Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7178 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.