This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're into a new year, and the blogathon is continuing with a new set of themes. Some of them have, I think, been done before. I could swear, for example, that we've done this week's theme of "Escape" before.
It was easy enough to come up with movies that fit the theme, but I wanted to make certain that my selections were ones I hadn't used recently. Fortunately, I haven't used any of them recently, and possibly at all:
Escape (1940). Robert Taylor plays an American son of German immigrants. His mom (Alla Nazimova) went back to the old country to sell the family estate, but she had the bad luck of going back to Nazi Germany, so she got caught up in the political situation and wound up in a concentration camp (remember, the Nazis put political prisoners in concentration camps before coming up with the Final Solution of killing all the Jews). Norma Shearer plays a widowed American-born countess who tries to help Taylor as much as she can.
Man on a Tightrope (1953). Fredric March plays the head of a family-run circus troupe in Communist Czechoslovakia. The Communists took over everything when they took power in 1948, including circuses. March eventually decides he's going to escape with the circus to West Germany, via a daring plan of "performing" for the border guards, and performing all the way across the border. But there might be a traitor in the troupe.
Escape From Alcatraz (1979). Clint Eastwood plays Frank Morris, a man imprisoned at Alcatraz after spending time in a bunch of other federal prisons. He sets about plotting an escape, and eventually tries to carry it out with two other prisoners. This one is actually based on a true story; Morris and the other two were never found, leading to the question of whether they drowned in San Francisco Bay or whether they actually escaped.
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3 comments:
Alcatraz is one that I've had on my list for a bit but have never gotten to it. I haven't seen any of your picks this week.
Man on a Tightrope is a fine film that really should be better known. You certainly can't beat the cast.
Escape from Alcatraz is one of the better Eastwood action films.
We match! Love Escape! Taylor is overearnest but I think this is one of Norma's best performances. She tamped down the theatricality that for me mars much of her earlier work. Both Conrad Veidt and Nazimova are strong and the story is a good one.
I stuck with three with the same title.
Escape (1940) American Mark Preysing (Robert Taylor) arrives in Nazi Germany searching for his mother, one time stage star Emmy Ritter (Nazimova) a German native who has gone missing. Discovering she has been arrested, interned in a concentration camp and scheduled for execution on trumped up charges he turns to a sympathetic American expatriate Countess Ruby von Treck (Norma Shearer) to formulate a plan and attempt an escape.
Escape (1948) Matt Denant (Rex Harrison), newly released from the Air Corps after the war’s end, is wrongly convicted of a crime and sentenced to be imprisoned for three years. Managing to escape he takes flight, at times literally, and with the help of local girl Dora Winton (Peggy Cummins) he attempts to flee his unjust punishment. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Escape (aka The McKenzie Break) (1970) In a remote northern Scotland POW camp German submarine Capitan Willi Schlüter (Helmut Griem) challenges the authority of the camp’s Commanding Officer, Major Perry (Ian Hendry) leading to major conflicts. British Army Captain Jack Connor (Brian Keith) arrives to investigate what he believes to be escape attempts. While he looks into matters Schlüter leads an escape party through a hidden tunnel and the chase is on!
I need to see your first 2 pics because I love the themes involving escape from Nazi Germany or escaping the communist regime.My grandfather was sent to a nazi concentration camp and then when the communists took over East Germany he was sent to the Gulags. When he was released in 1950, my family knew it was only a matter of time before he would be sent back so my mom helped him escape into West Germany. We match with escape from Alcatraz and i watched a show last October where the investigative reporter came up with a very plausible theory that they did make it and ended up in South America (I think they went there but can't recall which part).
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