Hillsborough Classic Film Society
Presents
Sunday, November 2, 2025
2PM
Passmore Center Auditorium/Great Hall (next to Orange County SportsPlex)
M
Criterion Review: “ It’s hard to believe that M was made in 1931. If we allow for the fact that it’s in black and white, it is more engaging to the eye, more incisive in its irony, more firm in its grasp of social complications than most of the films that come along today.
Take the very first shot. Children are playing in the courtyard of a Berlin tenement. We see them from high above; thus we hover over them. They sing, as children often do in innocent games, of chopping and killing. Our vantage point and their song prepare us for the tone of the whole film.
Fritz Lang had been directing in Berlin since 1919, and by 1931 he had made more than a dozen films. M was his first sound film, but no one could know that from the film itself. His use of that new instrument, the soundtrack, leaps at once past mere verisimilitude to evocation. Note the shot of the empty loft while we hear a mother call her missing child. Note—an acutely innovative device possible only with sound—that we hear the central character before we see him. ….
The letter M with which he is tagged—for Mörder, German for “murderer”—guarantees that, under the wit and satire, a dark current flows. When the film first appeared in the United States in 1933, critic William Troy wrote: “The modern psychopath, through Peter Lorre’s acting, attains to the dignity of the tragic hero: the fates are now within the protagonist, instead of assailing him from without.” And the ancient Greek sense of fate is heightened by the blind balloon seller. Like Tiresias in Oedipus Rex, the blind man is the one who sees further than others, who fixes the guilt of the offender.”
Our Speaker
Jeffrey Stern: Jeffrey is currently a Bahama photographer, writer, professor and sound editor. He is best known as a sound editor for over 100 American films,including Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, The Original Kings of Comedy, Chicago, The School of Rock, The Hoax, Amelia, and Addiction Incorporated, as well as the TV series Boardwalk Empire. He was dialogue editor on the team that won the Emmy in 2013 for Oustanding Sound Editing for the series Boardwalk Empire.
PLEASE REGISTER HERE
FREE! FREE POPCORN TOO!!
SPEAKERS LIST (live link)
CLICK HERE TO MAKE COMMENTS
CLICK HERE TO BE PUT ON MAILING LIST: RSVP
Movie titles that are in bold blue have live links to film information
The 2025-2026 Schedule
Sept. 14 Tarkovsky's Mirror, speaker Gustavo Furtado
Oct. 5 Night of the Hunter, speaker Rose Steptoe
Nov. 2 M, speaker Jeffrey Stern
Dec. 7 City Lights, speaker Francesca Talenti
(The December movie will be shown in the
Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough.)
Jan. 25 The Conformist, speaker Gary Hawkins
Feb. 8 Orson Welles' Macbeth, speaker Diana Newton
March, April, and May. No dates are fixed yet for these films
Gospel According to St. Matthew, speaker Henry Veggian
Au Hazard Balthazar, speaker Tom Whiteside
Taxi Driver, speaker Gray Underwood
We are partnering with the Passmore Center. We are indebted to their staff for their gracious and professional help.
2PM
Passmore Center Auditorium/Great Hall (next to Orange County SportsPlex)
M
Criterion Review: “ It’s hard to believe that M was made in 1931. If we allow for the fact that it’s in black and white, it is more engaging to the eye, more incisive in its irony, more firm in its grasp of social complications than most of the films that come along today.
Take the very first shot. Children are playing in the courtyard of a Berlin tenement. We see them from high above; thus we hover over them. They sing, as children often do in innocent games, of chopping and killing. Our vantage point and their song prepare us for the tone of the whole film.
Fritz Lang had been directing in Berlin since 1919, and by 1931 he had made more than a dozen films. M was his first sound film, but no one could know that from the film itself. His use of that new instrument, the soundtrack, leaps at once past mere verisimilitude to evocation. Note the shot of the empty loft while we hear a mother call her missing child. Note—an acutely innovative device possible only with sound—that we hear the central character before we see him. ….
The letter M with which he is tagged—for Mörder, German for “murderer”—guarantees that, under the wit and satire, a dark current flows. When the film first appeared in the United States in 1933, critic William Troy wrote: “The modern psychopath, through Peter Lorre’s acting, attains to the dignity of the tragic hero: the fates are now within the protagonist, instead of assailing him from without.” And the ancient Greek sense of fate is heightened by the blind balloon seller. Like Tiresias in Oedipus Rex, the blind man is the one who sees further than others, who fixes the guilt of the offender.”
Our Speaker
Jeffrey Stern: Jeffrey is currently a Bahama photographer, writer, professor and sound editor. He is best known as a sound editor for over 100 American films,including Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, The Original Kings of Comedy, Chicago, The School of Rock, The Hoax, Amelia, and Addiction Incorporated, as well as the TV series Boardwalk Empire. He was dialogue editor on the team that won the Emmy in 2013 for Oustanding Sound Editing for the series Boardwalk Empire.
PLEASE REGISTER HERE
FREE! FREE POPCORN TOO!!
SPEAKERS LIST (live link)
CLICK HERE TO MAKE COMMENTS
CLICK HERE TO BE PUT ON MAILING LIST: RSVP
Movie titles that are in bold blue have live links to film information
The 2025-2026 Schedule
Sept. 14 Tarkovsky's Mirror, speaker Gustavo Furtado
Oct. 5 Night of the Hunter, speaker Rose Steptoe
Nov. 2 M, speaker Jeffrey Stern
Dec. 7 City Lights, speaker Francesca Talenti
(The December movie will be shown in the
Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough.)
Jan. 25 The Conformist, speaker Gary Hawkins
Feb. 8 Orson Welles' Macbeth, speaker Diana Newton
March, April, and May. No dates are fixed yet for these films
Gospel According to St. Matthew, speaker Henry Veggian
Au Hazard Balthazar, speaker Tom Whiteside
Taxi Driver, speaker Gray Underwood
We are partnering with the Passmore Center. We are indebted to their staff for their gracious and professional help.
