Fritz Lang’s classic film M (1931) is ranked 49th overall on the Internet Database Poll of most popular films and is the 5th most popular foreign film on the list. This is all the more remarkable when one considers that no film rated higher than it was produced prior to 1941. Some of the current popularity must be attributed to the fine job of remastering and restoration achieved by Home Vision Cinema. Until this new version, the copies of M that circulated were of very poor quality, dim and with many scratches. Moreover, the film had been cut by about 15 minutes, diminishing its flow and intelligibility. This film is nothing less than a masterpiece. It is a highly structured and stylized film about a serial killer. It created the serial kill genre, which includes such entries as Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. Alfred Hitchcock (the director of Psycho) was a disciple of Lang as were Jacques Tourneur (The Leopard Man (1943)) and Michael Powell (Peeping Tom (1960)). M was not only the originator of the genre, but arguably remains it preeminent entry.

The Premise of the Story: A German city is being terrorized by a serial killer, Franz Becker (Peter Lorre), who murders little girls. He offers them candy, balloons, and friendly conversation, and then lures them away and kills them. The movie opens with a scene of children playing a game in the yard of an apartment complex, largely unsupervised, singing about the boogie man who will chop them to bits. Their mothers are somewhat nearby, but busy with the chores of working class women. Little Elsie Beckman becomes the latest victim of this madman and the city is in a panic. To make matters worse, the killer sends a letter to the newspaper.

The State Minister places an urgent call to Police Inspector Lormann (Otto Wernicke) and reads the letter from the newspaper over the phone, demanding that the killer be caught. Lormann gives the minister a report of all that is being done. The police are working frantically trying to identify the killer, using all of the conventional police tactics, including fingerprinting, and psychological profiling. They have determined the type of pencil used in writing the letter, the type of table that it was written on, and even the brand of cigarettes that the killer smokes. They have tightened the screws on the criminal elements in the city, conducting numerous raids. They are checking on everyone recently released from mental institutions. Lormann may be physically a slob, but he is meticulous about his police work. He complains that the police aren’t getting enough help from the public.

The criminals throughout the city are equally dismayed by the activities of this serial killer. For them, it means loss of revenue because of the police crackdown. The pimps, for example, complain that there are more cops on the street than hookers. Hideouts and dives are being raided. Besides, the murder of little girls even violates the ethical code of the crooks. The top gangster in the city, Schranker (Gustaf Grundgens), is organizing his own effort to apprehend the criminal and to mete out justice in his own way. He organizes a meeting of the top mobsters. Their tactics differ from those of the police. They will put not only the entire criminal organization on watch but will mobilize the beggars to help, putting a beggar on every block and street corner to be the eyes and ears of the community.

The Historical Context M is set in 1931 in Germany, when the Nazis were on the rise but not yet in complete control. German society of that time had become highly decadent and amoral, preoccupied with pleasure and selfishness. It was a time equally demarcated by political extremes on both the left, as represented by Bertolt Brecht (librettist of the The Three Penny Opera), and the right, represented by the Nazis. Lang’s treatment of Beggars in M was clearly influenced by Brecht’s work. For a nice insight into the decadence of German society of this era, check out the film Cabaret.

M was originally intended to be entitled Murderers Among Us but Lang could not get access to any of the German film studios while his project carried that tentative title, because the Nazi’s interpreted it as referring to them. The meaning that Lang actually had in mind was more subtle. His intent was to characterize murderers as an outgrowth of society as it existed at that time rather than merely aberrations. Even with that more general meaning, however, one can readily see that it did in fact come to be applicable to the Nazis. The story told in M was based on a true story of a serial killer in Dusseldorf, named Peter Kurten, who preyed on children.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Nazis took a liking to M. Goebbels is said to have described the film as “fantastic, free of phony humanitarian sentiments.” While Lang’s treatment of the social context is subtle, Goebbels' comment indicates that he was not much of a film critic. Two years later, when the Nazis had gained complete control of Germany, Lang was offered jurisdiction over the German film industry by Goebbels. That very night, according to Lang, he fled Germany, partly because he didn’t want to end up making propaganda films for the Nazis and partly because he also had Jewish relatives. Lang abandoned his pro-Nazi wife, Thea von Harbou, and fled to America. He continued his film career for several decades in America and became known for noir films (films featuring tough guys, femme fatales, and shadowy atmospheres), such as The Big Heat (1953), with Lee Marvin. Lang maintained to the end that M was his best film and few would dispute it.

Principal Theme: Lang maintains that the propensity for murder exists in all of us and that murderers simply represent those in whom that tendency has broken free. Moreover, Lang suggests that murderers are to some extent a product of society and that parallels exist between the murderer and the society. The society depicted by Lang in M is seedy and ugly, preoccupied with decadent pursuit of pleasure and conspiratorial subgroups each seeking their self-interest. It is a society in which the official elements of society (police and politicians) are as corrupt as the criminal elements. Lang drives this home by showing both the cops and the criminals sitting in similar dirty, smoked-filled rooms. Most of the characters are unappealing and unattractive. It is a diseased society. Lang despised the rising Nazism and the society that allowed it to take control.

Although the killer, Becker, is evil, he is also a baby-faced gnome, plump and child-like. He could hardly be picked out as exceptional in a crowd. The society in which Becker lives reveals itself as a potential lynch mod. Lang could have just as well used the plural and called the film “Murderers among us.” At one point a mod attacks an innocent old man for merely speaking with a child. In the end, the “trial” of the murderer is conducted by criminals that include murderers, with little regard to the niceties of justice. Lang’s message here is that although corrupt individuals pose a grave menace to society, society sometimes presents a frightening risk to individual. This can be seen as foreshadowing the rule of criminals in Germany that culminated in the vicious Nazi atrocities. Becker’s excuses for his behavior are the same ones that the criminals have used over and over again, and, for that matter, politicians and officials.

We are forced to feel for this little man, at least to the extent of empathizing with the terror that he feels when being hunted like an animal and later when confronted by the criminal element and mothers at his trial. Becker delivers an impassioned defense: “I can’t help myself! I haven’t any control over this evil thing that’s inside me! The fire, the voices, the torment!” He also invokes a kind of religious defense, quoting Jesus: “Who is without sin to cast aspersions on another.” And he asks us all, “Who knows what it’s like to be me?” Lang takes an objective position during this consideration of guilt and responsibility. He doesn’t ask for our sympathy for the killer, but he does ask for our understanding. Becker, unfortunately, is an extension of us all. Lang is even ambiguous about whether Becker is truly without control or simply manipulating for sympathy. His letter to the newspaper seemed to indicate both premeditation and conscious understanding of what he was doing rather than mere inability to control an impulse. Lang’s choice not to stereotype his murderer is what sets his film apart from other murder films of his day (as well as most of those that have followed since) which typically characterize murderers as pure evil villains, as in the The Public Enemy (1931) starring James Cagney, or monsters, as in Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1931). Beckman is a man with an angelic face who performs unthinkable crimes.

Technical Aspects: In my opinion, what is most extraordinary about this film is the technical skill brought to bear in the telling of its story. The first matter of technique that might be mentioned is the extent of integration of the respective techniques from the silent and sound eras. M was produced right at the time of the transition from silent films to sound films. Lang had previously produced the highly regarded silent film Metropolis, but M was his first effort in sound. His editing technique for the images was that typical of the silent era, such as the use of montage. At the same time, he effectively integrated dialogue, narrative, and sound effects techniques that came along with sound. For another examples of a film produced during this transitional period, try Dreyer’s Vampyr. I have it on order myself.

The second technical point that ought to be broached in any discussion of this film is its structural perfection. Certainly perfection is a strong word, but consider how every frame and every sequence contributes to the story, revealing the interrelationships that exist between the various elements of the story. First example: consider the classic montage near the beginning where the girl, Elsie Beckman (Inge Landgut), is bouncing her bright ball, ironically, off a lamppost that has a poster offering a reward for information about the killer. Soon we see Beckman’s silhouette, then Elsie is lured away by the offer of a balloon, we see her mother preparing dinner, later we see the victim’s empty dinner plate, now her mother is calling and becoming increasingly anxious, the victim’s ball is seen rolling in the grass, her mother is checking each time she hears a child to see if it’s her daughter, and, finally, we see the balloon blowing in the wind where its string has caught in telegraph wires. Second example: the State Minister calls the police chief and reads the killer’s letter from the newspaper over the phone, shots bounce back and forth between the two ends of the conversation. The Chief explains what his department is doing and each point he makes is illustrated in shots from around the city where his men are at work. One of the points is the questioning of witnesses, which is then shown as two supposed “witnesses” arguing about the color of the bonnet that was worn by a missing young girl, with one dismissing the others testimony with the comment, “if you’re willing to listen to a socialist . .” Lang has used this little vignette to illustrate for us the highly fractured nature of this society, with its many opposing camps.

Another example occurs when a police officer is dictating a psychological profile of the killer. The image cuts away from the police station and we watch, instead, the killer making faces in a mirror trying to match the stereotypes described in the report. Still another example of montage occurs in the switches between the planning sessions of the police and the gangsters, showing the similarity in dress, tactics, and oratory in the two groups. At one point, the head of criminals, Schranker (Gustaf Grundgens) begins a sentence, “I’m appealing to you . .” that the police chief completes at the other meeting, “. . for advice.” Lang thus demonstrates without a word of dialogue specifically wasted on the point that the police and crooks are not all that different in strategies or objectives and even have some common interests. Then, as we approach the end of the film, the trial becomes the first truly extended sequence in the film, adding to its weight. Lang also has the “artistry” (as one Epinion’s writer so nicely put it recently) to have each of the murders committed off-screen, yet the impact is fully felt. This is the kind of artistry that Mel Gibson might have done well to keep in mind. Violence does not have to be explicit, graphic, and ceaseless to make a point.

A third technical issue in relation to M is the sheer magesty of its scope. It successfully combines an exposition of a basic murder mystery, presented with utmost suspense, with insights into the workings of an entire city. It encompasses the entire city both physically and socially. In the physical domain, the range of shots and locales runs from the sky to underground. At the top, we have Lang’s signature overhead, panoramic shots and the attic locale where Beckman is captured, while at the low end, we have the caves and basements where the trials take place. Literally, the underworld. The entire range of social strata is encompassed as well, by involving everyone from the political leadership, the police, and the general public to organized crime, the beggars, and the serial murderer himself. Social stratification plays a role in vulnerability because it is the children of working class parents who are vulnerable when their mothers have little time to watch them. Lang fully exposes the inner dynamics and turmoil of a city. We see how the police, criminal elements, and the beggars coexist but that the balance is thrown out of whack by the introduction of the lone maniac operating outside the system. All groups merely act to protect their own interests.

One last masterful technical element in M is Lang’s use of sound. The murderer whistles a few bars from Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of Mountain King”, from the Peer Gynt. (Lang himself provided the actual whistling since Lorre didn’t know how to whistle.) Ultimately Beckman’s undoing is brought about because a blind beggar hears the tune and remembers that he had heard it before when a man bought a balloon for an earlier victim, Elsie Beckman. He has his assistant follow the man and the boy chalks a big M on his palm and then slaps Becker on the back, leaving a white “M.” What a way to introduce sound into film! A simple sound becomes the solution to the riddle. In another irony, the little girl who is to be Becker’s next victim spots the mark and tries to wipe it off. Becker sees the “M” in reflection in a mirror and knows that he has been identified. The blood drains from his face as he realizes it is the beginning of his end.

Bottom-Line: Lorre’s performance in M is one of the most monumental and memorable of film history. The film, quite simply, could not have been as great without it. It is creepy and haunting. Lorre accomplishes this greatness with just one major opportunity to speak, although it is certainly a very consequential opportunity. Lorre’s performance was so archetypal that it type-cast him for the rest of his career. He made a living out of being a psychopath!

The restored film looks great. It is 111 minutes and in black-and-white. The DVD contains some decent extras, including a somewhat tedious feature detailing the restoration methodology, a good interview with Fritz Lang from the German archives, an interview of Lang by Peter Bogdanovich that is marred by poor audio quality, and a visual essay by a film expert about M entitled “Lending Order to Horror.” Next time you’re in the mood for a Hitchcockian-style thriller, give this marvelous old film a try. You won't be disappointed.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Germany:

The American Friend
Beyond Silence
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
The Blue Angel
Das Boot
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
Fitzcarraldo
Kings of the Road
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Metropolis
The Nasty Girl
Nosferatu
Pandora's Box
Run Lola Run
Stalingrad
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Threepenny Opera
The Tin Drum
Wings of Desire
Zentropa

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age