Elsa Basserman Movies

Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon team for the third time in this fact-based biography directed by Mervyn Leroy, based on Eve Curie's book about her mother. In early 1900s Paris, poor Polish student Marie (Greer Garson) gets a chance to study magnetism with kindly professor Jean Perot (Albert Basserman). Perot also arranges for the shy scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) to share the lab with Marie. As they work together, Pierre and Marie fall in love. Pierre eventually musters up the courage to ask her to marry him, and she accepts. After their honeymoon, Marie becomes obsessed with a piece of pitchblende that has been displaying some peculiar properties. After five years of work, Marie discovers radium. But as the years go on, Marie and Pierre struggle to raise money to continue their research, hoping to one day be able to isolate radium from the pitchblende. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Ethel Vance, Escape stars Robert Taylor as a young American, the son of a widowed European woman (Alla Nazimova). The mother has been imprisoned in a German concentration camp, compelling her son to ignore America's neutrality and attempt a rescue. Sneaking into German-occupied Europe, Taylor is befriended by a countess (Norma Shearer) who is the mistress of a Nazi general (Conrad Veidt). Taylor isn't certain of the countess' loyalties, but she proves herself by aiding in the rescue of the imprisoned woman. Escape is distinguished by a surprisingly subtle performance from Norma Shearer, though she gives in to her tendency to "ham" in her final denunciation of her Nazi paramour. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The pressbook for Kadetten (Cadets) claims that the film was written by Dr. Alfred Schirokauer, "after motives of a novel from Peter Muir." Whatever that means. The hero, played by newcomer Franz Fiedler, is a young cadet in a Prussian military school. Upon learning that his superior officer has tried to seduce his pretty young stepmother, Fiedler heads to the officer's home for a confrontation. Upon arriving, he discovers that the officer has been killed. Accused of the crime, Fiedler refuses to offer details to the police for fear of exposing his stepmother to scandal. This leads to tension-laden courtroom climax, dominated by that grand old trouper Albert Basserman. Incidentally, the "Peter Muir" who wrote the novel on whose "motives" Kadetten was based was a pseudonym for journalist Sven von Muller, the husband of actress Mady Christians. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

H.H. Evers' best-selling science fiction novel Alraune was the source for this chilling German fantasy. The story is set in motion by a misguided scientist (Albert Basserman) who artificially inseminates a prostitute (Agnes Straub) with the sperm of a convicted murderer. The baby grows up to be a beautiful young woman (Brigitte Helm) with absolutely no sense of right or wrong. Dancing sensuously for the benefit of her admirers, the sociopathic "heroine" leads several otherwise decent men to their ruin. Alraune was remade in 1952 with Erich Von Stroheim and Hildegarde Knef; this version was released to the U.S. as Unnatural. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide