M le maudit
Original Title	M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mrder
Realization	Fritz Lang
Main actors	Peter Lorre Otto Wernicke Gustaf Grndgens Ellen Widmann Inge Landgut Theodor Loos Friedrich Gnass
Scenario	Fritz Lang Thea von Harbou Paul Falkenberg Adolf Jansen
Photography	Fritz Arno Wagner
Music	Edvard Grieg
Production	Seymour Nebenzahl
Company (s) distribution	Vereinigte Star-Film GmbH Paramount Pictures (USA)
Country of origin	Germany
Language (s) original (s)	German
Duration	117 min.
Output	11 May 1931

M le maudit (M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mrder) is a German film directed by Fritz Lang , released in 1931.

A child murderer threw the inhabitants of a large German city in fear and hysteria so that the police and the underworld to bring both in pursuit. Rating research is launched and a reward is promised.

In a city worker, a mother waits impatiently for the return of his daughter from school, but a stranger (whose face is not shown on screen) manages to lure them with candy. After discovering the corpse, police intensified their search efforts in vain. The people are led to suspect each other. Anonymous reports are increasing the tension and the police are exhausted.

However, the raids and constant controls disturbing criminal gangs in their "business". So the mob decides she, under the direction of Schrank, to seek itself and the murderer used for this purpose the network of beggars. While police have identified the murderer, it is recognized by a blind balloon seller (through the song the killer whistles: In the Hall of the Mountain King ). A "friend" then mark an "M" in chalk on the mantle of the murderer, after the blind balloon salesman had indicated to his whereabouts, the killer fled in an office building that identify the bands. By using their gear burglary, they searched the house, catch the murderer of children and take him in a distillery abandoned. There, he gathered all the mob made a gruesome trial. So in a way he expresses his desperate alienation and duplication within:

"Still, I have to go through the streets, and still I feel there is someone behind me. And it myself! (...) Sometimes it gives me as if I myself was running behind me! I want to flee myself but I can not! I can not escape! (...) When I do that I know nothing ... Then I found myself in front of a poster and I read what I did, and I read. I did that? "

Commissioner Lohmann arrives on the scene at the last minute and prevented the "court" to lynch the murderer. However, it is later found guilty by the court of Justice, and sentenced to death. The execution is not shown.

The film ends with a shot the mother of the murdered child, who told him that all this does not bring back his daughter, and only need to pay more attention to her children.

Commentary

This is the first talkie of Fritz Lang , who had previously led more than a dozen silent films including Metropolis. Over time, the M has become a classic damned recognized, competing with other works by Lang for the title of magnum opus. For years after the film Lorre remained typecast as a villain for having been a child murderer (and, it is implied, a pedophile ). M le maudit was also a pioneer in the use the motto ( In the Hall of the Mountain King , extracted from Peer Gynt of Edvard Grieg ) to give more intensity to the musical accompaniment.

The town where the action takes place is not named, and one would think that this Dusseldorf, according to Italian and Spanish titles "M, the monster of Dusseldorf." The film would have had indeed inspired by the murders of Peter Krten , known as "the vampire of Dsseldorf. However, Fritz Lang decides to proceed with the film Berlin. Several clues in the film allow the viewer to understand that they are in Berlin: an advertisement for a Berlin newspaper, the map of Berlin in the commissioner's office, the fact that the commissioner spoke of a city of 4 million inhabitants (which could correspond to Berlin at the time), the name "Alex" which refers to the Alexanderplatz is also mentioned several times.

Movies In The Key of cinema, Claude Beylie M describes as " .

For the historian Marc Ferro , the work of Fritz Lang is representative of the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Specifications

• Title: M M or cursed, your killer is watching you
• Original title: M, Eine Stadt sucht einen Mrder (a city looking for a murderer)
• Aka the movie came out in shortened version in March 1960 under the title
• Directed by: Fritz Lang
• Screenplay: Fritz Lang , Thea von Harbou , Paul Falkenberg , Adolf Jang , Karl VOSH , according to an article by Egon Jacobson
• Producer: Seymour Nebenzal
• Production Company: Nero Filmgesellschaft
• Music: Excerpts from Peer Gynt of Edvard Grieg booed by Fritz Lang
• Photography: Fritz Arno Wagner and Karl Vash
• Editing: Paul Falkenberg
• Sets: Karl Vollbrecht , Emil Hasler
• Country of origin: Germany
• Format: Black & White - 1,20:1 - Mono - 35 mm
• Genre: film noir
• Duration: 1:57 (original version) 1:29 (1960 version)
• Release Date: May 11, 1931 (Germany)

Distribution

• Peter Lorre's Hans Beckert aka M
• Otto Wernicke : Commissioner (to the Crime) Lohmann
• Gustaf Grndgens : Schrank, Chief of the Mob
• Ellen Widmann ^: Ms. Beckmann
• Inge Landgut Elsie Beckmann

Around Film

• The film was initially called Mrder Unter Uns (The Murderers among us) . This was the title that Lang solicited the lease of the former zeppelin hangar Staaken, converted into a film studio. He lives by the Director to respond would not. Lang realized why: in the discussion, he had seen the Nazi badge pinned to the lapel of the Director. It feared that the title relates to the Nazi movement. As well, the authorization was granted as soon as she realized that the story concerned a child killer.
• The filming lasted only six weeks, from January to March 1931 .
• Contrary to what is commonly believed, the film is not based only on the case of vampire Dsseldorf , Peter Krten , but is based on a wave of bloody killings of children in Germany during the twenties, which that of the city of Breslau , which took place in 1929, and also Krten on the murderers Fritz Haarmann , Karl Grossman , Karl Denke .
• Peter Lorre was born in Slovakia in the Carpathian Mountains , home of Dracula. M is the cursed his most famous film, whose fame will open the doors of Hollywood , but he has little opportunity to play something else that supporting roles, despite his outstanding performances in The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca.
• It's Fritz Lang, Peter Lorre and not whistling in the film.
• The production hired real gangsters to shoot for that "make real".
• Remake America in 1951 : M of Joseph Losey with David Wayne and Howard Da Silva.

References

Leave a Reply

Frequently Asked Questions