Hello gentle readers and welcome back to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie! (I dropped the “Antidote” part because as a few folks noted the movies might not necessarily be, um, soothing.)
Today’s feature is the classic crime drama M directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. M is the first serial killer movie as well as an early example of a police procedural drama. It was also Lang’s first sound movie and he considered it his magnum opus. It launched both the careers of Peter Lorre, whose trajectory went from comedic to villainous, and Otto Wernicke. Wernicke played the role of Inspector Lohmann and would reprise that role with Lang in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Long tracking shots, the creative interplay of glass and light, as well as the use of a musical leitmotif were all cinematic innovations of Lang’s. M is held up as one of the finest films ever made and it has had an immeasurable influence on the art of filmmaking up to today.
Review:
I didn’t think I was going to enjoy M as much as I did. The way the story unfolds is refreshingly direct, perhaps a bit simplistically by some modern standards but then one may accuse some modern standards of being intentionally obscure. Lang makes great use of store fronts, each of which tells a kind of story in miniature that provides depth to the larger narrative. Lorre makes a great serial killer, his buggy eyes and grotesquely sensuous lips scream psychopath to me and apparently to a lot of other people as this film altered his acting career trajectory from the comedic to the predominantly villainous. Lang lets the camera tell the tale, for example when he relays the disappearance of a child by a lone ball stuck in a puddle and a balloon animal caught in telephone lines. The black, white, and gray tones of the film lend gravitas to the unseen horrors inflicted by Beckert on the children as well as his own terror when he is captured by the criminal syndicates.
Synopsis (with obvious spoilers):
Berlin lives in terror of child murderer Hans Beckert (Lorre) who has written to the newspapers to let them know he will strike again. The police, lead by homicide investigator Inspector Lohmann (Wernicke) are at their wits’ end and are frantically collecting whatever small bits of evidence they can assemble. They are also leaning heavily on the city’s criminal underground in an effort to flush out the killer. The criminal underground, led by “The Safecracker” (Gustaf Gründgens), responds by launching a manhunt of their own, employing beggars to keep watch on children in the streets. While the police narrow down their search and arrive at Beckert’s home to collect clues, the beggars have identified their man and pursue him into a large office building. Realizing Beckert is trapped there, the criminals return later in the evening and infiltrate the building by subduing it’s guards and scouring the premises. They apprehend Beckert but then are forced to flee in haste after one of the guards manages to sound an alarm. One of their number is left behind and is captured by the police. The prisoner is pressured to reveal that the underground has captured Beckert and has taken him to an abandoned distillery where he is to stand before a kangaroo court. The police descend on the gathered criminals and Beckert is taken into custody. The final scenes first show a court convening to decide Beckert’s fate and then a trio of black-clad mothers in mourning advising the audience to keep a wary eye on their children.
