I Escaped from the Gestapo

Ordered to bust convicted forger Torgut Lane (Dean Jagger) out of prison, Nazi agents deliver him to their Los Angeles hideout, where the spies' leader (John Carradine) forces him to produce counterfeit bills to undermine the Allied war effort. Failing at his attempts to make an escape, Lane engraves a message on one of the plates in a daring attempt to tip off the Feds and foil the saboteurs' plans. Although Mary Brian (The Virginian) played the female lead in I Escaped from the Gestapo, the part was originally intended for Frances Farmer. Arrested for assaulting a hairdresser during her first day of shooting, the troubled actress was committed to a sanitarium, her footage in a montage sequence marking Farmer's last screen appearance for 15 years.

With a title like I ESCAPED FROM THE GESTAPO, it's a wonder that there's any suspense at all in this Monogram programmer. Dean Jagger stars as Lane, an imprisoned counterfeiter who is sprung from jail by a group of sinister-looking gentlemen. It soon develops that Lane is expected to apply his counterfeiting skills on behalf of the Nazis, who hope to destroy America's economy by flooding the market with phony money. But Lane's patriotism outweighs his mercenary instincts, and he turns the tables on the villains. Particularly well cast, I ESCAPED FROM THE GESTAPO features such reliables as John Carradine, Sidney Blackmer and Ian Keith, as well as Mary Brian in one of her handful of "comeback" films.