How this works

We will release a movie every ten days beginning with Birth of a Nation (1915) and then jumping to the 1920's where we will release one new movie for each year within the decade. Our goal is to work our way from the 20's to the present while gaining insight into the evolution of film. All the movies we choose will be available through Netflix. The basic idea is to build a community of like-minded film fans and connect them with a forum for discussion. Without futher ado...it's time to Cinema Cram!

5/14/10

Film 13: M (1931)

Netflix Summary: Director Fritz Lang presents his first "talkie", and cinema's first serial killer, whose central villain was later used in Nazi propaganda films to illustrate the evils of sexual deviance. With a compulsion he can't control, plump pedophile Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) escapes the eye of the law, but not the wrath of the Berlin underworld being blamed for his crimes.


From Wikipedia: M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s, although Lang denied that he drew from this case. "At the time I decided to use the subject matter of M there were many serial killers terrorizing Germany — Haarmann, Grossmann, Kürten, Denke," Lang told film historian Gero Gandert in a 1963 interview.  Lang and his wife co-wrote the script.



Film Viewing Date: 5/24
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