Murder for Sale (1930) Einbrecher | Region-Free (Blu-Ray) | Lilian Harvey
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**DISC ONLY**
Source: DVD with English Subtitles.
Title: Murder for Sale (1930)
Alternate Title: Einbrecher
Genre: Musical, Comedy
Plot Synopsis:
Renée, the young and attractive wife of the wealthy but older toymaker Dumontier, feels stifled in her marriage. Seeking excitement, she becomes entangled with Durand, a charming gentleman burglar who initially plans to rob her but ends up falling in love with her. Their budding romance faces complications when Dumontier discovers the affair, leading to unexpected decisions that challenge societal norms.
Cast and Crew:
- Director: Hanns Schwarz
- Producers:
- Erich Pommer
- Writers:
- Robert Liebmann
- Louis Verneuil (play)
- Cast:
- Ralph Arthur Roberts as Dumontier
- Lilian Harvey as Renée
- Willy Fritsch as Durand
- Heinz Rühmann as Sérigny
- Margarethe Köppke as Mimi
- Oskar Sima as The Servant
- Gertrud Wolle as Hortense
- Kurt Gerron as First Police Commissioner
- Paul Henckels as Second Police Commissioner
IMDb Link:
Murder for Sale (1930)
Reviews from Letterboxd:
- sakana1 – ★★★★½
“Burglars is yet another light, very charming Weimar musical comedy. Though it failed to achieve the success of The Three from the Filling Station, which featured much of the same cast, it’s nevertheless appealing and often quite clever. Cheerfully foregrounding the usual Weimar debauchery, the film features, among other things, sanguine acceptance of presumed threesomes, a song with lyrics that consists only of ‘she’s coming!’ repeated about two dozen times, and a man determinedly, very publicly seeking a (new) husband for the woman to whom he is very much still married.” - dirtylaundri – ★★★★
“‘Just pretend, do it mechanically’, sings Lilian Harvey, just as Ralph Arthur Roberts praises the ‘mechanical heart’ of the dolls he creates and which, from time to time, take over the film, singing and dancing away. The dolls are also for sale and (potentially) mass-produced, while Harvey has been described, by Siegfried Kracauer, as ‘erotic decorative art’, the perfect fetish object for the age of mechanical reproduction of desire.” - LenoJeno – ★★★½
“I can’t help but feel that this may have been influenced by the contemporary Lubitsch musicals from the US. It even has a very similar scene from The Love Parade a year earlier, where two people have a date and everyone is listening outside of the room. Overall this movie is strongest during its musical moments and weakest during its expositionary dialogue (the sometimes forced dialogue is generally what I find the weakest aspect of these early Weimar or Austrian films, but that’s also part of the charm).”
Meta Description:
Murder for Sale (1930), also known as Einbrecher, is a German musical comedy directed by Hanns Schwarz. The film stars Lilian Harvey as Renée, a young wife seeking excitement, and Willy Fritsch as Durand, a gentleman burglar who falls for her. Their affair challenges societal norms and leads to unexpected decisions.