M (M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder) (1931) Directed by Fritz Lang | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive child murderer (Peter Lorre), and they begin rounding up every criminal in town. The underworld leaders decide to take the heat off their activities by catching the child killer themselves. Once the killer is fingered, he is marked with the letter "M" chalked on his back. He is tracked down and captured by the combined forces of the Berlin criminal community, who put him on trial for his life in a kangaroo court. The killer pleads for mercy, whining that he can't control his homicidal instincts. The police close in and rescue the killer from the underworld so that he can stand trial again in "respectable" circumstances. Some prints of the film end with a caution to the audience to watch after their children more carefully. Filmed in Germany, M was the film that solidified Fritz Lang's reputation with American audiences, and it also made a star out of Peter Lorre (previously a specialist in comedy roles!). M was remade by Hollywood in 1951, with David Wayne giving a serviceable performance as the killer.  Hal Erickson
Title : M (1931)
Original title : M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
Directed : Fritz Lang
Duration : 96 min.
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Countries : Germany

The Spiders (Die Spinnen) (1919) Directed by Fritz Lang | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
A film buff's dream, Spiders is comprised of two episodes from an unfinished silent serial from Fritz Lang. Filled with excitement and adventure, it tells the story of a brave explorer who is questing for the fabulous Incan diamond. To get it though, he must keep ahead of the powerful Spider cult, who want it for their own evil purposes. The episodes were originally titled "The Golden Lake" and "The Diamond Ship." Many of the techniques and production designs Lang experimented with in this aborted series, he later refined in his classic Dr. Mabuse films. Sandra Brennan
Title : The Spiders (1919)
Original title : Die Spinnen
Directed : Fritz Lang
Duration : 137 min.
Card titles : English
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Adventure
Countries : Germany 

Liliom (1934) Directed by Fritz Lang | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :

Liliom, Ferenc Molnar's bittersweet fantasy play, was first filmed in Hollywood in 1930, with Charles Farrell as ne'er-do-well carnival barker Liliom and Rose Hobart as his long-suffering wife Julie. While that version is not available for public viewing, the 1935 French-language version directed by Fritz Lang and starring Charles Boyer is currently being offered by several home-video warehouses--albeit in an undubbed, unsubtitled print. Boyer plays Liliom, who runs the carousel at a Budapest amusement park. He impulsively quits his job when he falls in love with mill-worker Julie (Madeleine Ozeray). A terrible husband and provider, Liliom panics when he discovers he's about to become a father. He enters into a get-rich-quick robbery scheme with his unsavory pal Alfred (Alcover), but the plan goes awry. Rather than allow himself to be arrested, Liliom kills himself, whereupon his soul is transported via an art-deco express train to the waiting room of Heaven. A celestial judge determines that Liliom will not get his wings until he returns to earth to do one good deed. Liliom materializes before his now-teenaged daughter, and tries to give her a star that he's stolen from heaven; when she panics, he impulsively slaps her. Considering himself a failure, Liliom wearily heads for Purgatory, but a coda shows that his visit has done a world of good for both his widow and his daughter. Liliom was later musicalized by Rodgers & Hammerstein as Carousel. Hal Erickson
Title : Lilliom (1934)
Directed : Fritz Lang
Duration : 116 min.
Audio : French
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama
Countries : France, United States 

Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) 1928 | Directed by G.W. Pabst | VIDEO (AVI)

Synopsis :
German filmmaker G.W. Pabst's late-silent classic Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) stars the hauntingly beautiful Louise Brooks as libertine dancer Lulu. Ever out for the "main chance," Lulu persuades her wealthy lover Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner) to marry her. But in a fit of jealous rage, he pulls a gun, a scuffle ensues, and she shoots him. Eventually escaping to London with the doctor's moonstruck son Alwa (Francis Lederer), Lulu takes up residence with her "adopted" father Schigolch (Carl Götz), where she is reduced to walking the streets, with tragic consequences. Pandora's Box (based on two works by the controversial German writer Franz Wedekind) exudes smoky sensuality in every frame; regarded now as a masterpiece, the film received surprisingly scathing reviews, with most of the critical broadsides aimed at Louise Brooks (this was long before Brooks graduated from just another pretty Hollywood starlet to Cult Goddess).  Hal Erickson
Title : Pandora's Box (1928)
Original title : Die Büchse der Pandora
Directed : G.W. Pabst
Duration : 109 min.
Original card : German
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama, Romance, Crime
Country : Germany  

Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen) 1929 | Directed by G.W. Pabst | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
German filmmaker G.W. Pabst and Hollywood expatriate Louise Brooks re-team after the success of Pandora's Box for the silent film Diary of a Lost Girl. On the day of her confirmation, innocent young Thymiane Henning (Brooks) is given a lockable diary as a present. She's distraught because the housekeeper Elisabeth (Sibylle Schmitz) is leaving under curious circumstances and turns up presumably dead. Her duties are taken over by the conniving Meta (Franziska Kinz), who accepts the advances of Thymiane's pharmacist father (Josef Ravensky). Trying to understand Elisabeth's fate, Thymiane agrees to meet her father's assistant, Meinert (Fritz Rasp). She passes out, he carries her up to her room, and by the next scene she has borne a child by him. Meta snoops in Thymiane's diary and finds out it was Meinert's baby, so she suggests they get married. Thymiane refuses, so they throw her in a creepy reformatory for fallen women and leave her baby with a midwife. While in the reformatory, she meets Erika (Edith Meinhard), with whom she eventually escapes. To escape from poverty and homelessness, the girls then become nominal prostitutes in a brothel and are "sexually liberated."  Andrea LeVasseur
Title : Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
Original title : Tagebuch einer Verlorenen
Directed : G.W. Pabst
Duration : 93 min.
Original card : English
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama, Culture & Society  
Country : Germany