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Summary: Lang's dark and terrifying tale of the Berlin underworld
Review: Director Fritz Lang's bleak, intense criminal masterpiece "M" is one of the cinema's most important and interesting works...and should be a real "must see" for any fan of foreign cinema.Peter Lorre in his acting debut plays a sinister, cold blooded child murderer prowling the shadowy and darkened streets of Berlin looking for victims to slake his violent desires. Loosely based around the true tale of German mass murderer, Fritz Haarman, who preyed on young males in the early twenties, before losing his head to the guillotine !! ....Lang's subject matter was very controversial on several levels and Lang's film is a jarring ride through a world of suspense and terror that ultimately finds the predator becoming the prey. Lorre eludes the frustrated Berlin police force, but finds that his criminal peers can no longer tolerate his barbarity and so they set about judging this outcast member of their community in their own fashion. Lang truly was a magnificent director and this dark, atmospheric cauldron of intense performances is one of Germany's finest films. A movie not easily forgotten and one bound to evoke spirited conversation amongst viewers of this great work. A genuine masterpiece of the cinema.....10 stars !!
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Summary: Fritz Lang's classic film about the child murderer, Beckert
Review: "Just you wait a little while,
The nasty man in black will come,
With his little chopper,
He will chop you up!"
It is interesting to see that the original iconic image for Fritz Lang's "M" was the letter written on the palm of a hand, which is what you see on the cover of the VHS edition. Today the most famous short is what appears on the cover of the Criterion DVD edition, with Hanz Beckert (Peter Lorre) seeing his reflecting and finding the "M" imprinted on the back of his coat. Certainly the latter image is the most memorable, but the former really does represent the film better. Until the final scenes of the film at his "trial" where he gives his memorable speech, Beckert (Franz Becker in some translations) is more shadow than substance. What stands out is the idea that the criminal underground would band together in an all-out effort to apprehend the child murderer, and would succeed where the legal authorities would not. Even in Nazi Germany on the eve of the Hoolcaust, murdering children is beyond the pale for criminals.
The opening scene of the film is the best part from a cinematic standpoint, as a increasingly worried Madame Beckmann (Ellen Widmann), waits for her daughter Elsie (Inge Landgut) to come home from school. In the montage we see Elsie walking along the street bouncing a ball and then tossing it up against a light post. The camera pans up to the bulletin asking, "Who is the murderer?" and then a shadow falls over it. Whatever doubts we have are gone, for we know that poor little Elsie is doomed. The strange little man in the black suit admires the ball and buys the little girl a balloon while her mother becomes more anxious at home. Finally there are the shots an empty place setting at a table, of a ball rolling along the ground, and a balloon caught in electric wires before flying away.
With the public's angry reaction to the death of yet another young girl, the police increase their efforts, raiding a bar to see what they can find. While the police are trying to figure out what to do next so are the leaders of the underworld. The break comes when the blind man who sells the balloons recognizes the tune the killer whistled the day he bought a balloon for Elsie. Beckert has the habit of whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's "Peter Gynt" suite (the whistling was dubbed by Lang himself). Beckert is followed as he stalks his next victim and the tell-tale "M" is placed upon the back of his coat. Trapped in an office building, Beckert is captured by the criminals and then placed on trial for his crimes.
Tried before a court of underworld criminals, a terrified and bug-eyed Beckert tries to proclaim his innocence at first, but then suddenly confesses in an emotional outburst, screaming, "I can't help myself!" In time Lorre's performances would be reduced to caricature, easily imitated by even the most inept of impressionists, but here it is raw and powerful. When he is confronted with the photographs of the young girls that he has killed, he flinches as if receive physical blows, which only serves to underscore the psychological nature of this classic film. Up until this point the film has been more about technique and it is not until the child murderer is finally in their hands that the criminals try to come to terms with what sort of monster they have captured.
Ultimately I think that in "M" the efforts of the criminals are best compared not with those of the police, but with the mob mentality that attacks one suspect on the street. Such a scene presages Lang's first American film, "Fury," but it also recalls the scene in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" where the mob inflamed by Antony's funeral oration kills the poet Cinna for having the same name as one of the conspirators (and his bad verses). Given what was happening in Germany in 1931, it is interesting to note that the violence of the streets, represented by Hitler's Brown Shirts, is personified not by the authorities but by the average men in the street. I do not want to read too much into what Lang is trying to say about the Nazis in this film, but those who want to make a case for that perspective will find plenty to work with in "M."
What we now have available is a fully restored version of this classic 1931 film, courtesy of the Munich Film Archive, which features a restored soundtrack, including Lang's originally intended long periods of silence (remember, this is Lang's first sound picture), and the frame size restored to its proper ratio. What this means is that if you have not seen "M" in a long while the time has come for you to see it again. "M" still succeeds today, even in black & white with subtitles, because Lang invokes both horror and pity for the murderer and his victims, and creates a compelling "modern" city in which these characters live. Besides Lang and Lorre, the third person who deserves lots of credit is cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner, who also did F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" (although the stories and styles are decidedly different). The rest is still a notch below the highest rank of films for that time, but it is still qualifies as "must see."
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Summary: GERMANY'S FIRST TALKIE IS A CLASSIC
Review: "M" was directed by Fritz Lang who directed the now classic silent film "Metropolis". M was also the first talking film In Germany.
A vastly interesting and disturbing German production from 1931 that stars a very young Peter Lorre as a psychopath who goes around the city trying to find children to murder. Naturally the entire community gets in a raged uproar as no one has any clues as to who is committing these grisly crimes. The police, fearful of more murders, hire more officers and the streets become patrolled at all times.
Now the crime syndicates have their hands tied as their shady dealings cannot go down due to the watchful eyes of the cops. Disenchanted with the authorities, many citizens begin to take matters into their own hands in the hopes of finding the culprit themselves. A dark underworld of dangerous criminals and hysterical civilians then join forces in the hopes of ending the murderer's life forever.
"M" is one of those productions that is engrossing from the very start due to its realism and its frightening tone. Director Fritz Lang makes the film work by creating a landscape that shows all people that are directly and indirectly affected by Lorre's sick actions. Lorre though does come off at times as a strangely sympathetic character as it is made quite clear that he has an addiction to killing that he cannot deny. He is actually a mental case, but everyone else does not seem to care.
Germany was about to foresee many changes shortly after 1931 and it seems very apparent in "M". The crazed control that cops and underworld syndicates have on typical citizens is an intriguing premise explored here. Of course Hitler's Nazis would use similar strong-armed tactics and strange forms of propaganda to gain support within their own country by the mid-1930s. Thus "M" feels like a frightening foreshadower of things to come.
Must See film!
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Summary: Great film but waiting for DVD re-release
Review: An new edition is forthcoming from Criterion later this year with "a pristine transfer from newly restored film elements, as well as a host of new special features." Something to look forward to!
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Summary: The perfect example of subtle terror.
Review: This film left me numb. The final scenes hit me with a power I had never before experienced. Peter Lorre plays a child murderer (immaculately, I must add) being pursued, throughout the course of the film, by not only the police, but the underground crime syndicate as well. Lang's use of the newfound sound technology is absolutely brilliant, as is his visual style. The opening scene shows shots of empty alleys, stairwells, and a lost balloon stuck in power lines over the sound of a mother calling for her child, instead of showing the actual killing itself. And its worth seeing for that alone.
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Summary: Great Movie - Excellent Classic
Review: Gotta say - this is a great film
Personally - aside from the set design - I wasn't crazy about Metropolis, so I didn't know what to expect with this piece of Lang's
However, this was an excellent film --- obviously, nothing can compete with Metropolis's set design....... however, this film had an amazing and powerful story attached to it, that is likely going to grab EVERYONE!!!!!
I don't wanna give it away, but its a highly political one, that leaves no one without criticism
If Fritz were alive today, I'd be willing to bet that he would be running for President on the Liberterian ticket
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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 - to capture Beckert, and try to bring him to justice. Lang's working of cinematography makes the viewer a co-conspirator: there are prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges in the 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 intercept and 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.
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