Heard It in an Ad · Story 7
1931 · the German film M
The Grieg tune a killer whistled on screen
In the 1931 film M, the clue that gave the murderer away was a few whistled bars.
Nobody knew the killer's face. But someone remembered his whistling.
Where you heard it
In Fritz Lang's 1931 German film M, the serial murderer habitually whistles "In the Hall of the Mountain King". A blind balloon seller remembers the tune, and it becomes the thread that leads to the killer. A plot solved by a sound was possible because M was Lang's first sound film.
The real story
Grieg wrote the piece as part of his music for a production of Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, first staged in 1876 in Christiania, today's Oslo. It accompanies the scene where Peer enters the hall of the mountain king. The low instruments creep in with the theme, and with each repetition it grows faster and louder until it bursts.
Tell a friend
"In the Hall of the Mountain King" is the tune a blind balloon seller recognised to catch the killer in an old German film.
Edvard Grieg1843–1907Read the story of Grieg →