Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Police Detective Film
Themes: Serial Killers, Missing Persons
Main Cast: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Gustaf Gründgens, Friedrich Gnass
Release Year: 1931
Country: DE
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive child murderer (Peter Lorre), and they begin rounding up every criminal in town. The underworld leaders decide to take the heat off their activities by catching the child killer themselves. Once the killer is fingered, he is marked with the letter "M" chalked on his back. He is tracked down and captured by the combined forces of the Berlin criminal community, who put him on trial for his life in a kangaroo court. The killer pleads for mercy, whining that he can't control his homicidal instincts. The police close in and rescue the killer from the underworld so that he can stand trial again in "respectable" circumstances. Some prints of the film end with a caution to the audience to watch after their children more carefully. Filmed in Germany, M was the film that solidified Fritz Lang's reputation with American audiences, and it also made a star out of Peter Lorre (previously a specialist in comedy roles!). M was remade by Hollywood in 1951, with David Wayne giving a serviceable performance as the killer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
One of the most distinguished and technically accomplished early sound films, Fritz Lang's M (1931) revealed the expressive possibilities for combining sound and visuals, in a metaphorically loaded story about pre-Nazi Germany. Working from the true story of the Dusseldorf child murders, Lang matches a mother's anguished calls for her daughter with images of an empty stairwell and a lost balloon rather than show the killing, while the murderer's obsessive whistling becomes the calling card for his threatening presence. Beyond the use of sound, Lang takes a pessimistic view of German society, using editing to equate the police with the criminals, while Fritz Arno Wagner's fluid cinematography creates a gloomy night world of shadows and paranoid entrapment. Lang's documentary-like attention to the details of the search, combined with the absence of non-diegetic music, matches the stylization with an equally creepy element of realism. The killer may be sick, but the society pursuing him isn't that much better. A worldwide success and a star-maker for Peter Lorre, M influenced movies from those of Orson Welles to the American film noir of the 1940s; Lang himself left Nazi Germany for Hollywood in 1933. The 111-minute version features an added courtroom ending. The movie was remade by Joseph Losey in 1951 as an allegory of Cold War-era Communist "witch hunts." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Fritz Odemar - Dynamiter; Paul Kemp - Pickpocket; Theo Lingen - Bauernfaenger; Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur - Chief of Police; Franz Stein - Minister; Otto Wernicke - Inspector Karl Lohmann; Theodor Loos - Police Commissioner Groeber; Rudolf Blumner - Barrister; Georg John - Blind Beggar; Karl Platen - Nightwatch; Gerhard Bienert - Secretary; Rose Valetti - Landlady; Hertha Von Walther - Prostitute; Heinrich Gotho; Lotte Loebinger - Isenta; Klaus Pohl; Paul Rehkopf; Hugo Döblin; Ilse Furstenberg; Heinrich Gretler; Leonard Steckel - Karchow; Otto Waldis; Rolf Wanka; Gunther Neumann; Gunther Hadank
M (German: M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder) is a 1931Germandrama-thriller directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It was Lang's first sound film, although he had directed over a dozen films previously.
The film has become a classic which Lang himself considered his finest work.[1][2]
A group of children are playing a game involving a song about a child murderer. This foreshadows the appearance of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), a serial killer — and, it is implied, a pedophile — who preys on children in 1930s Berlin. Initially the audience does not see his face; they merely see his shadow, shots of his body and hear him whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt as he buys a balloon from a blind man and gives it to a little girl named Elsie Beckmann (Inge Landgut). In the next scene, her mother (Ellen Widmann) searches frantically as the audience sees the balloon ensnared in telephone lines, and subsequently floating away.
Meanwhile, the police, under Inspector Karl Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), pursue the killer using then state of the art techniques such as fingerprinting and handwriting analysis. They also stage raids and question known criminals. This affects underworld business and some of the top crooks decide to get rid of the killer themselves so they can resume "business". The criminals enlist the help of the city's beggars to keep watch over the children and find the killer.
Thus a race develops between the police and the criminals to catch the killer, who is completely unaware of what is happening. He makes the mistake of whistling his tune again near the same blind balloon salesman. The blind man tells one of the criminals, who tails the killer using a beggar network. Desperate for a way to track him, one of them marks a large letter M (for "Mörder", meaning murderer in German) onto the killer's coat in chalk.
Now able to track the killer, the beggars pursue him and, after calling the criminals to join them, ensue with a lengthy search of an office building, finally catch him. They bring him before a kangaroo court conducted by criminals; Beckert is even given a "lawyer". Beckert delivers an impassioned monologue, saying that the voices in his head compel him to commit these crimes, and that he should not be punished for being insane. He is compelled to commit his crimes, while the other criminals present do it by choice. His "lawyer" even points out that the presiding "judge" is himself wanted on three accounts of manslaughter. Beckert's monologue ends with the line "Who knows what it's like to be me?" As the criminals are on the point of killing Beckert, the police arrive, snatching him from their grip.
The final image of the film is that of five judges about to give Beckert his sentence. Before the sentence is announced, the shot cuts to three of the victim's mothers crying, with Elsie's mother saying that either sentence will not bring back the dead children. And, that "One has to keep closer watch over the children. All of you."
Cast
Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert. M was Lorre's first major starring role, and it boosted his career, even though he was typecast as a villain for years after in films such as Mad Love and the film adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Before M, Lorre was mostly a comedic actor. After fleeing from the Nazis, he landed a major role in Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), picking up English along the way.[3]
Otto Wernicke as Inspector Karl Lohmann. Wernicke made his breakthrough with M after playing many small roles in silent films for over a decade. After his part in M, he was in great demand due to the success of the film, including returning to the role of Karl Lohmann in The Testament of Doctor Mabuse, and he played supporting roles for the rest of his career.[4]
Gustaf Gründgens as Herr Schränker. Gründgens received acclaim for his role in the film and established a successful career for himself under Nazi rule, ultimately becoming director of the "Staatliches Schauspielhaus".[5]
Hanna Meron as Girl in circle at the beginning (uncredited)
Klaus Pohl as Witness / one-eyed man (uncredited)
Production
M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s,[6] although Lang fervently denied that he drew from this case.[7]
Lorre's character whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. However, Peter Lorre himself could not whistle – it is actually Lang who is heard.[8] The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, associating "In the Hall of the Mountain King" with the Lorre character. Late in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from opera, is now a film staple.[9]
