M [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Fritz Lang Fritz Lang

Overview

"Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive child murderer (Peter Lorre), and they begin rounding up every criminal in town. The underworld leaders decide to take the heat off their activities by catching the child killer themselves. Once the killer is fingered, he is marked with the letter ""M"" chalked on his back. He is tracked down and captured by the combined forces of the Berlin criminal community, who put him on trial for his life in a kangaroo court. The killer pleads for mercy, whining that he can't control his homicidal instincts. The police close in and rescue the killer from the underworld so that he can stand trial again in ""respectable"" circumstances. Some prints of the film end with a caution to the audience to watch after their children more carefully. Filmed in Germany, M was the film that solidified Fritz Lang's reputation with American audiences, and it also made a star out of Peter Lorre (previously a specialist in comedy roles!). M was remade by Hollywood in 1951, with David Wayne giving a serviceable performance as the killer."

Product Details

Release Date:	03/21/2010
UPC:	0715515057714
Original Release:	1931
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:50:00

Special Features

Audio commentary by german film scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler; The long-lost english-language version of m, from a nitrate print preserved by the british film institute; Conversation with Fritz-lang, a 50-minute film by William Friendkin; Claude Chabrol's M Le Mandit, a short film inspired by William Friedkin; Claude Chabrol's M Le Mandit, a short film inspired by M, plus a video interview with Chabrol about Lang's filmmaking techniques; Video interview with Harold Nebenzal, son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal; Classroom audiotapes of M editor Paul Falkenberg discussing the film and its history, set to clips from the movie; Documentary on physical history of M, from production to distribution to digital restoration; Gallery of behind-the-scenes photographs and production sketches; Plus: a booklet featuring as essay by film critic Stanley Kauffman, the script for a missing scene, three contemporaneous newspaper articles, and a 1963 interview with Lang

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Peter Lorre	Franz Becker
Ellen Widmann	Mother
Inge Landgut	Child
Otto Wernicke	Inspector Karl Lohmann
Theo Lingen	Bauernfaenger
Theodor Loos	Police Commissioner Groeber
Georg John	Blind Peddler
Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur	Police Chief
Paul Kemp	Pickpocket
Franz Stein	Minister
Rudolf Blumner	Defense Attorney
Karl Platen	Watchman
Gerhard Bienert	Police Secretary
Rosa Valetti	Servant,Landlady
Hertha von Walther	Prostitute
Fritz Odemar	The Cheater
Friedrich Gnass	Burglar
Heinrich Gretler	Actor
Lotte Lobinger	Actor
Isenta	Actor,Woman
Leonard Steckel	Karchow
Albert Karchow	Actor
Edgar Pauly	Actor
Werner Kepich	Actor
Gunther Neumann	Actor
Hermann Krehan	Actor
Josef Almas	Actor
Kurth	Actor
Carl Balthaus	Actor
Leeser	Actor,Actor
Hans Behal	Actor
Rosa Lichenstein	Actor
Carell	Actor
Sigurd Lohde	Actor
Hugo Doblin	Actor
Alfred Loretto	Actor
J.A. Eckhoff	Actor
Mascheck	Actor
Else Ehser	Actor
Matthis	Actor
Karl Elzer	Actor
Paul Mederow	Actor
Erwin Faber	Actor
Margarete Melzer	Actor
Ilse Furstenberg	Actor
Trude Moss	Actor
Gelingk	Actor
Hadrian M. Netto	Actor
Goldstein	Actor
Nied	Actor
Anna Goltz	Actor
Klaus Pohl	Actor
Heinrich Gotho	Actor
Franz Polland	Actor
Gunther Hadank	Actor,Actor
Rebane	Actor
Robert Hartberg	Actor
Paul Rehkopf	Actor
Ernst Paul Hempel	Actor
Reihsig	Actor
Oskar Hocker	Actor
Rhaden	Actor
Albert Hoermann	Actor
Hans Ritter	Actor
Max Sablotski	Actor
Alexander Sascha	Actor
Agnes Schulz-Lichterfeld	Actor
Karl Heinz Stroux	Actor
Swinborne	Actor
Wolf Trutz	Actor
Otto Waldis	Actor
Borwin Walth	Actor
Rolf Wanka	Actor
Gelin Wannemann	Actor
Ernst Wulf	Actor
Bruno Ziener	Actor
Josef Damen	Actor
Maja Norden	Actor
Gustav Gründgens	Safecracker,Schränker
Rudolf Blümner	Beckert's defender
Behal Carrell	Actor
Josef Dahmen	Actor
Ilse Fürstenberg	Actor
Karl Swinburne	Man
Rose Lichtenstein	Actor
Lotte Loebinger	Woman
Hanna Maron	Girl in circle at the beginning
Hugo Döblin	Actor
Adolf Jansen	Composer
Edvard Grieg	Composer

Technical Credits

Fritz Lang

Thea von Harbou

Egon Jacobson

Fritz Lang	Director,Screenwriter
Thea von Harbou	Screenwriter
Seymour Nebenzal	Producer
Paul Falkenberg	Sound Effects
Egon Jacobson	Screenwriter
Adolf Jansen	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

One of the most distinguished and technically accomplished early sound films, Fritz Lang's M (1931) revealed the expressive possibilities for combining sound and visuals, in a metaphorically loaded story about pre-Nazi Germany. Working from the true story of the Dusseldorf child murders, Lang matches a mother's anguished calls for her daughter with images of an empty stairwell and a lost balloon rather than show the killing, while the murderer's obsessive whistling becomes the calling card for his threatening presence. Beyond the use of sound, Lang takes a pessimistic view of German society, using editing to equate the police with the criminals, while Fritz Arno Wagner's fluid cinematography creates a gloomy night world of shadows and paranoid entrapment. Lang's documentary-like attention to the details of the search, combined with the absence of non-diegetic music, matches the stylization with an equally creepy element of realism. The killer may be sick, but the society pursuing him isn't that much better. A worldwide success and a star-maker for Peter Lorre, M influenced movies from those of Orson Welles to the American film noir of the 1940s; Lang himself left Nazi Germany for Hollywood in 1933. The 111-minute version features an added courtroom ending. The movie was remade by Joseph Losey in 1951 as an allegory of Cold War-era Communist "witch hunts."