M (1931 movie)

M (German: M – Eine Stadt sucht einen MörderM – A City Searches for a Murderer) is a 1931 German drama-thriller movie. It was directed by Fritz Lang, and it starred Peter Lorre. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It was the director's first sound film.[2]

M
Directed byFritz Lang
Produced bySeymour Nebenzal
Written byFritz Lang
Thea von Harbou
Based onA newspaper article about serial killer Peter Kuerten
by Egon Jacobson
StarringPeter Lorre
Otto Wernicke
Gustaf Gründgens
Music byEdvard Grieg
CinematographyFritz Arno Wagner
Edited byPaul Falkenberg
Production
company
Nero-Film A.G.
Distributed byVereinigte Star-Film GmbH
Release date
  • 11 May 1931 (1931-05-11)
Running time
111 minutes[1]
CountryWeimar Republic of Germany
LanguageGerman

The film focuses on the actions of a serial killer[3] of children and the manhunt for him. The police and the criminal underworld do the manhunt.[4] Now considered a classic, the film was deemed by Lang to be his magnum opus.[5][6]

Release

M was shown in Berlin on 11 May 1931 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo in a version that was 117 minutes long.[7]

The film later was released in the U.S. in April 1933 by Foremco Pictures.[8]

References

  1. "M (A)". British Board of Film Classification. 24 May 1932. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  2. "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep: A Brief History of Child Murder in Cinema". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  3. Monsters of Weimar p. 296
  4. Monsters of Weimar pp. 296-298
  5. Reader Archive-Extract: 1997/970808/M[dead link]
  6. Kauffman, Stanley. "The Mark of M". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
  7. Jensen. pp. 93.
  8. The Daesseldorf Murders. April 3, 1933. https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B03E1D7173BEF3ABC4B53DFB2668388629EDE. Retrieved September 28, 2017. 

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