M (1931) Silently Kills on the Criterion Collection

On May 11, 2010, the Criterion Collection released M on Blu-ray. Fritz Lang directed the film starring Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, and Inge Landgut.

‘M’ Criterion Synopsis

A simple, haunting musical phrase whistled offscreen tells us that a young girl will be killed. “Who Is the Murderer?” pleads a nearby placard as serial killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) closes in on little Elsie Beckmann… In his harrowing masterwork M, Fritz Lang merges trenchant social commentary with chilling suspense, creating a panorama of private madness and public hysteria that to this day remains the blueprint for the psychological thriller.

Read the full summary here, and listen to our film review!

Special Features

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary by German film scholars Anton Kaes, author of the BFI Film Classics volume on M, and Eric Rentschler, author of The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife
• The long-lost English-language version of M, from a nitrate print preserved by the British Film Institute (Blu-ray only)
• Conversation with Fritz Lang, a 50-minute film by William Friedkin
• Claude Chabrol’s M le maudit, a short film inspired by M, plus a video interview with Chabrol about Lang’s filmmaking techniques
• Video interview with Harold Nebenzal, son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal
• Classroom audiotapes of editor Paul Falkenberg discussing the film and its history, set to clips from the film
• Documentary on the physical history of M, from production to distribution to digital restoration
• Galleries of behind-the-scenes photographs and production sketches
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• Plus: An essay by film critic Stanley Kauffmann, the script for a missing scene (Blu-ray only), three contemporaneous newspaper articles (Blu-ray only), and a 1963 interview with Lang

New cover by Sarah Habibi

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