M (1931 film)
M is a
1931 German
film noir directed by
Fritz Lang and written by
Fritz Lang and his wife
Thea von Harbou. (The current
German title,
M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, "M: a city in search of a murderer," is not the original title: The film was released in Germany in 1931 simply as
M.)
A
serial killer, played by
Peter Lorre, preys on children; the police of
Berlin exert so much energy on finding him that the work of the criminal underworld is impeded. The crime gangs therefore decide to find the killer themselves, and eventually do so, branding his coat with the letter 'M' for murderer. In the film's climax, the killer, facing certain death at the hands of an underworld
kangaroo court, makes an impassioned speech declaring that he can't control his violent urges. The
monologue ends with the famous line (delivered by Lorre in a near scream) "Who knows what it's like to be me?"
The film is based in part on the stories of
Jack the Ripper and the Vampire of Düsseldorf,
Peter Kürten.
M features a "League of Beggars", a troupe that also shows up in the roughly contemporaneous
Bertolt Brecht/
Kurt Weill collaboration
The Threepenny Opera and its source
The Beggar's Opera.
Lorre's character whistles the tune "
In the Hall of the Mountain King" from
Edvard Grieg's
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. However, Peter Lorre himself could not whistle - it is actually Fritz Lang who is heard.
The police inspector Karl "Fatty" Lohmann proved so popular with audiences he was brought back in Lang's next film,
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.
According to the
IMDB, the working title was
Die Mörder sind unter uns ("The murderers are among us"), which was changed during production to
M. The original title could be interpreted as a stab at German society at the time and the Nazi party. In the film, the townspeople actually gang up on Beckert and become very close to murdering him themselves (had it not been for the arrival of the police). A different film by
Wolfgang Staudte was released in 1946 with the title
Die Mörder sind unter uns.
M was the first starring role for Peter Lorre, and it boosted his career, even though he was typecast as a
villain for years after.
Peter Lorre's climactic speech was appropriated by
Joseph Goebbels for the
Nazi propaganda film
The Eternal Jew, a
Holocaust apologist film that blames Jews for devaluing German culture with degenerate art. Because Lorre was Jewish, the film uses his final speech as "proof" that Jews exemplify innate criminality, and refuse to take responsibility for their wrongdoings.
Although sound had been used in films for several years before
M, the film was one of the first films to use a
leitmotif, by associating the "Hall of the Mountain King" with the Lorre character. Late in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he must be nearby, offscreen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from
opera, is now a film staple.
[Gustavo Costantini, Leitmotif revisited. Accessed 10 April 2006.]The movie was remade in
1951 (see
M (1951 film)) shifting the action from
Berlin to
Los Angeles. The remake, directed by
Joseph Losey with David Wayne playing Lorre's role, was not well received by critics or audiences.
Today,
M consistently ranks among the top 75 of the
Internet Movie Database's top 250 films. Although
The Maltese Falcon (1941) is traditionally credited as the first film noir, there can be little doubt that
M anticipated many essential features of the genre.
*
Program Details for M, available for download from
archive.org.
*
Criterion Collection essay by Stanley Kauffmann
