None Shall Escape
| None Shall Escape | |
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Original US 1944 poster
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| Directed by | Andre DeToth |
| Produced by | Samuel Bischoff |
| Screenplay by | Lester Cole |
| Story by |
Alfred Neumann Joseph Than |
| Starring |
Marsha Hunt Alexander Knox Henry Travers |
| Music by | |
| Cinematography | Lee Garmes |
| Edited by | Charles Nelson |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
None Shall Escape is a 1944 war film. Even though the film was made during the Second World War, the setting is a post-war Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Alexander Knox plays Wilhelm Grimm, a Nazi officer who is on trial, and the story unfolds through the eyes of several witnesses, including a Catholic priest, Father Warecki (Henry Travers), Grimm's brother Karl (Erik Rolf) and Marja Pacierkowski (Marsha Hunt), a woman to whom he was once engaged.
Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story.
The film centres on the trial of Wilhelm Grimm as a war criminal. Each character witness provides a flashback scene to a previous part of Grimm's life. In the trial, it is revealed that Grimm (Alexander Knox), who fought for Germany in the First World War and lost a leg in battle, returns after the war to the small German village of Litzbark (now in newly independent Poland) where he had been a teacher. Despite the recent hostilities, he is welcomed back into the community and resumes his teaching. He also resumes his relationship with Marja Pacierkowski, a local Polish girl to whom he had become engaged before the war.
He is bitter about Germany losing the war and it is obvious he has been changed by the experience. He treats the villagers with disdain, and his upcoming marriage is cancelled. He calls his fiancée a "peasant" only interested in her wedding dowry.
Taunted by the school's pupils, who say he is not fit to marry any Polish woman, he molests one of them, Anna, a young girl. The rape is blamed on her young male friend, Jan Stys, but Wilhelm's fiancée accidentally stumbles on the truth from Anna. The girl subsequently drowns herself in the lake. A mob gathers seeking vengeance, but a trial is required. Nevertheless, Jan throws a stone, putting out Wilhelm's left eye. After the trial fails to convict him, he returns to Germany, after borrowing money from the priest and the rabbi.
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Wikipedia