Rating: 
Summary: M is for Masterpiece
Review: Anyone who has an interest in films and have not checked out any of Fritz Lang's german originals are seriously missing out. This film is no exception, a masterpiece in every area - brilliantly paced, meticulously detailing the Berlin Police's painstaking methods of trying to track down Peter Lorre's elusive psychopath in the first half, and a manhunt for Lorre by the Berlin underworld in the second. Lorre's face when he he is finally caught and is facing dire concequences is so full of innocence and fear you cannot help but feel for him, and the final line (and message) in the film is haunting and unforgettable. The camerawork in the film is breathtaking at times, and it is superbly acted: Lorre seems born to play the role and Otto Wernicke provides occasional comic relief as the tough and cocky Comissionar Lohmann (a role he reprised in Langs seminal Testament of Dr. Mabuse, a film BEGGING for a DVD release). Don't be put off by the films age - it's style is remarkably contemporary and puts down most of todays efforts of the same ilk to shame. A must-see.
Rating:
Summary: "M"= N...for Nightmare!
Review: Peter Lorre is astounding as HANS the candy-wielding, child serial killer of Fritz Lang's justly reputed expressionist masterwork in horror. This is a wicked head-trip into the psyche of THE BOGEYMAN. There is not a single murder shown; yet watching a little girl victim's mother preparing lunch and waiting for her daughter to NEVER return is terrifying. The frame where a TOY BALLOON wafts...like the murdered child's soul...into the heavens is archetypal and has to be among the most frightening IMAGES ever filmed. "M" is nightmare scripted at nightmare pace with claustrophobic camera work. It "corners" you in eerie pursuit of a psychotic pervert (yet again: it never explicitly glamorizes perversion in the sick/slick fashion of contemporary SLASHER films; or pretentious, would-be art films like SHADOW of the VAMPIRE).Lang compounds horror of the story with irony of forces of Evil(The criminal demimonde) hunting Lorre as an equally twisted act of self-preservation in face of ineptitude of the forces of Law.The dizzying implication that Man's LAW cannot protect...nor is constructed to protect...GOOD, but merely exists to enforce ORDER, is presented in the classic Kafkaesque TRIAL where Lorre pleads "innocence" before a Court of Criminals. It is like The Devil being judged by demons in Hell. Fritz Lang's film...like his sci-fi allegory METROPOLIS...remains presciently ahead of its time as cinematic exploration of monstrous Evil. Lorre plays a Monster. He is a premeditated killer living by destroying children...incarnations of whatever innocence and goodness society affects to value...claiming: "it is not my fault!" "M" is the mark of The Beast. It is Fritz Lang's Id nightmare...
Rating:
Summary: New Edition Coming Out
Review: Criterion is taking this DVD out-of-print, and then releasing a new edition at the end of 2004, with a pristine transfer from newly restored film elements and a bunch of special features. So wait for that one- don't buy it yet!
Rating: 
Summary: an excellent film, poor print. wait until late 2004 to buy
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection (1st edition) of the film. This movie is Fritz Lang's first "talkie" and an excellent film about a serial child murderer. The police are so obsessed with catching him and are everywhere. This prevents the other criminals like pickpocketers and burgalrs from doing their criminal activity so they team up and enlist the help of beggars and the "underworld" to find and apprehend the murderer. This Criterion DVD, now temoraraily out of print, has bad picture quality but still is a good film. Later this year the DVD will be rereleased with far better picture quality and special features which this version does not have. This edition has no special features of any kind. I will put up a new review when the new version is released.
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Summary: Murderous Molester Meets Mob Mentality...
Review: While watching this story unfold, I found myself on quite a rollercoaster ride of emotion. First, I hated Beckert (Peter Lorre's character) for luring innocent little girls to their hideous deaths. Beckert is scary due to his ordinariness, his gentle face and small stature. He's the opposite of what we tend to expect (even today) a child molester / killer to look like. I really wanted this guy caught! I cheered for the cops to nail this maniac at all cost. Then, I wanted the underworld types to nab him and dole out their version of justice (regardless of their selfish, criminal motives). The scenes of the crooks surrounding / hunting Beckert in a deserted office building are paranoic and intensely claustrophobic. I could feel the terror in Beckert's head. No longer the predator, he was now the prey. Once caught, he is taken to a deserted brewery and put on "trial" by the crime bosses. Beckert must plead for his life before a mob that's not all that interested in his side of the story. He delivers one of the most desperate pleas for mercy in movie history to an audience concerned only with his destruction. Just as the mob leaps at him to tear him apart, the cops arrive, becoming Beckert's (temporary) salvation. In the end, we are left with the words of one of the victims' mother. She sadly states that while Beckert may die for his crimes, this will not bring her baby back to her. Such is the great paradox of justice. Fritz Lang gives us quite a lot to think about in this legendary tale. Buy it and see what I mean...
Rating:
Summary: AAA
Review: When does a movie become a classic ? Why german-american director Fritz Lang's M does belong to this film category ? Because of the visual power of certain of the scenes shown in this movie. The lunar face of Peter Lorre will stay printed in our head for the rest of our life, like Leonardo Da Vinci LA JOCONDE. Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt suite will also never sound the same for you after M. Another theme treated by Fritz Lang in M is the psychology of the crowd. Always opposed to the behaviour of a single person, the crowd for Lang is dangerous, it is the place of evil. Peter "M" Lorre says that he's not guilty because he cannot defend himself against his pulsions. Strangely, the people in a crowd adopt the same defense, saying that something stronger than their individual will has pushed them to act in a different than usual way. In his second american movie FURY, Fritz Lang will masterfully treat again this theme with Spencer Tracy as leading character. No bonus features with this Criterion release except for english subtitles. The sound is excellent but images are not perfect : for instance, a white horizontal line appears after 60 minutes on the upper surface of the copy. A DVD which is already in your library.
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Summary: A Haunting Masterpiece, Frightening and Harrowing!
Review: Extremely effective for an early talkie. Master Fritz Lang did a terrific job with the moody atmosphere of the movie, everything seems so dirty and obscure. As you see the movie, you sense a kind of hostility but you can't figure out who it's directed at. Well, Lang was not a nazi sympathizer, and when they heard he was making a picture about a murderer, they thought it would be a thinly veiled individual representing nazism, but when they knew that he was dealing with a mere child murderer, they said go ahead Mr. Lang. But multi-layered meanings put aside, this is the film that influenced almost every suspense and horror movie to come, not to mention it single-handedly created the serial murder genre. Long before we were haunted by the likes of Hannibal Lecter, plump little Hans Beckert populated our nightmares. And Peter Loore is nothing short than brilliant in his film debut, his last monologue in front of the kangaroo court is unforgettable. While the film aches for a musical score, it makes great use of sound, somehow the 'Peer Gynt' tune will never seem the same. The story of a serial murder who cannot be found, and is ultimately brought to justice by the Berlin underworld is frightently contemporary. Haunting, frightening and unforgettable. The final scenes in the kangaroo court are truly breathtaking, Loore's plea that 'he can't help what he does' makes us almost understand the despicable character. A one-of-a-kind masterpiece that continues to frighten us after all this years. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 10!
Rating: 
Summary: Did Alfred Hitchcock have a mentor?
Review: If he did it could have been Fritz Lang & his seminal talkie, M, made in 1931 & released in 1933. A deranged child murderer is loose in the city (played broadly & wonderfully by "newcomer," Peter Lorre).
The movie has scenes pitting citizen v. citizen, in accusations & counter accusations, near lynchings & mob hysteria. The police seem helpless & bereft of clues. Organized crimes seeks to find the murderer also. He's bad for business.
Crowd mentality is examined. It is a theme Lang returns to in later movies. His first American movie, Fury , (1936) deals with vigilantism & mob rule. This version, a poor print by the way, has English subtitles so your forced to pay attention. It was Lang's favorite film. It is a prototype, if you will, of the murder mystery genre. Kind of a precursor to Hitchcock's thrillers of the 40's & 50's.
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Summary: Film as Allegory
Review: "M", Fritz Lang's ingenious story of the hunt for a child molester, is a remarkable snapshot of civilized German society at the moment predating its collapse. The child murderer Beckert (who would later be used in Nazi propaganda films as a prototype of Jewish/sexual deviance) is presented as an enemy of motherhood and the people, and therefore all of Germany. The authorities are hapless in their investigation, causing a gathering of vigilante forces - crooks, killers, pimps, and prostitutes - who capture Beckert, and try to bring him to justic before being stopped by police. Lang's working of cinematography provokes a sense of outrage at police attempts to enforce law: there are prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges in the underground kangaroo court of the criminals, but no jury -the audience is intended to be. With lawlessness everywhere, 1931 Berlin crowds cheered approvingly of the near assasination of Beckert by the underground. The austere judges of the actual law who sentence Beckert (likely to an asylum from which he will eventually be released) are shown as overlords on high, unresponsive to the three mothers of murdered children who weep and warn, "We must all take better care of our children." Whether Lang intended it or not, taking better care of the children seemed a system entirely unlike the Weimar Republic - what would eventually become Nazism. Lang was no Facist, but this is one of the classic films heralding is birth.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent film, poor print. wait until late 2004 to buy
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection (1st edition) of the film. This movie is Fritz Lang's first "talkie" and an excellent film about a serial child murderer. The police are so obsessed with catching him and are everywhere. This prevents the other criminals like pickpocketers and burgalrs from doing their criminal activity so they team up and enlist the help of beggars and the "underworld" to find and apprehend the murderer. This Criterion DVD, now temoraraily out of print, has bad picture quality but still is a good film. Later this year the DVD will be rereleased with far better picture quality and special features which this version does not have. This edition has no special features of any kind. I will put up a new review when the new version is released.
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