Alexander Granach
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.
Nosferatu
as KnockThe mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the...
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
as Soldier (uncredited)Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the...
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
as PacoSpain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil...
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Ninotchka
as Comrade KopalskiA stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who...
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Foreign Correspondent
as Hotel Valet (uncredited)American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover...
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Hangmen Also Die!
as Gestapo Insp. Alois GruberDuring the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot,...
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Comradeship
as KasperThe picture tells of a mine disaster where German miners rescue French miners from an undergound...
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Mission to Moscow
as Russian Air Force Officer (uncredited)Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns...
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The Seventh Cross
as ZillichIn Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up...
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So Ends Our Night
as The PoleAn anti-Nazi on the run and a young Jewish couple race across Europe trying to escape Hitler's...
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Half Way to Shanghai
as Mr. NikolasA murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.
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Nosferatu: The First Vampire
as Knock - ein HäusermaklerThe horror classic, Nosferatu, remastered with a soundtrack by Type-O Negative and hosted by...
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Joan of Paris
as Gestapo AgentAn RAF squadron is brought down over occupied France. The flyers get to Paris in spite of the...
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A Man Betrayed
as T. AmatoBucolic lawyer John Wayne takes on big-city corruption in A Man Betrayed. He sets out to prove...
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Wrecking Crew
as Joe PoskaFollows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a...
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Warning Shadows
as ShadowplayerDuring a dinner given by a wealthy baron and his wife, attended by four of her suitors in a 19th...
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I.N.R.I. – A Film of Humanity
as Judas IschariotFrom the director of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this is the Passion embedded in a contemporary...
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Voice in the Wind
as AngeloFormer concert pianist, victim of Nazi torture, pursues a confused, melancholic existence on the...
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A Man's a Man
as uncreditedAbout a civilian who is press-ganged into a machine-gunner's squadron and transformed into the...
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Three Russian Girls
as Major BraginskiAnother of a wartime cycle of Hollywood films lauding the praises of America's Soviet allies,...
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Lucrezia Borgia
as ein GefangenerRodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, has three adult children: Juan, who is virtuous and has a...
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Pavement Butterfly
as CocoIn this, her second silent film with Eichberg, Wong plays Princess Butterfly, an exotic Parisian...
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Danton
as MaratThis pre-WW II German costume drama chronicles the French Revolution with a particular focus...
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Gypsies
as DaniloA Soviet agent tries to win over a band of gypsies to a happy life on a farm co-op.
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The Theft of the Mona Lisa
as RednerThis German crime drama was based on a true story. Willy Forst stars as a poverty-stricken...
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1914
as Jaurès' FriendThe film focuses on the leadership of the Great Powers of Europe in the days leading up to the...
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Paganini
as FerucchioHistorical film about Italian musician Niccolo Paganini.
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Accident
as uncreditedA tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.
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Northwest Rangers
as Pierre - Man in CasinoBoyhood friends grow up into different professions: one a dedicated Canadian Mountie, the other...
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Navarro the Dancer
as CleggThe dancer Navarro has lost her husband and son. With her daughter at her side, she returns to...
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My Buddy
as Tim ObertaA priest relates the tale of his friend, a WWI veteran, to the Post-War Planning Committee....
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Earth Spirit
as SchigolchWhen the old, wealthy Doctor Schön takes Lulu under his wing, he has no idea that she will be...
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The Adjutant of the Czar
as StrangerDrama of plot and intrigue in Imperial Russia.
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Svengali
as Geiger GeckoThe hypnotist Svengali makes an artist's model sing, but cannot force her love.
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The Twelfth Hour
as KarstenA version of Nosferatu to which sound was added. Some scenes were left out and new ones were...
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