Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou’s First Talkie: M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931) (M: A City Searches for a Murderer), Starring Peter Lorre, in English, for Free, with No Commercial Interruptions, at WEJB/NSU

Re-posted by N.S.

Lang & von Harbou’s M was both a dramatic masterpiece, and radically innovative.

The story, set in Berlin, tells of the hysteria that ensues when a Triebmörder (compulsion killer) starts kidnapping, raping, and murdering little girls.

In preparing her script, Von Harbou researched a series of serial killers of children, Peter Kürten, “the Vampire of Düsseldorf,” Carl Großmann, Karl Denke and Fritz Haarmann.

At one point, Lang and von Harbou presented bookend scenes showing first a conference of criminal leaders discussing how the police’s pressure is ruining business, and how they can hunt down the killer. In the next scene, police leaders confer on how they can catch the killer.

Other artists in pictures and TV made homages to Lang and von Harbou.

In the Ealing comedy, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), scriptwriter T.E.B. “Tibby” Clarke and director Charles Crichton present two consecutive scenes which are virtually identical, in showing how the culprit (Alec Guinness) comes up with the brilliant inspiration for pulling off his caper.

And in one of the first episodes of Combat! (1962), Robert Altman and his scriptwriter show a German officer with his compatriots reach a hand out to light a cigarette, but when it comes back, it is an American G.I.’s hand, in a scene of American soldiers.

M also has some of the flavor of Brecht & Weill’s recent Dreigroschenoper/Threepenny Opera (a musical adaptation of John Gay’s 1728 The Beggar’s Opera), such as when the criminals undertake to try the killer in their own underground court.





Complete, Silent Classics Available at WEJB/NSU:

C.B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1914);

D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915);

D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Through the Ages (1916);

Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918);

Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920);

Buster Keaton's One Week (1920);

D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920);

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1921);

The Kid (1921), Charlie Chaplin’s First Feature as Director, Co-Starring Jackie Coogan;

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s First Pictures Featuring the Evil Genius, Dr. Mabuse: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, Teil I (Dr. Mabuse, the Player, Part I); and Dr. Mabuse, Teil II: Inferno (both 1922, released one month apart) with English Subtitles;

James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon (1923);

John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924);

Buster Keaton’s The General (1926);

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927);

F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927); and

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s Dystopian Science Fiction Epic, Metropolis (1927), Plus Its Soundtrack Suite.