
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.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 0.02 |
Birthday | 1890-04-18 |
Place of Birth | Werbowitz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Verbivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine] |
Also Known As | Aleksandr Granakh , Александр Гранах, Schaje Granoch, |

1922

Nosferatu
7.67/2212
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...
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Nosferatu

1939

Ninotchka
7.5/390
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
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Ninotchka

1943

Hangmen Also Die!
6.945/127
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprote...
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Hangmen Also Die!

1931

A Man's a Man
5.8/4
About a civilian who is press-ganged into a machine-gunner's squadron and transformed into the perfect soldier.
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A Man's a Man

1944

Voice in the Wind
5.2/11
Former concert pianist, victim of Nazi torture, pursues a confused, melancholic existence on the island of Guadalupe.
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Voice in the Wind

1931

Comradeship
7.053/38
The picture tells of a mine disaster where German miners rescue French miners from an undergound fire and explosion. The story takes place in the Lorr...
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Comradeship

1942

Joan of Paris
6.4/11
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 hid...
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Joan of Paris

1923

Warning Shadows
6.5/34
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 mar...
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Warning Shadows

1944

The Seventh Cross
6.7/39
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...
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The Seventh Cross

1998

Nosferatu: The First Vampire
5/10
The horror classic, Nosferatu, remastered with a soundtrack by Type-O Negative and hosted by David Carradine.
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Nosferatu: The First Vampire

1942

Half Way to Shanghai
0/1
A murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.
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Half Way to Shanghai

1923

Earth Spirit
5.5/6
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...
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Earth Spirit

1943

Three Russian Girls
0/0
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 Fro...
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Three Russian Girls

1931

Danton
5/4
This pre-WW II German costume drama chronicles the French Revolution with a particular focus upon Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. It depicts the drama...
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Danton

1922

Lucrezia Borgia
4.4/7
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...
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Lucrezia Borgia

1931

1914
0/0
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.
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1914

1939

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
7.3/196
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback...
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1928

Freie Fahrt
0/0
The struggels of the German proletariat over the course of several centuries. Propaganda film by the Social Democratic Party.
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Freie Fahrt

1931

The Theft of the Mona Lisa
5.3/3
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 Ro...
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The Theft of the Mona Lisa

1929

The Adjutant of the Czar
7.8/2
Drama of plot and intrigue in Imperial Russia.
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The Adjutant of the Czar

1930

The Twelfth Hour
0/0
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...
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The Twelfth Hour

1936

Gypsies
0/0
A Soviet agent tries to win over a band of gypsies to a happy life on a farm co-op.
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Gypsies

1944

My Buddy
0/0
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...
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My Buddy

1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls
6.5/191
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 t...
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For Whom the Bell Tolls

1940

Foreign Correspondent
6.968/395
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 a...
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Foreign Correspondent

1936

Der Kampf
5/1
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Der Kampf

1927

Die berühmte Frau
0/0
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Die berühmte Frau

1929

Flucht in die Fremdenlegion
0/0
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Flucht in die Fremdenlegion

1942

Northwest Rangers
6/2
Boyhood friends grow up into different professions: one a dedicated Canadian Mountie, the other a notorious gambler.
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Northwest Rangers

1941

So Ends Our Night
6/8
An anti-Nazi on the run and a young Jewish couple race across Europe trying to escape Hitler's ever powerful influence.
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So Ends Our Night

1929

Pavement Butterfly
6/1
In this, her second silent film with Eichberg, Wong plays Princess Butterfly, an exotic Parisian fan dancer whose “death leap through a circle of nake...
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Pavement Butterfly

1928

Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland
0/0
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Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland

1924

Die Radio Heirat
0/0
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Die Radio Heirat

1927

Svengali
0/0
The hypnotist Svengali makes an artist's model sing, but cannot force her love.
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Svengali

1929

Das letzte Fort
0/0
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Das letzte Fort

1923

Man by the Roadside
0/0
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Man by the Roadside

1923

I.N.R.I. – A Film of Humanity
5.1/7
From the director of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this is the Passion embedded in a contemporary story. An anarchist jailed for an attempted assassination...
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I.N.R.I. – A Film of Humanity

1942

Wrecking Crew
5.5/2
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 i...
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Wrecking Crew

1926

Qualen der Nacht
0/0
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Qualen der Nacht

1923

Paganini
0/0
Historical film about Italian musician Niccolo Paganini.
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Paganini

1923

Ein Weib, ein Tier, ein Diamant
0/0
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Ein Weib, ein Tier, ein Diamant

1943

Mission to Moscow
5.2/17
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.
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Mission to Moscow

1923

Navarro the Dancer
0/0
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 s...
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Navarro the Dancer

1928

Accident
6.7/18
A tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.
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Accident

1921

Camera obscura
0/0
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Camera obscura

1941

A Man Betrayed
5.4/11
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 ac...
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