German cinema appreciation. When some people (and I’m one of them) hear that, they think of a guy wearing a Nazi armband while beating off to Triumph of the Will as a chick with a Hitler mustache drops a few Brown Mambas on his chest and Rammstein blares from the speakers of the Volkswagen parked just outside the window. Others go beyond the obvious cultural dick and fart joke presented in my last sentence and instead think of classic (emphasis on the “ass sick”) underground exploitation staples like the Nekromantik and Violent Shit movies, which make hardcore movie watchers question the fine line between bad taste and just plain wrong, and pregnant women commit coat hanger abortions for fear of freeing the kind of head fucked uterine demon spawn that make such things. A third group would simply stutter out, “Wait, you mean there are countries other than the US that make movie?” before going back to dipping their dicks in their Big Gulps while their toothless girlfriends scream at the fourteen screaming kids in the back of their rusted out pick-up. Finally, the last group will drop two proper nouns very prominent with the following review: Fritz Lang.
A few years after his golden age tale of a futuristic world known as Metropolis, Lang would do this movie: an early “talkie” (without the “walkie”) based on a mish-mash of the real life horror stories of German child killers Fritz Haarman and Peter Kürten, the former of which had two songs based on his exploits made by the band Macabre, whose name springs to mind either because you just happen to listen to their category of murder/death/kill metal or just because you’ve recently read Fistula’s review for Zodiac. I also neglected to mention their track about the dick devouring cannibal of Rohtenburg in my review for that last week, but since I’m too lazy to go back and fart around with the html code, I’m just stating that ear bleeder of a tidbit here. That fact that the movie’s one of the earliest to feature audio dialogue won’t mean much to some, as it’s presented in it’s original German language with English subtitles, driving away the anti-subtitle types who don’t like to “read their movies”… most of which also hate letterbox because they’re convinced it chops off the top of the movie rather than presenting it in it’s original aspect ratio, actually adding content to the sides of the picture rather than removing it from the top and bottom… I love the man, but sometimes I just want to hit my dad upside the head and tell him to get a fucking clue.
Before the time of McGruff and the after-school special, kids were mostly stupid on the concept of strangers luring them into the backs of rundown vans with the promise of candy and toys so they could do inhuman things to them, eventually hollowing out their skulls to later use as ashtrays. As such, the early stretch of the 1900s was a perfect time for a child killer to hone his craft. Not unlike Freddy Krueger (before the gardening glove from Hell, bad skin and magic powers), Hans Beckert (cinematic creepozoid Petter Lorre in the role that would typecast him as such for the rest of this life) suffered from an impulse to pick up little kids on the streets of his otherwise quiet German city, spoil them with candies and balloons that looked like creepy pill-shaped people, then walk them off into a wooded area to do who-knows-what to them with their little bodies being discovered later on. Much like California’s later serial slaughtering phenomenon the Zodiac Killer, Hans also likes to send letters to the local newspaper, regaling his crimes and urging the inept police force to continue their hunt for him. Cry for help or cry for attention, either way this is a time before the advent of “C.S.I.” shit like DNA technology, so the cops are having a Hell of a time getting their gloved beating hands on the culprit.
With no better ideas on how to handle the case, the department is run ragged with frequent calls from citizens trying to pin the crimes on their neighbors and pointing suspicious finger after suspicious finger at each other in an ever heightening sense of social dread and terror of the unknown. One unlucky sod, snagged by the fuzz for pickpocketing, is assaulted by an angry mob of lookers-on when they see him in police custody and immediately make a jump (of Pitfall Harry proportions) to the conclusion that he must therefore be the child killer! It’s actually disturbing to watch, even by 1931 standards, as the police officers are pushed back and the otherwise innocent man is dragged kicking and screaming into the mass of enraged bodies! Even without seeing the actual beatdown the guy suffers, your mind can fill in the blanks with imagery from the worst possible angry mob beatings you’ve seen before and it makes you wince.
Despite pushing the officers to their limits, the force is getting nothing but criticism from the people they protect and from their own commissioner, so in addition to swamping the streets with pigs, they’ve also taken to doing nightly raids on known underworld hang outs, arresting everything from card sharks to street hoods to safe crackers in their efforts to figure out who the murderer is and put him down for good. As a result of this heightened police activity, the crime rate has gone way down. But, who does a lowered crime rate hurt? That’s right, the criminals! As such, it behooves the local ne’er-do-wells to start up a search effort of their own to root out the rat and put an end to him so they can all get back to making a (dis)honest living, organized by an out-of-town super criminal known simply as Safecracker. The crooks also just genuinely hate the guy to begin with, because otherwise-not-so-bad types are being lumped in with a child raping murderer and that’s not the kind of image these hookers and hoods want to be associate with. But, how can the underworld keep their eyes on all of the city’s streets without showing their own “most wanted” mugs? Why, by hiring the local Beggars Union 412 to be their eyes-on-the-street, of course! That’s right, unlike here in the US where it’s every homeless vagrant for themselves, apparently Germany’s destitute have banned together to create a network of hobos, each working together to strive in an unforgiving world. Go you homeless beggars, go!
Right about the time the cops figure out that it’s former mental patient Beckert who’s the killer, the beggar network also finds him, recognized by one of the blind and unwashed street salesmen by the tune the freak likes to whistle as he’s prowling for preschoolers. The slinking fiend is marked with a chalk ‘M’ on his shoulder to identify him as the street folk stalk him through the city, keeping an eye on him and his latest intended prey until they can corner him. The stupid little girl on his arm makes the mistake of pointing out the marking to the creep when she spots it and he realizes he’s being followed, so he dumps the mini-dame and runs into the rush hour crowds, eventually cornered in an office building after hours…
The anti-heroes get together and break into the building to claim their prize, searching the entire place to find Beckert. But, can they weed him out before the cops get their act together and storm the place themselves? Will Beckert wind up in the long arms of the law, the knife wielding hands of the vigilantes, or will he makes his escape and not be caught at all? If he is captured, will he be forced to answer to by-the-books justice, or will his captors ignore the advice of our friend Doug Llewelyn and take the law into their own hands, bypassing any and all courts, Peoples’ or otherwise? Either way it’s a tense ride and is definitely recommended for anybody interested in a real life crimes genre movie from the oldest of old schools.
A lot of reviews I’ve seen for this movie talk it up as something that was amazing and way ahead of it’s time, dealing with issues and psychological crimes that no one else either wanted or dared to address. Though I can agree with this type of jaw flapping, there are a couple of reasons I had to pass on giving this movie the vaunted gold star everyone else likes to reward it with. Okay, first the good stuff: about a decade ago, you wouldn’t find me giving any monochromatic pieces of cinema more than a three star salute, due to the fact that the bland, colorless tones would almost always put me to sleep and the horrible audio quality (complete with pops and scratching sounds from the original films) just grated on my last nerves. Since then I’ve grown up to see how engaging stories and proper use of the medium (as well as a little audio clean up) can overcome these types of hurdles made of personal biases and make for something awe inspiring, the best example being Nosferatu of course. M is part of the Criterion Collection of snob discs and thus gets the happy ending massage treatment here, cleaned up clear as the clichéd crystal with all of it’s original footage pieced back into place (running just under two hours in it’s uncircumcised form) and the audio track freed of technical interference. Print wise, you can’t get any better… which means there are no excuses left to explain away my other problems with the movie.
As the movie was made in the early days of audio, you can understand the lack of a soundtrack, but I found myself really for some kind of sound effects or mood setting music to help the story along, especially in scenes where I literally thought my speakers had burned out on me because there wasn’t a single sound being uttered. If there could be scores added to all of the old time picture shows such as they were, why not toss a little something on the audio reels here along with the actors voices? Was this a concept that was unheard of at the time? Was technology not yet capable of blending voice with other sounds? Whether by reasons of technology, budget or choice, I still would have liked having a little more to listen to while watching. My second, less prominent gripe has to do with the movie’s editing or lack of it. While two hours wasn’t unbearable by any means, there were moments where I wondered Criterion had to restore all of the footage and couldn’t have offered up a slightly more streamlined version as an option. Yes, I know, I'm a cinematic caveman who doesn't appreciate the cultural handjob I've been given, put it into a long, well thought out e-mail so I can delete it later.
My last complaint, though entirely technical, is also my biggest. For a serious movie like this, where things get both intense and suspenseful, the last thing we need are unintentionally comical moments where the film speeds up and people are running around like extras in a Three Stooges short. Again, I know Criterion tries not to make it a habit of fucking with the original material, but couldn’t somebody have made the connection that perhaps trying to slow these scenes down to a normal pace (come on, we all know the technology is there) so I wouldn’t have to get the giggles while the villain’s running from his pursuers?! What the fuck man. I know there are a good number of people who will read this and immediately think to themselves, “This fucking idiot! You can’t base your opinions on the movie on technical nitpicking shit like that!”. To these people I would like to answer your criticism with an immature comeback classic: tell your mom I said hi!
Despite these nagging little issues, the movie itself is great. The fact that it remains in it’s German language is perfect, because the language itself is so rough and intense that it only serves to emphasize the struggle and anger of the characters. The performances are all excellent and I can’t take anything away from them, including Lorre who almost makes us sympathize with him because he’s mentally sick and can’t help what he does… and his hobby is killing and raping kids! What the fuck?! It’s scary to hate this guy throughout the entire movie, then have little moments of pity for him, only to bring yourself back into the reality of what it is he’s responsible for. I’m a fan of the death penalty for the true scum of the earth, but if Peter Lorre threw this kind of sob story at me I can’t guarantee I’d send his ass to the firing squad… the gallows definitely, but maybe not the firing squad. As for the story, having recently seen Zodiac, I couldn’t help but wonder if David Fincher was in any way influenced by M and it’s focus more so on the killer’s pursuers and their hunt rather than the killer himself. If it’s true, Fincher couldn’t have picked a better inspiration.
A great movie for a rental or a purchase (provided you have no personal issues against Criterion) and a definite recommendation for the long list of “Shit You Gotta See Before You’re Killed Off in Some Ultra-Violent and Supremely Painful Manner”. Let it go if you’re not into old movies or well made stuff though, cuz, well, it’s both…