All of TVGuide.com Videos Only

Escape

1940, Movie, NR, 104 mins

Escape: Review

Taylor is an American traveling to Germany to locate his mother Nazimova, a once-famous stage actress who had returned to the Fatherland to sell her late husband's estate. He befriends Shearer, a German-American who runs a girl's finishing school and who is having an affair with Veidt, a German general prone to dizzy spells. Taylor learns that his mother is in a concentration camp, condemned to death for the capital crime of attempting to smuggle money out of the country. Shearer finds herself falling in love with the charming American and decides to help him, introducing him to Dorn, the anti-Nazi doctor in the concentration camp where Nazimova resides. Dorn gives Nazimova a drug that induces a death-like state, and her body is released to Taylor. As mother and son near the border, a snowstorm cuts off their escape, so Taylor takes the comatose Nazimova to Shearer's remote mountain estate. Shearer is moved by their plight and deceives Veidt who arrives moments after Taylor and Nazimova get aboard a plane. He learns of the plan and tries to warn officials but is struck down by another spell, and Shearer makes certain that the plane is not stopped. ESCAPE is packed with suspense, and Shearer, Taylor and Veidt give arresting, restrained performances, although the scripters were certainly not fully aware of the real nature of Hitler's concentration camps when writing the story. Shearer fans think she gave one of her best efforts in ESCAPE, one of the first anti-Nazi films from MGM. Hitler banned the film from Germany. He threatened to ban all MGM films if another movie depicted the Fatherland in such critical light. MGM next produced the anti-Nazi film THE MORTAL STORM, and the ban was put into effect. The great silent film star Nazimova returned to the screen in a powerful performance in this, her debut in talking pictures. Interestingly, the actress was at the zenith of her career in 1917-18 when performing in anti-German films during WW I, notably WAR BRIDES. This also represented the return to U.S. cinema of distinguished actor Veidt, who had appeared in a quartet of American films in the late 1920s (including the 1928 feature THE MAN WHO LAUGHS) but was better known for his 20-year career in European films, beginning as the sonambulist in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. LeRoy's direction is tightly constructed and fluid and all the technical personnel perform well. leave a comment