Trivia for
M (1931) More at IMDbPro »

• The tune that Peter Lorre's character whistles is "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from the "Peer Gynt" suite, by Edvard Grieg.
  
  
• Peter Lorre was Jewish and fled Germany in fear of Nazi persecution shortly after the movie's release. Fritz Lang, who was half Jewish, fled two years later.
  
  
• Contrary to popular belief, Fritz Lang did not change the title from "The Murderers are Among Us" to "M" due to fear of persecution by the Nazis. He changed the title during filming, influenced by the scene where one of the criminals writes the letter on his hand. Lang thought "M" was a more interesting title.
  
  
• Fritz Lang asserts that he cast real criminals for the court scene in the end.
  
  
• Fritz Lang's cruelty to his actors was legendary here. Peter Lorre was thrown down the stairs into the cellar over a dozen times.
  
  
• Based on an article Fritz Lang read about the serial killer Peter Kuerten from Duesseldorf. Details have been changed but some things resemble reality.
  
  
• In Germany, the Nazis banned the movie in July 1934.
  
  
• The extras playing the members of the criminal gang were real life delinquents: before the end of the turning 24 of them were put into jail.
  
  
• Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies".
  
  
• Chosen by the Association of German Cinémathèques as the most important German film of all times.
  
  
• The use of voiceover narration was a groundbreaking new technique at the time.
  
  
• The title "M" is short for Mörder, the German word meaning Murderer.
  
  
• MGM studio head Irving Thalberg assembled his writers and directors for a private screening of this film, telling them that they needed to be making films of this power and caliber. He also admitted that if anyone had brought a story of a child killer to him, he would have rejected it.
  
  
• Director Fritz Lang made this film in an effort to claw back his artistic standing after the double failure of his two previous films, Metropolis (1927) and Frau im Mond (1929).
  
  
• Peter Lorre's whistling was dubbed by director Fritz Lang, as Lorre was unable to whistle.
  
  
• Two German serial killers are mentioned in the film - Georg Karl Großman (believed to have killed up to 50 young women) and Fritz Haarmann (known as the Butcher of Hannover; killed at least 24 young men in Hannover).
  
  
• The Tegel Penitentiary in Berlin is Germany's largest prison with about 1,700 inmates (as of 2007).
  
  
• Alexanderplatz (the Alex) was the site of Berlin Police Headquarters.
  
  
• Director Fritz Lang has claimed that M was his favorite film of those he had directed.
  
  
• M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s, but Fritz Lang expressly denied that he drew any inspiration from the case.
  
  

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