Review of M

Movie: M

Year: 1931

Director: Fritz Lange

Main Actors:  Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, and Inge Landgut

M is a German film, which takes place in 1931.  When the movie begins we learn that eight children have already been killed and a little girl has not come home from school yet.  A mother is worried sick and there are posters all over the town asking "Wer ist der Mörder?"

The little girl becomes the ninth victim and the police have a mess on their hands.  They are clueless as to who is the murder.  In fact, at this point the murderer could be anyone.  So they start a hunt.   Every night the police conduct raids and are searching the town for the killer. They create hysteria in the town. Eventually, the killer sends a letter to the press and the police start their analysis and come up with a profile.     

The raids that the police are conducting are ruining the criminals business and the killer himself is ruining their image.  A group of criminals get together to come up with their own plan to catch the killer before their business is completely ruined.   The discussions seem to go on for a long time, but finally the gangsters came up with a solution.  They were going to keep an eye out for all of the children in the town.  They asked the beggars to watch the children and look for suspicious things. 

Nothing happens until a man whistling walks by the blind peddler who is selling the balloons.  The peddler recognizes the tune as the man who was whistling it came by and brought a balloon for a child the same day the last girl went missing.  He alerted the local beggar and big white “M” was drawn on the killers back.

The gangsters catch and then trap the killer in the basement, but the night watchman shows up and alerts the police.  The killer was sent to trial where he claimed to have been driven by evil voices in his head and an impulse.

This movie is important to the culture of the time in two ways.  The first is that since the police are everywhere and cannot find the killer, the people do not know who they can trust.  A little girl asks a man what time it is and he is attacked by a mob for talking to a child.   They are so worried, which hysteria sets in and anyone could have done anything.

The second aspect involves the organized criminals.  The criminals truly hated the murderer and they felt that they were more powerful than the police, so they set out to get the man.  They had unlimited resources and were willing to use them.  However, the criminals also gave way to the hysteria because their version of a trial, when they captured the man was to “kill the rabid dog”.  There seemed to be no end to the hysteria.  Interestingly, Lang hired real criminals for the last scene and 24 cast members were arrested during filming.  

At the end of the movie, after the real trial occurred because the night watchmen stopped the criminals from killing the man a mother in the crowd noted that it did not bring her child back.  Parents would just have to be more vigilant.

This movie was Lang’s first experiment with sound technology.  It is accredited as one of the first examples of film noir.  The movie was banned by the Nazis in 1934 and Lorre, who was Jewish, fled Germany after the film was released. About two years later, Lang also fled Germany because he was half Jewish. 

Overall, “M” is an excellent example of the hysteria that occurs when people do not know who is committing the crimes.  People are scared and it is so easy to point a finger at someone and eventually everyone.  At this point the times were changing in Germany and this movie exemplifies the fear and change in the people.