erotic charisma that utterly enchants any man in her reach. Although Schön sees disaster approaching, he cannot let go of her. (Stumfilm.dk)
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-02-22
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Three Russian Girls
Overview: Another of a wartime cycle of Hollywood films lauding the praises of America's Soviet allies, Three Russian Girls is a remake of Russia's The Girl From Stalingrad. Set just after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the film stars Anna Sten as Natasha, a Red Cross volunteer who is dispatched to a field hospital located in an old pre-revolution mansion. American test pilot John Hill (Kent Smith), who'd been in Russia on a goodwill mission, is wounded in battle and brought to the hospital. As he slowly recovers from his wounds, Hill falls in love with Natasha. A last-act crisis develops when the hospital personnel are forced to move immediately to Leningrad as the Nazis advance.
Genres: Comedy War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-12-30
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Danton
Overview: This pre-WW II German costume drama chronicles the French Revolution with a particular focus upon Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. It depicts the dramatic downfall and execution of Georges Danton in 1794 at the hands of Maximilien Robespierre. The film also presents an interesting, if not historically inaccurate, portrayal of Louis XVI.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-01-21
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Lucrezia Borgia
Overview: Rodrigo 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.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1922-10-20
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1914
Overview: The film focuses on the leadership of the Great Powers of Europe in the days leading up to the outbreak of the First World War.
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-01-20
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Overview: Paris, 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.
Genres: Drama Romance Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-12-29
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Freie Fahrt
Overview: The struggels of the German proletariat over the course of several centuries. Propaganda film by the Social Democratic Party.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1928-12-07
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The Theft of the Mona Lisa
Overview: This German crime drama was based on a true story. Willy Forst stars as a poverty-stricken Italian glazier who falls in love with French hotel maid Rosa Valletti. Struck by the girl's resemblance to Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Forst manages to steal the painting from the Louvre in hopes of impressing his sweetheart. But when the girl proves to be a fickle sort, the crestfallen hero confesses his crime and is carted off to jail. Unwilling to admit that he'd been led astray by a woman, Forst claims that he stole the Mona Lisa to restore it to his native Italy, and as a result is hailed as a national hero! Raub der Mona Lisa was distributed in the U.S. by RKO Radio, under the title The Theft of the Mona Lisa.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-08-24
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The Adjutant of the Czar
Overview: Drama of plot and intrigue in Imperial Russia.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1929-02-12
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The Twelfth Hour
Overview: A version of Nosferatu to which sound was added. Some scenes were left out and new ones were added including a different ending. Additionally all the characters names were changed.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-05-16
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Gypsies
Overview: A Soviet agent tries to win over a band of gypsies to a happy life on a farm co-op.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1936-07-29
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My Buddy
Overview: A priest relates the tale of his friend, a WWI veteran, to the Post-War Planning Committee. Unable to get a job upon his return from the war, he puts off his marriage and works for a bootlegger. He is forced to take a rap for his boss, goes to prison, and forms a gang.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-10-12
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
Overview: Spain 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.
Genres: War Romance History Drama Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-07-12
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Foreign Correspondent
Overview: American 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.
Genres: Thriller Mystery Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-08-16
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Der Kampf
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1936-09-10
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Die berühmte Frau
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1927-10-29
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Flucht in die Fremdenlegion
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1929-06-29
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Northwest Rangers
Overview: Boyhood friends grow up into different professions: one a dedicated Canadian Mountie, the other a notorious gambler.
Genres: Drama Western Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-10-28
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So Ends Our Night
Overview: An anti-Nazi on the run and a young Jewish couple race across Europe trying to escape Hitler's ever powerful influence.
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-02-27
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Pavement Butterfly
Overview: In this, her second silent film with Eichberg, Wong plays Princess Butterfly, an exotic Parisian fan dancer whose “death leap through a circle of naked swords” act goes tragically wrong. Blamed for the impalement of a fellow performer, she runs away and takes shelter with a handsome but starving painter who she brings luck.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1929-04-09
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Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1928-01-19
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Die Radio Heirat
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1924-03-05
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Svengali
Overview: The hypnotist Svengali makes an artist's model sing, but cannot force her love.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1927-09-06
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Das letzte Fort
Overview:
Genres: Drama Adventure
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1929-07-08
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Man by the Roadside
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-06-11
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I.N.R.I. – A Film of Humanity
Overview: From 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.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-12-24
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Wrecking Crew
Overview: Follows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a building. Touches on the lives of several of the crew in their lives away from the job and shows rhe comraderie of the crew in their work and even away from work.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-11-07
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Qualen der Nacht
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1926-04-23
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Paganini
Overview: Historical film about Italian musician Niccolo Paganini.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-03-31
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Ein Weib, ein Tier, ein Diamant
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1923-11-01
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Mission to Moscow
Overview: Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to the US as an advocate of socialism.
Genres: War Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-04-29
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Navarro the Dancer
Overview: The dancer Navarro has lost her husband and son. With her daughter at her side, she returns to her homeland and comes under suspicion of spying when she gets into a relationship with a business friend of her deceased husband. This film is considered lost.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-04-02
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Accident
Overview: A tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1928-11-06
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Camera obscura
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1921-04-23
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A Man Betrayed
Overview: Bucolic lawyer John Wayne takes on big-city corruption in A Man Betrayed. He sets out to prove that an above-suspicion politician (Edward Ellis) is actually a crook. The price of integrity is sweet in this instance, since Wayne happens to be in love with the politician's daughter (Frances Dee).
Genres: Drama Crime Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-03-07
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