Director: Fritz Lang
Writers: Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang
Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut
Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
Link: https://amzn.to/2WXJ0Pz
Synopsis
An old woman carries a huge tub of laundry past children playing a game involving a bad man in black. The older owman doesn’t want them thinking about that murderer, the subject of the game. Meanwhile, a little girl plays ball on the street near a “Wanted-Reward!” Poster offering 10,000 marks for the murderer. The cleaning women then yells for her little girl to come to dinner, but she never does…
People start fighting amongst themselves and accusing each other for even being near children. The murderer sends a handwritten letter to the newspaper, and they check it out for fingerprints and handwriting experts. They come up with a simple “profile” for the killer.
Police are desperate. They have started rounding up groups of partygoers and demanding their papers. It’s causing no end to troubles for the criminal element, whose business is completely disrupted. The criminal leaders decide they are going to help find the child murderer. The killer is brilliant, never leaving any clues, and he has no connection to the children, so he’s impossible to track.
The organized criminals enlist the men from the beggar’s union to watch the children. And it seems to work, as they’re everywhere. We occasionally get glimpses of Mr. Beckert whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King” everywhere he goes.
A police inspector stops at Mr. Beckert’s apartment, and the landlady lets him in. He searches the place and finds a letter, and a pack of “Aristons” in the trash can. The police chief thinks he knows that name from somewhere. It’s the same brand of cigarette another known killer used.
A blind man hears the whistling and recognizes Beckert from that. One of the other beggars gives chase, and finds Beckert buying candy for a little girl. The beggar marks Beckert with a letter “M” on his back. Beckert spots the “M” and runs away. While the beggars chase him all over town, the police wait for him at his apartment.
M gets locked into an office building, and every criminal in town comes to search that building. He has to get out of a locked room while they’re all searching for him. They’ve almost got him when someone sets off an alarm, notifying the police. Finally, at the very last second, they catch him!
The police manage to catch one of the criminals left in the building, and the man explains everything to Inspector Lohmann.
Meanwhile, Beckett is thrown in front of a crowd of a hundred criminals. The blind man identifies him again. The criminals put on a whole trial for him. Beckett says he can’t control the thing inside him, not even pretending anymore. Some of the criminals nod their heads; they’ve been there.
The police come in and arrest everyone before they can give Beckett their flavor of justice. There’s going to be a true “legal” trial now, and a woman says “we should keep a better watch on our children.” The film ends with no real resolution.
Commentary
Everyone knows Germany was not a fun place to live during WWII, but according to this, life in Germany sucked long before that. Raids, people being rounded up for suspected crimes, and general paranoia was rampant. How much was made-up for the film, and how much was documentary? Who knows, but it seemed like this was much more a modern crime drama than any kind of “warning” film, so I suspect it showed what things were really like for the most part.
There’s a lot of talking and exposition in the first half of the film. We get a lot of telling and talking, and zero action. Once the criminals come into the picture, things liven up quite a bit, but this is really not an action film. It’s also not truly what I would consider horror either. It’s get Peter Lorre’s first starring role, and he’s an icon of horror, but we don’t see anything bad happen to anyone here. It’s all suspense.
The investigation seems realistic enough, and even the criminal’s reactions seems reasonable, all things considered. The writing and acting are really good, and the restored video is really clear as well. Lorre’s speech in his own defense at the end is really good, even if not particularly convincing to the jury. It sets up a good moral argument about whether or not the mentally ill should be punished or treated; it doesn’t answer the question, it only asks it.
The open-end of the film could go either way. He might have been executed, or he might have ended up in the asylum. It’s for the viewer to decide which is real justice.