Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

[To best experience this review, please download and play either one of the following MIDI files:

http://www.mnc.net/norway/hallofmk.mid
http://www.laurasmidiheaven.com/Classical/Zelenka_In-the-hall-of-_8588.mid

They're identical versions of Edvard Grieg's 'The Hall of the Mountain King' from the Peer Gynt Suites. Not only will they set the mood to help you enjoy this review (which you can enjoy just as much in silence, if you so choose), but also, as you shall soon see, this little tune plays a big part in the film under discussion.]

In an unnamed German city¹, dominated by a plethora of candy and toy shops, a child murderer is terrifying the citizenry. The police have no clues, no leads, and no ability to quell the paranoia and fear that runs rampant down the streets. An innocent man, pausing long enough to give a young child directions, is accosted by a vengeful mob that thinks they've found their killer. Meanwhile, right from under their watchful eyes, young Elsie Beckmann becomes the killer's next victim.

The legendary director Fritz Lang brings Germany's first film of the sound era to light most magnificently. He begins with lots of formal -- if choppy -- camera movements, that are distracting in their awkwardness. But once you realize what he is doing, the effect is startling. The camera is not an objective observer, capturing the action as if merely a documentarian. The camera has more of a subjective role. It seeks out and sees things that interest it, and works hard to find the best vantage point without interfering with the action. The camera (to borrow an oft-used cliché) is truly a voyeur in this piece.

Witness how Lang introduces his villain. A little girl innocently bounces a ball down the sidewalk. She stops in front of a sign by the side of the street, and playfully begins tossing her ball against it. The camera pans over to reveal the sign, and loiters long enough for the audience to read what it says. It is a Wanted poster, detailing the murderer's past crimes, and warning all to be on the lookout. Then, after a sly musical cue, a silhouetted shadow appears on the sign, reminding the audience of the "nasty man in black" rhyme-game a group of children sang to open the film. The man who casts the shadow makes innocuous chitchat with the little girl. The camera stays stock still, though, terrified to move. For it knows that this is the killer, and the little girl is not long for this world.

Besides his use intelligent mastery of visuals, Lang also, for the first time, had the chance to inject sound into a film. As one might expect old habits die hard, and he used this new toy sparingly. But, in hindsight, the quiet actually improves the terror that exists on the story's margins. The film features many long stretches of silence, when even the footsteps on the cobblestone streets can't be heard. It gives the proceedings a rather nightmarish quality (I rarely hear sounds when I dream), and reminds one of silent frights that Kubrick mined from outer space in "2001", or Spielberg found underwater in "Jaws". Or Edvard Munch found in his painting, 'The Scream' (http://www.neolog.com/images/netstuff/New_Folder/scream.jpg). Nothing is more humbling than screaming out in terror, only to produce no sound at all. That is what I felt while watching much of "M".

The most important use of sound, however, is the whistling that ultimately gives away the murderer. His nervous repetition of Grieg's 'The Hall of the Mountain King' (which should be floating gently from your speakers as we speak) is as effective a use of whistling as one might find in cinema. Think of how David Lean used 'Colonel Bogey's March' in his "Bridge on the River Kwai", or Hawkeye's arrogant "too-twee-toot" in Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H", and you've got a good idea of how prevalent the tune is here. I'm not sure I buy the notion that the murderer would have such an easy-to-spot tick, yet would remain uncaught for months. And realistically, how long would he have the same song stuck in his head? It seems kind of convenient. That being said, this character and narrative trait works wonderfully well, and all but provides the film with its entire musical score.

(Tangential note: Is it just me, or does 'The Hall of the Mountain King' sound an awful lot like the opening theme from "Inspector Gadget"? For the sake of comparison, here is the latter: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1087/gadget.mid)

Lang also utilizes a "staring-down-the-spiral-staircase" shot that predates Hitchcock's use of a nearly-identical shot 27-years later, in "Vertigo". That's not the only (or even close to the most important) feature these two directors share. Peter Lorre, the titular star here (as the murderer Franz Becker), would appear in Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "Secret Agent", within five years of completing "M".

Lorre, probably best known for his English-language work in "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon", is a mesmerizing scream here. Despite not making a full-fledge appearance until the film is almost half over, Lorre strikes a note of realism and dismay that none of the other assembled actors can even get close to. Even in a quiet, wordless scene, he never hits a wrong note. There's one shot in particular that stands out for me: Lorre sits in front of a mirror, and examines his features while gently, then vigorously, kneading his face with his fingers. As if he's looking for a clue, a reason why he is the way he is (although probably not intentional, his middle fingers pick up most of the slack, delivering a message of self-loathing that only a modern audience might get. See here: http://www.dasfilmarchiv.de/lorre_spiegel.JPG). It's a terribly sad scene, which sets up his character as more than just a monster. He's a real man, caught in a very surreal predicament.

Using those distinctive features of his (the Marty Feldman eyes², the weasely voice, the stocky but swift form), Lorre creates a very disturbing yet surprisingly human variation on the cinematic serial killer. Despite the credibility of its speaker, his final speech, delivered in a frenzied wail of a voice ("I can't help what I do… I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment!"), will almost make you forgive the man for his misdeeds, and root for his escape from the Kangaroo Court that has him cornered.

In a film about urban paranoia, by a director best-known for the dystopian fantasy of "Metropolis", set in the Germany of the early 1930's, it's not a far stretch of the imagination to find allusions to the rise of Nazism. I'm not the first reviewer to point this out, surely. That being said, having an oppressed's-eye-view (Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre were both Jews, and wound up fleeing Germany after the film's release) of the rise of the National Socialist party is a near-unique experience. It's a wonderful insider's account of the terror of the times.

Prior to its release, "M" was to be called "The Murderers are Among Us", a reference to the secretive military arm of the Nazi party, the SA (The title was shortened to its current incarnation when Lang feared reprisal once the party realized they were being critiqued). It's fitting, for in a film about a serial child murderer, there is little or no violence portrayed on screen; it all happens off-camera. Much of the horror of the piece comes from the effect that the violence has on the populace left behind. We get scenes of police rounding up suspects on nighttime raids, and finding any slight excuse to hold them in custody. There's also one pregnant shot of a table, on which sits piles of watches, jewelry, and other valuable personal items, taken from the mass of detainees. Lang's prediction of the Nazi's tactics turns out to be spot-on, as these scenes show.

The film's name change, in the end, also provides additional subtextual meanings. The 'M', which serves as a mark to identify Becker, reminds one of the Star of David, which marked the Jews in Nazi Germany, or even the multi-coloured inverted triangles that denoted criminals, political prisoners, asocials, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. But it also calls to mind the 'A' in Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". Both stories deal with a time of great paranoia, of societies willing to blame an individual (or a group of individuals) for their greater ills. I'm not naïve enough to believe that the adultery of Hester Prynne is a crime on par with the child murdering of Franz Becker. But it is worth noting that both narratives are harsher on the society that condemns than the criminal him/herself.

Despite being made over seven decades ago, "M" is still a harrowing experience to sit through. As I mentioned before, it features very little violence. But it still manages to be an intense little thriller, in which the audience can identify both with the fears of a public caught in the grips of a menacing killer, and with the torment of the killer himself. That's certainly an intriguing double-switch, which helps the film earn its much-deserved reputation.

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¹Despite never naming the city, the film was shot in Berlin, 5 years before the Nazi's big coming-out-party at that city's 1936 Olympics.

²Mr. Feldman is mfunk75's MVP of the Month for May 2003. See here and here for more.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD