In Film
The case of Fritz Haarmann has been the inspiration for at least three films. The classic film M, which starred Peter Lorre and was released in 1931 and directed by Fritz Lang was inspired by the crimes of Fritz Haarmann, as well as those of two other infamous German serial killers of the early twentieth century: Düsseldorf child killer Peter Kürten and Carl Großmann.
The film The Tenderness of the Wolves (Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe), released in July 1973, was directly based upon Haarmann's crimes. The film, directed by Ulli Lommel, written by and starring Kurt Raab as Haarmann. German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder produced the film and also appeared in a minor role as Wittkowski.
The most recent film to be based upon Haarmann's murder spree, Der Totmacher (The Deathmaker), was released in 1995. This film starred Götz George as Haarmann. This film focuses on the records of the psychiatric examinations of Haarmann by Erich Schultze, one of the main psychiatric experts in the trial. The plot of Der Totmacher centers around Haarmann's interrogation after his arrest, as he is being interviewed by a court psychiatrist.
Read more about this topic: Fritz Haarmann
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“You should look straight at a film; that’s the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.”
—Werner Herzog (b. 1942)
“All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)