- The Devil Strikes at Night (1957) review: Featuring a memorable Mario Adorf as the titular “demon,” Robert Siodmak’s well-crafted – even if at times disconcertingly tabloid-like – Nazi Germany-set drama asks viewers, What sets apart serial killers from socially sanctioned mass murderers?
- The Devil Strikes at Night synopsis: In the late stages of World War II, Homicide Bureau investigator Axel Kersten (Claus Holm) discovers the identity of the deranged serial killer (Bruno Ganz) who has been terrorizing Hamburg. That, however, turns out to be an inconvenience for the Nazi regime.
The Devil Strikes at Night (1957) review: Nazi mass murderers vs. serial killer Mario Adorf in Robert Siodmak’s compelling – if unsubtle – political drama
An intriguing, well-crafted, and at times disappointingly unsubtle drama about the pursuit of a serial killer – and its political consequences – during the final months of the mass-murderous Nazi regime, Robert Siodmak’s The Devil Strikes at Night / Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam was the fourth film in the director’s latter-day European (mostly German) phase.
Siodmak had made a name for himself in the 1930s, when he co-directed the Berlin-set, slice-of-life classic People on Sunday, and, on his own, handled big names like Brigitte Horney in Abschied, Conchita Montenegro in La vie parisienne, and Maurice Chevalier in Personal Column.
After fleeing World War II, Siodmak ended up in Hollywood. Mostly at Universal, throughout the 1940s he guided top and/or fast-rising talent – Deanna Durbin, Olivia de Havilland, Burt Lancaster, Ella Raines, Dorothy McGuire, Charles Laughton, etc. – in a series of atmospheric crime dramas, quickly becoming known as a film noir master whose classics and cult favorites include Phantom Lady, Christmas Holiday, The Dark Mirror, Criss Cross, The Killers (which earned him an Academy Award nomination), The Spiral Staircase (at RKO), and Cry of the City (at Fox).
Following the troubled shooting of the 1952 swashbuckler The Crimson Pirate, Siodmak returned to Europe.
The recipient of Best Director honors in Berlin, Karlovy Vary, and at the German Film Awards, in addition to a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nod, The Devil Strikes at Night is arguably the filmmaker’s most prestigious late-career effort.
The Devil Strikes at Night plot: Legally sanctioned vs. unlawful murders
Inspired by actual events – and with several key elements in common with Anatole Litvak’s The Night of the Generals (1967) and Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1971) – The Devil Strikes at Night begins as World War II-battered Hamburg is shaken by the murder of a local waitress.
Through the Homicide Bureau, inspector Axel Kersten (Claus Holm) starts an investigation that leads him to a mentally disabled laborer, Bruno Lüdke (Mario Adorf), who confesses to having committed that particular murder and many other previous ones.
The serial killer has been caught, but dedicated Gestapo officer Rossdorf (Hannes Messemer) points out that there are a couple of pesky problems with the case:
- Another man has already been convicted of the Hamburg murder – and the German justice system never makes any mistakes.
- The Nazi Party would have to explain to the German people that they have left a serial killer on the loose for over a decade.
Therefore, Lüdke can’t really exist and his arrest can’t be made public.
And that leads to the question: Who is more dangerously deranged, the serial killer or the society of which he is a part?
Rare glimpse into moribund Third Reich
Notwithstanding its central murder investigation and grimly ironic plot, The Devil Strikes at Night has few stylistic similarities to Robert Siodmak’s expressionistic Hollywood crime dramas. Such differences may be at least partly explained by the fact that the Nazi era movie is actually less a thriller than a straightforward political drama.
Although the film begins with a harrowing murder sequence that takes place during an air raid, the story quickly veers toward the increasingly intimate relationship between investigator Kersten and a young clerk, Helga (Annemarie Düringer), and, more importantly, toward the unpleasant consequences of unearthing inconvenient sociopolitical truths.
Based on journalist Will Berthold’s – contested[1] – articles for the magazine Münchner Illustrierte, Werner Jörg Lüddecke’s screenplay, apart from a couple of unexplained “coincidences” (which, admittedly, may have been caused by gaps in the English-language subtitles), weaves a gripping narrative while providing a fascinating glimpse into the moribund Third Reich.
Siodmak, for his part, handles the proceedings with a sure hand, only missing out on a poorly staged fight between Kersten and Lüdke. Another directorial minus is the melodramatic tone of some of the film’s more emotionally charged sequences; a more sober approach would have been far more effective.
Average murderer
Among the other positive elements in The Devil Strikes at Night are its solid production values, Claus Holm’s empathetic investigator, and, most noteworthy of all, the still-active Mario Adorf – perhaps best known internationally for Volker Schlöndorff’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner The Tin Drum (1979).
Instead of creating a horror-movie caricature of a mentally ill villain, Adorf makes Bruno Lüdke unnerving – more so than, for instance, Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter) and Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs) – because he is so pathetically “average.”
Lüdke, in fact, could be any slow-witted pub-, or soccer-match-, or church-/mosque-/temple-going guy found anywhere on the planet. How to spot him?
Average power wielders
But as explained earlier in this commentary, Bruno Lüdke’s importance to The Devil Strikes at Night is secondary, for Lüddecke’s and Siodmak’s focus is on the depiction of government officeholders and bureaucrats who will do whatever it takes to both perpetuate and extend their grip on power.
So, who is more dangerously deranged? Those who commit lawful, socially accepted atrocities – and the tens (or hundreds) of millions of individuals who choose to look the other way – or those whose atrocious deeds fall outside the law?
In all, The Devil Strikes at Night and the questions it raises remain as relevant today – whether in authoritarian states or in so-called democracies – as they were in Bruno Lüdke’s homeland in the mid-1940s.
The Devil Strikes at Night / Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam (1957) cast & crew
Director: Robert Siodmak.
Screenplay: Werner Jörg Lüddecke.
From a series of articles by journalist Will Berthold published in the magazine Münchner Illustrierte in 1956.Cast:
Claus Holm … Kommissar Axel Kersten
Annemarie Düringer … Helga Hornung
Mario Adorf … Bruno Lüdke
Hannes Messemer … SS-Gruppenführer Rossdorf
Monika John … Lucy Hansen
Peter Carsten … SS-Standartenführer Mollwitz
Carl Lange (as Karl Lange) … Major Thomas Wollenberg
Werner Peters … Willi Keun
Walter Janssen … Kriminalrat Böhm
Rose Schäfer … Anna Hohmann
Ernst Fritz Fürbringer (as E.F. Fürbringer) … Dr. SchleffienCinematography: Georg Krause.
Film Editing: Walter Boos.
Music: Siegfried Franz.
Producers: Walter Traut and Robert Siodmak.
Production Design: Rolf Zehetbauer.
Wardrobe: Martin Dasch and Anny Loretto.
Production Companies: Divina-Film | Gloria-Film.
Distributors: Gloria Filmverleih (West Germany) | Zenith International Films (United States).
Running Time: 105 min.
Country: West Germany.
“The Devil Strikes at Night (1957): Mass Murderers vs. Serial Killer” notes
How much of a serial killer was Bruno Lüdke?
[1] The real Bruno Lüdke (1908–1944) confessed to having committed dozens of murders, though questions remain whether he was actually responsible for all these crimes.
Reunions
Following The Devil Strikes at Night, Robert Siodmak and Mario Adorf would join forces on My School Chum (1960).
Twenty-three years after The Devil Strikes at Night, Claus Holm and Annemarie Düringer would be featured in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic television miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Academy Awards
The Devil Strikes at Night received one Academy Award nomination: Best Foreign Language Film.
The Devil Strikes at Night movie credits via the British Film Institute (BFI) website.
Claus Holm, Hannes Messemer, and Mario Adorf The Devil Strikes at Night movie images: Divina-Film.
“The Devil Strikes at Night (1957): Mass Murderers vs. Serial Killer” last updated in October 2023.