Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4251 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-06
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.co.uk 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

DVD Description
Like a brand, the letter M has made its mark on film history with its disturbing theme having lost none of its impact or relevance. Sinister, dark and foreboding, M tells the story of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) – child molester and murderer. Tension builds – a child late home, another child missing. Posters reveal the fate of earlier victims and the police seem to have few clues as to the perpetrator of the crimes. Gangsters, beggars and petty criminals, incensed by both the crimes and the police crackdown, track the killer themselves. Cornered, caught and dragged off to face an equally barbaric form of justice, Beckert endures his own personal torment.

As with his earlier classics Die Nibelungen and Metropolis, Lang collaborated on the script with his wife, Thea von Harbou, in what was to become his most stark and uncompromising film. Allegedly based on the story of Peter Kürten, the "Monster of Dusseldorf", M remains one of the most chilling serial-killer films ever produced.

Special Features
Disc 1:

• M feature
  
• Full length audio commentary
  
• Documentary – The Restoration of M by Peter Campbell

Disc 2:

• Audio Interview – Peter Bogdanovich with Fritz Lang
  
• Documentary – Fritz Lang
  
• Lending Order to Horror - Visual Essay by R. Dixon Smith
  
• Film Restoration and Comparison – Martin Koerber and Torsten Kaiser
  
• Photo Gallery and animated slideshow
  
• Set designs and final screen comparisons
  
• Animated biographies and historical backgrounds

DVD Technical Information:

• Language: German
  
• Subtitles: English
  
• Running time (feature): 105 mins approx.

Customer Reviews

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 density to the sound when it comes back and this sound is used in full expressivity, even in its imperfection as if it were the real sound we could hear in the street, muffled, discordant and with interferences from all around. Fritz Lang even manages not to have the typical sound of a sound stage though the whole film was shot in a studio, that sound stage sound so typical of so many American films of the 1930s. Then Fritz Lang deals with a subject that was just plain out in his time and yet he manages to do the job with such delicateness and tactfulness that it looks deeply human though dealing with the worst possible crime and criminal, and the board of censors of his time let it go through. But Fritz Lang manages to demonstrate how even that criminal will have to get a real defense, a real trial, justice in other words. Two visions of justice are thus contrasted: the justice that looks for some kind of vengeance, or at least a full retaliation, and the justice that is considering the real state of mind of the criminal and hence his responsibility. This explains well why the Nazis will ban the film later: it entirely condemns the Nazi expedient form of what they would have called justice which was always designating some kind of cleaning up of society, expurgating of the anti-social characters, be they political, sexual, criminal, religious or racial. And that's where the film today takes a new value. It becomes an allegory of what was to come. Hitler and the Nazis will be those who will authorize the underworld to take over and we must admit that they are more effective than the police in such situations and they don't wait for the judicial process to go through. The SS were the police, the court, the jury, the judge and the executioner, all of them in one body. In five minutes the mystery was solved and the criminal was eliminated, even if it was not a criminal but a Jew or a Communist, these facts being the worst crimes the Nazis could identify, crimes deserving immediate death. That's this visionary aspect of the film that is disquieting. Did the Germans know what was coming? Probably. So why did they not stop it? That is THE question and a very difficult one at that. Historians will still be asking that question in a couple of centuries.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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 Falkenburg and Adlof Jansen construct the characters of "M" with distinctive personalities and three dimensional emotions. Many lesser filmmakers give their characters no creativity outside the confines of the script. In this movie each individual character has a mind of their own; they are free to roam the landscape of a inviting atmosphere.

Fabricating such an impressive atmosphere is some of the best cinematography and lighting effects that I can remember watching. This resplendent component creates the film's terrific moody ambiance. Suspense is one thing "M" contains in full context. The movie's third act is sheer peak-high tension.

Shot in black and white, "M" stars Peter Lorre as Peter-Hans Beckert, an extremely disturbed child murderer in the process of wreaking havoc on a neighborhood. Parents everywhere are living in fear of their children being kidnapped and abruptly annihilated.

This picture contains a brilliantly crafted setup. The visual setting creates a strongly developed opening. Every scene works to either complicate the initial problem or propels the story through a firm narrative through line.

The film captures the chaos of the town in terror perfectly. "M" is more about the results of a serial killer than an actual serial killer. Never do we directly witness a murder; the violent encounters are implied. This method of film making perhaps makes the movie's impact even greater. With an creative perspective through a third person point of view, the filmmakers repeatedly give us examples of a solid structure through characters and occurrences.

"M" offers a unforgettable, challenging performance by Peter Lorre. This extraordinary actor is tormenting and disturbing without embracing in extreme violent conduct. He perspires with momentum and rapture. This productions closing scenes are so deeply penetrating they entirely captivate the viewer. Isn't this what movies are supposed to do?