The Devil Strikes at Night
- Will Berthold (book)
- Werner Jörg Lüddecke
Walter Traut
Claus Hardt
- Mario Adorf
- Claus Holm
- Hannes Messemer
- Werner Peters
company
- 19 September 1957 (1957-09-19)
The Devil Strikes at Night (German: Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam) is a 1957 West German crime thriller film directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Claus Holm, Mario Adorf and Hannes Messemer.[1][2][3] The film noir is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke. It was shot at the Baldham Studios. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Gottfried Will and Rolf Zehetbauer. Location shooting took place in Berlin and Munich. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[4] as well as winning German Film Award for Best Fiction Film in its native country.
Synopsis
The film is a highly fictionalized account of the hunt for a serial killer, as he murders women during the last year or two of World War II. In one of the crimes, a man is arrested who is obviously innocent. An investigator begins to unravel a thread leading to the real killer, but becomes frustrated by Nazi authorities who believe that revealing the truth will undermine people's faith in their supposedly infallible system. The detective story gradually evolves into a narrative about the evils of political propaganda and corruption.
Cast
- Claus Holm as Kriminalkommissar Axel Kersten
- Annemarie Düringer as Helga Hornung
- Mario Adorf as Bruno Lüdke
- Hannes Messemer as SS-Gruppenführer Rossdorf
- Carl Lange as Major Thomas Wollenberg
- Werner Peters as Willi Keun
- Walter Janssen as Kriminalrat Boehm
- Peter Carsten as SS-Standartenführer Mollwitz
- Wilmut Borell [de] as SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Heinrich, Rossdorf's aide
- Ernst Fritz Fürbringer as Dr. Schleffien
- Monika John as Lucy Hansen, Kellnerin
- Rosl Schäfer [de] as Anna Hohmann
- Lukas Ammann as Pflichtverteidiger von Keun
- Karl-Heinz Peters as Hauswart
- Helmut Brasch as SS-Truppenführer Scharf
- Georg Lehn [de; fr] as Kriminalassistent Brühl
- Margaret Jahnen [de] as Frau Weinberger
- Käthe Itter as Portiersfrau
- Else Quecke as Frau Lehmann
- Christa Nielsen as Schlampilein
- Alois Maria Giani [de] as Gefängniswärter
See also
- List of submissions to the 30th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of German submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References
Bibliography
- Fisher, Jaimey (ed.). Generic Histories of German Cinema: Genre and Its Deviations. Boydell & Brewer, 2013.
- Noack, Frank. Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker. University Press of Kentucky, 2016.
- Spicer, Andrew. Historical Dictionary of Film Noir. Scarecrow Press, 2010.
External links
- The Devil Strikes at Night at IMDb
- The Devil Strikes at Night at AllMovie
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1930–1939
- People on Sunday (1930)
- Farewell (1930)
- Inquest (1931)
- About an Inquest (1931, MLV)
- The Man in Search of His Murderer (1931)
- Storms of Passion (1932)
- Quick (1932)
- The Burning Secret (1933)
- The Weaker Sex (1933)
- The Crisis is Over (1934)
- La Vie parisienne (1936)
- Parisian Life (1936)
- The Great Refrain (1936)
- Compliments of Mister Flow (1936)
- White Cargo (1937)
- Mollenard (1938)
- The Corsican Brothers (1939)
- Personal Column (1939)
1941–1951
- West Point Widow (1941)
- Fly-by-Night (1942)
- The Night Before the Divorce (1942)
- My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1942)
- Someone to Remember (1943)
- Son of Dracula (1943)
- Phantom Lady (1944)
- Cobra Woman (1944)
- Christmas Holiday (1944)
- The Suspect (1944)
- The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
- The Spiral Staircase (1946)
- The Killers (1946)
- The Dark Mirror (1946)
- Time Out of Mind (1947)
- Cry of the City (1948)
- Criss Cross (1949)
- The Great Sinner (1949)
- The File on Thelma Jordon (1950)
- Deported (1950)
- The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)
1952–1969
- The Crimson Pirate (1952)
- Flesh and the Woman (1954)
- Die Ratten (1955)
- My Father, the Actor (1956)
- The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
- Dorothea Angermann (1959)
- Magnificent Sinner (1959)
- The Rough and the Smooth (1959)
- My Schoolfriend (1960)
- The Nina B. Affair (1961)
- Escape from East Berlin (1962)
- The Shoot (1964)
- The Treasure of the Aztecs (1965)
- The Pyramid of the Sun God (1965)
- Custer of the West (1967)
- Kampf um Rom (1968)
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