M (1931 movie)
M (German: M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder— M – 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 by | Fritz Lang |
| Produced by | Seymour Nebenzal |
| Written by | Fritz Lang Thea von Harbou |
| Based on | A newspaper article about serial killer Peter Kuerten by Egon Jacobson |
| Starring | Peter Lorre Otto Wernicke Gustaf Gründgens |
| Music by | Edvard Grieg |
| Cinematography | Fritz Arno Wagner |
| Edited by | Paul Falkenberg |
Production company | Nero-Film A.G. |
| Distributed by | Vereinigte Star-Film GmbH |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes[1] |
| Country | Weimar Republic of Germany |
| Language | German |
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
- ↑ "M (A)". British Board of Film Classification. 24 May 1932. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
- ↑ "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep: A Brief History of Child Murder in Cinema". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
- ↑ Monsters of Weimar p. 296
- ↑ Monsters of Weimar pp. 296-298
- ↑ Reader Archive-Extract: 1997/970808/M[dead link]
- ↑ Kauffman, Stanley. "The Mark of M". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
- ↑ Jensen. pp. 93.
- ↑ The Daesseldorf Murders. April 3, 1933. https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B03E1D7173BEF3ABC4B53DFB2668388629EDE. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
Other websites
- M is available for free download at the Internet Archive
- M on IMDb
- M (1931 movie) at AllRovi
- M (1931 movie) at the TCM Movie Database
- The Restoration of M (2003) Archived 2014-05-20 at the Wayback Machine from TLEFilms.com
- The Mark of M an essay by Stanley Kauffmann at the Criterion Collection
- M Photographs and literature
- M and the making of Peter Lorre Archived 2014-05-12 at the Wayback Machine