The Devil Strikes at Night | |
---|---|
Original German poster
|
|
Directed by | Robert Siodmak |
Produced by | Robert Siodmak |
Written by |
Will Berthold (book) Werner Jörg Lüddecke |
Starring |
Mario Adorf Claus Holm Hannes Messemer Werner Peters |
Music by | Siegfried Franz |
Cinematography | Georg Krause |
Edited by | Walter Boos |
Distributed by | Gloria |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
97 minutes |
Country | West Germany |
Language | German |
The Devil Strikes at Night (German: Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam) is a 1957 West German film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke.
It is the story of a serial killer who 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 who starts to get a thread which leads to the real killer is frustrated by Nazi authorities who feel that revealing the truth will undermine the people's faith in their supposedly infallible system. The detective story gradually becomes a story about the evils of political propaganda and corruption.