Underplayed Gems

M (1931)

M poster
Original title
M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
Directed by
Fritz Lang
Genre
drama film, film noir, thriller film
Country
Weimar Republic, Germany
Runtime
1h 57m
Rated
PG-13
Rating
8.1 of 10 from 2,489 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A serial child murderer terrorizes a city, prompting both the police and the local criminal underground to hunt him down. The manhunt follows the efforts of each group as they close in on the killer.

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What happens

M is a 1931 German mystery thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert, a serial killer who targets children, in his third screen role. Both Lang's first sound film and an early example of a procedural drama, M centres on the efforts of both a city's police force and its criminal syndicates to apprehend a serial child-murderer. The film's screenplay was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It features many cinematic innovations, including the use of long tracking shots and a musical leitmotif in the form of "In the Hall of the Mountain King", which is repeatedly whistled by Lorre's character. Lang regarded the film as his magnum opus, and it is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time and an indispensable influence on modern crime and thriller fiction. An American remake under the same title, directed by Joseph Losey, was released in 1951. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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