Customer Ratings & Reviews

The final monologue in this film is great enough alone to warrant a positive review. But the entire film is so well shot in black and while is awesome. Like many criterion blu rays there’s a great picture and fantastic extras. If you are a student of sociology this is a must own. Should be shown in every sociology and film class!

The most outstanding asset Fritz Lang had at his fingertips to make this movie was Peter Lorre. Granted, there were other cast members with notable career trajectories—namely, Gustaf Gründgens and Theo Lingen. But if this movie is still unsettling and disturbing 90 years on, then much of that is due to the timeless authenticity that is Lorre's presence. Lorre's villain character could not have been cast and portrayed more fittingly with regard to type, voice, and show of mannerisms. From the early suspenseful scene where we see only Lorre's shadow to the climactic scene where he delivers a monologue rife with rueful despair about who he is and what torments him—Lorre's performance connects a lot of dots, and carries the intrigue. When the movie was shot in 1930, talking-picture technology (especially post-production) was soaring but yet nowhere near the level it would be only a few years later. It probably took a Fritz Lang to make optimal use of the means available at the time. The results include: imagery foreshadowing film noir; eerie moments of quiet; and foreboding audio coming from the off-screen, most notably Peter Lorre's recurring whistling of a certain theme by Edvard Grieg—which, by the way, is the only discernible music in this movie; other than that, the story works without the need for a music soundtrack. If you can read German, especially in the Fraktur typeface, then you may find it noteworthy how much attention to detail is given to most of the props that involve the written word—public announcements, newspaper articles, police reports, patient records, even index cards. Given that audiences at the time would hardly have thought to pause the playback to read the entire text material, this seems like a remarkable effort toward verisimilitude. At 110 minutes' running time, this Criterion Collection edition includes most of the original 117-minute footage. Other versions released over time have been as short as 96 minutes. Yes, the movie can be "tighter" without some scenes that don't do as much to propel the plot. But no, that still doesn't take away from this writer's five-star rating of this edition. It is perhaps best regarded as a collector's item, with a restoration very well done.

Must have for die hard cinephiles and aficionados. This is the thriller that started them all.

Great Fritz Langley directed thriller staring Peter Lorre as child murderer . Police can't catch but keep raiding underground criminals who end up hunting lorre to get the police to leave them alone.

This is widely considered as the first psychothriller and police procedural ever produced. Set at the end of Germany's Weimar era, it stars the brilliant Peter Lorre. This is one of Criterion's best releases in terms of extras and comes highly recommended