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M - A Film by Fritz Lang [1931]
from Eureka Entertainment
starring Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke, Theodor Loos
directed by Fritz Lang

Features:

• Box set
• Black & White
• PAL
• Special Edition

Editorial Review:

Fritz Lang's first sound movie, the serial-killer film M, has often been voted the best German film of all time, but, until now, most of us have never seen it properly. What we have seen is a heavily cut 1950s re-edit with extra sound and music patched in, where Lang was deliberately economical with the new technology. This new "Ultimate Edition" is dominated by a marvellous restoration which is true to his intentions and oft-voiced complaints about what had been done to his best film.

The young Peter Lorre is terrifyingly ordinary as the child-murderer whom police and criminals hunt down in what is still one of the best forensic police procedurals ever made, while Gustaf Grundgens has effortless charisma as the chief gangster. Lorre's Hollywood exile and decay, and Grundgens' betrayal of old friends and principles under the Nazis, merely add a layer of irony to all this. Lang's ironic cuts--a gangster's gesture is completed by his police equivalent--and dark, studio-bound cinematography make this one of the great precursors of American film noir. Simply, seen without cracks and pops and lines running down the screen, M is revealed as a true classic--a film that shames everything made in its genre since.

On the DVD: M on disc has a great deal of documentary material featuring scholars and technicians telling us just how clever they have been in preparing this splendid restoration. The film also comes with a detailed commentary into which has been spliced interview material with Lang talking in English about specific sequences. There is a German-language film interview with Lang in which he talks through his career and re-enacts the interview with Goebbels that led to his exile; an audio interview with Peter Bogdanovich; and an intelligent video critical essay by film historian R Dixon Smith. The restored film is shown in its correct, unusual visual aspect ratio of 1.90:1 and has vivid cleaned-up digital mono sound: the murderer's whistling of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" has never sounded so chilling. --Roz Kaveney

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• brilliant
  I love this film. True art never ages, it's so good. Please watch it if you're a serious film viewer, it's superb.

• When crime becomes prophecy
  The first talky by Fritz Lang in 1930-31. This great master of silent movies tries his hand on this talking long feature and succeeds in many ways. First the pictures are so beautiful, so well framed and lighted that the visual fascination Fritz Lang was a master of in the past is till there full and powerful. Second the actors are still acting as if they were voiceless, their body language being essential for the understanding of the action and the feelings. What's more long silent sequences give some... more info

• A MASTERPIECE
  "M" is a cinematic masterpiece of visual drama. The stunning performances define the careers of exceptional actors such as Peter Lorre and Gustaf Grundgens. Director Fritz Lang gives depth and dimension to his production by distinctly capturing the ecstasy of the film's many characters and focusing accurately on individual situations. This is an intriguing journey into the mind of a psychotic child murderer, blending terror, complexity, and malignity in one amazing motion picture.
  Screenwriters Paul... more info

• Get it just for the court of criminals
  Truly amazing, dealing with the theme of a child serial killer back in pre-Nazi Germany. I loved the courtroom scene, as the debate was really quite prodound when you think that 50% of the adult population went to the cinema every week. The callousness of motives of the police and criminals alike is striking. It is a shame that films of this intellectual quality are no longer made.

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