M (1931)

• Year: 1931
• Released: 31 Aug 1931
• Country: Germany
• Adwords: 2 wins
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/m
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: German
• MPA Rating: Passed
• Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
• Runtime: 99 min
• Writer: Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang, Egon Jacobsohn
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Cast: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut
• Keywords: black and white, investigation, psychopath, criminal, pre-code,

8.3/10

M Storyline

There have been a rash of child abductions and murders in Berlin. The murderer lures the children into his confidence by candy and other such child friendly items. Everyone is on edge because the murderer has not been caught. The most substantial pieces of evidence the police have are hand written letters by the murderer which he sent to the newspaper for publication. Unknown even to himself, a blind beggar, who sold the murderer a balloon for one of the child victims, may have key information as to the murderer’s identity. The murder squad’s work is made even more difficult with the large number of tips they receive from the paranoid public, who are quick to accuse anyone of suspicious activity solely for their own piece of mind that someone – anyone – is apprehended for the heinous crimes. Conversely, many want to take the case into their own hands, including the town’s leading criminals since the increased police presence has placed a strain on their ability to conduct criminal activity. Although they both have the same end goal of capturing the murderer, the police and the criminals seem to be working at cross purposes, which may provide an edge to the murderer in getting away.

M Play trailer

M Photos

M Torrents Download

M Subtitles Download

M Movie Reviews

Fritz Lang’s (sound) masterpiece- a taut and quintessentially suspenseful story, and Lorre

The first time I saw M, by Fritz Lang, I almost didn’t know what to make of it. I was overwhelmed by the power of the performances, the staging of the scenes, the locations, and the power that the simple story had with such complex circumstances. Then I saw it again, and a third time, and I know that this is one of the best films ever to come out of Germany- it’s a powerful statement about protecting our children (if you’re looking at it as a “message” movie), but in reality it is just a piece of cinema heaven. Thrillers today only wish they could draw a viewer into the mystery elements, and have such unconventionality of the times. Boiling down to this, M is about a child Killer – the legendary character actor Peter Lorre in his first major role – who snatches children when their parents don’t watch, and continues on until an investigation goes underway. But as the police investigate overly thoroughly into the real criminal underworld, they know something is up, that this is someone far more gone than they could ever be, so they join in the hunt. This all leads to one of the supreme dramatic climaxes in any thriller.

On the first viewing I just went straight for the story, which is able to suck one in enough to make you feel dizzy. But on the multiple viewings it becomes even more interesting as one can study the intricacy, and indeed full-on artistry, of Lang’s camera. He puts it in unusual places at times, and adds for good measure shades of dark and gray in many of the night scene (this is, by the way, a precursor to ‘film-noir’, which Lang later became an important director in the 40’s and 50’s). On top of this, there is a very modern sense of style in the editing- I remember a couple of scenes that surprised me editing wise. One is where the cops (I think it was the cops) have an argument about the investigation- two of them get into a shouting match, and we get medium close-ups of them going back and forth. This is done quickly, with a kind of intensity that isn’t even captured in today’s thrillers. There is also the hunt for Lorre in the digging of the house, where Lang cuts around constantly, heightening the tension between the predators (the criminals) and the prey (Lorre), until it’s almost too much to take.

The disturbing aspects of the story, of child abduction and murder, have become benchmarks of a number of today’s thrillers, where the cop is usually the subject and the killer left more in the shadows, in cat & mouse style. This doesn’t happen here, and because of it by the time we get to the final scene, with Lorre being interrogated and giving his “I can’t help it” speech, it becomes something poetic, tragic, frightening. Lang doesn’t leave his “message” so simplistically, he makes sure we know Lorre’s side too, however twisted it has become, and the antagonist is shown as human as opposed to these present-day thriller where the killers are barely given one dimension let alone two. There were reports that during filming Lang put Lorre through torture, ultimately causing the two to never work together again. But nevertheless, out of this comes a towering performance of a small, wild-eyed criminal in the midst of an extremely well-told and unpredictable mystery story. In short, if you don’t know what you’re in for when you hear that whistle, those several infamous notes, you may not at all.

Moments of menace..

The economy, austerity and directness of the films of Fritz Lang made him one of the most profound, and precise filmmakers…

Lang, a master of the German expressionist film, shot his first talkie, a crime drama considered a landmark in the story of suspense movies… It was a shocking idea for its time, based on the real-life killer Peter Kurten, headlined as the Vampire of Düsseldorf…

‘M’ is about a terrorized city, and a plump little man with wide eyes (often chewing candy) who is a pathological child-killer, unable to control his urge for killing…

The film embodies several Lang themes: the duality between justice and revenge, mob hysteria, the menacing anticipation of watching a helplessly trapped individual trying fruitlessly to escape as greater forces move inexorably in, and, for probably the first time in the cinema, it adds a new dimension to suspense: pity… For the killer is clearly mentally sick… He cannot overcome the overwhelming compulsion of his murderous disease, and yet, we see him hunted down and almost lynched as a criminal, rather than treated as a sick man…

Early in the film, the killer is heard whistling the Grieg theme from ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’. This theme inexorably becomes imbued with menace… And when we see no more than a girl looking in a shop window, the melody on the sound-track told us chillingly that the murderer is there, just out of sight…

The Murderer is played by Peter Lorre in a virtuoso performance that has barely been matched in all the thrillers he has made since ‘Casablanca,’ ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ and ‘The Mask of Dimitrios.’ When the photographs of his victims, all little girls, are shown to him, he jumps back and twitches with horror…

With powerful visuals, Lang’s motion picture is Lorre’s first film… His performance as the corpulent, hunted psychopath is a masterpiece of mime and suggestion… Lorre is the archetypal outsider-outside the law and society because of his compulsive crimes, outside the balancing society of the underworld because he is not a professional criminal… He had only twelve lines of dialog…

In the most famous of all about a pathological killer – Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ – Anthony Perkins lacked not only the threat of the tortured Peter Lorre, but also the dimension of invoking our incredulous sympathy…

‘Psycho’ reeked with blood and horror, whereas the suspense of ‘M’ is subtle… A child’s balloon without an owner, a rolling ball, are enough to tell us that another murder had been committed… The audience, trapped in its seats, torn by ambivalent feelings towards the killer, watched him trapped as the net is pulled tight…

Ahead of its time

This is a very interesting film on so many levels. It’s interesting to see just how far ahead German cinema was of its American counterpart at this point in time. Although there is not that much talking in this early German talking picture – Fritz Lang resisted going to sound in the first place – what conversation that does take place is well done and natural sounding. Compare it with any American film from 1931 and you can’t help but see the difference.

The murderer, artfully played by Peter Lorre, has been killing children that have no link to him personally for months. The police, despite all of their efforts, are unable to catch him, mainly because there is no rhyme or reason in his choice of victims. At first there is a focus on the victims and the hole left in their families by their killing. Then, the film shifts to two normally opposed groups – the police and the underworld. After several months of no results by the authorities, the police are unhappy because it reflects badly upon them, and the underworld is unhappy because their activities are being disrupted because of the police doing constant raids in their efforts to capture the killer.

In a particularly well-done part of the film the scene shifts back and forth between a conference of police and one of the underworld. They discuss how they are going to catch the killer. The police settle upon the idea of looking for people with a history of past mental problems that were pronounced cured and released. The underworld decides to enlist an invisible group – the beggars – to follow every child at all times and therefore catch the killer. Both groups focus on the right suspect, the question is – who gets there first? M is a fascinating film that raises many topics – the death penalty, a group of criminals that are criminals by choice causing less stress on society than a lone criminal that acts out of an uncontrollable compulsion, and the motivations of the authorities often being their own bureaucratic survival rather than the larger issue of ending a series of horrible acts against humanity.