The Devil Strikes at Night

The Devil Strikes at Night () is a 1957 West German film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film as well as winning German Film Award for Best Fiction Film in its native country. It is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke.

It 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 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.

The film's sets were designed by the art directors Gottfried Will and Rolf Zehetbauer. Location shooting took place in Berlin and Munich.

Cast

Claus Holm as Kriminalkommissar Axel Kersten

Annemarie Düringer as Helga Hornung

Mario Adorf as Bruno Lüdke

Hannes Messemer as SS-Gruppenfuehrer Rossdorf

Carl Lange as Major Thomas Wollenberg

Werner Peters as Willi Keun

Walter Janssen as Kriminalrat Boehm

Peter Carsten as SS- Standartenfuhrer Mollwitz

Wilmut Borell as SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Heinrich, Rossdorf's aide

Monika John as Lucy Hansen, Kellnerin

Rose Schäfer as Anna Hohmann

Lukas Ammann as Pflichtverteidiger von Keun

Karl-Heinz Peters as Hauswart

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

External links

1957 films

West German films

1950s German-language films

Films set in Berlin

1957 crime drama films

1950s thriller films

German thriller films

German detective films

Political drama films

Films directed by Robert Siodmak

Film noir

German black-and-white films

German serial killer films

Films about Nazi Germany

Films based on non-fiction books

Gloria Film films

1950s serial killer films

1950s German films