Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam (1957)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Robert Siodmak

Writers:

Will Berthold (article)
Werner Jörg Lüddecke (writer)

Release Date:

19 September 1957 (West Germany)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A serial killer terrorizes Hamburg, Germany, during World War II. When the local police can't seem to catch him, the SS is brought into the case. |

Plot Keywords:

SS | Hamburg Germany | Serial Killer | Based On Fact | Air Raid

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 11 wins

Cast

Claus Holm	...	Kriminalkommissar Axel Kersten
Annemarie Düringer	...	Helga Hornung
Mario Adorf	...	Bruno Luedke
Hannes Messemer	...	SS-Gruppenfuehrer Rossdorf
Carl Lange	...	Major Thomas Wollenberg
Werner Peters	...	Willi Keun
Walter Janssen	...	Kriminalrat Boehm
Peter Carsten	...	Mollwitz
Wilmut Borell	...	SS-Sturmfuehrer Heinrich, Rossdorf's aide
Monika John	...	Lucy Hansen, Kellnerin
Rose Schäfer	...	Anna Hohmann
Lukas Ammann	...	Pflichtverteidiger von Keun
Karl-Heinz Peters	...	Hauswart
Heinz Beck
Christa Nielsen	...	Schlampilein

Also Known As:

Nachts wenn der Teufel kam (West Germany) (alternative spelling)
Nights, When the Devil Came (International: English title) (literal title)
The Devil Came at Night (informal English alternative title)
The Devil Strikes at Night (USA)

Runtime:

Germany:105 min | USA:97 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Klangfilm Eurocord)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | West Germany:12 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Divina-Film

The "serial-killer movie" is not an American invention

There is a strange continuity in German movies: about every 20 years someone makes a film about a serial-killer. Apart from "Es geschah am hellichten Tag" (recently remade by Sean Penn) I'm thinking of the following works:

* M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931)

* Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam (1957)

* Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (1973)

* Der Totmacher (1995)

While three of these films are more or less loosely based on the case of Fritz Haarmann who killed more than 24 young men in the 20s, "Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam" is about Bruno Luebke who murdered several people in Hamburg during WWII (also a true case). In contrast to the picture that many American movies (e.g. "Hannibal") paint of a serial-killer as an evil being who kills for pleasure, these German movies show men who are helpless victims of their urge to kill, to which they succumb not when they want to, but when they 'have' to. Mario Adorf plays Bruno as such a man and his performance is of the same rank as Peter Lorre's in "M" or Götz George's in "Totmacher" IMO.

Even better is Hannes Messemer as an SS-Officer, who, for 'political' reasons, wants another man executed against better judgement. The main forte of the film however, is the depiction of everyday-life in the last years of the third Reich. In the scene where the ugly harvest helpers get their reward from a sweating hanger-on Robert Siodmak perfectly captured the moral corruption (thinly veiled by empty propaganda phrases) within Nazi-Germany. In view of mass-murder of an entirely different caliber (i.e. genocide), the question if the right man is sentenced for a killing series becomes secondary in the end.