| Collector's Corner January 2005
 M
- Starring: Peter Lorre,
Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Grundgens
- Directed by: Fritz Lang
- Theatrical release: 1931
- DVD release: 2004
- Video: Fullscreen
- Sound: Dolby Digital mono
- Released by: The Criterion Collection
Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) is a serial killer with a
sick lust for children. As his killing spree spreads throughout one neighborhood of a
German city, parents and residents begin to distrust each other, and panic sets in across
the city. When the police start to pick up every thug in sight, the organized crime bosses
decide to help find the killer in hopes of getting some of the police off the streets. But
children are still being killed.
M was Fritz Lang’s first sound film, but by the
time he made it, he was already so famous and important in Germany that he enjoyed the
kind of power that Steven Spielberg wields in today’s Hollywood. Lang was also a
critical darling worldwide for silent masterworks such as Die Nibelungen (1924) and
Metropolis (1927), works that, along with F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu,
eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), created the school of German Expressionism. To
give you an idea of how highly loved Lang was, critics searching for the ultimate
compliment for the up-and-coming Alfred Hitchcock dubbed him "the English Fritz
Lang."
But 1931 was a dangerous time for intellectuals and artists
in Germany. Hitler and his followers were ascending to power. Hitler’s 60,000 storm
troopers, the SA, were wreaking havoc in the streets of Germany, harassing and assaulting
anyone they felt was too Jewish or too smart or too deviant. Lang was originally going to
title his new film The Murderers Are Among Us. When he went to rent space at an old
zeppelin plant, a friend told him he was in danger because the SA felt he was making a
movie about them. Here’s the sad irony: Once the SA understood that the film was
about a child murderer, they let him alone. Just to be safe, Lang changed the title to M.
Lang’s run-in with the SA and the strange times he was
living in help us understand why it’s so hard to tell whom he is portraying as the
ultimate villain. Beckert is a monster who sexually molests and kills children. But the
tattling, slander, and mob violence, along with ugly close-ups of the film’s
"normal" characters and the fact that justice is ultimately meted out by
criminals, all make you wonder if Lang didn’t feeling equally badly about his fellow
man. That multilayered complexity is what allows M to retain its power to audiences
inured to film depravity and violence by years of Hannibal Lecter and Freddy Krueger.
It’s also why M was Lang’s favorite film.
He thought that a diverse audience would relate to different parts of the story. As he
explained to Peter Bogdanovich in Who the Devil Made It (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997),
"Let’s come back to M. If there is something like a lower stratum in an
audience -- there is no such thing, but suppose there was one -- for them, M is
simply a cops-and-robbers story. For a little higher stratum it is: what does the homicide
department do to catch someone? For another -- and this was actually the reason I made the
picture -- it is: what danger does a child run in our society today? What is done for the
sex criminal -- if there is a sex criminal, if he is not just a sick man? And for the
highest stratum -- if you want to call it so -- it is a discussion for or against capital
punishment. So in this case fortunately . . . you have a picture that appeals to all
strata."
Part of what made M appeal to "all strata"
was the extraordinary acting job of Peter Lorre. In the beginning, he is loathsome --
pudgy, small, weak, consumed by his weakness -- yet by the end he is pathetic. Few actors
could make an audience have any sympathy for such a detestable character, yet somehow,
when he comes face to face with the kangaroo court of street thugs, you feel the tiniest
compassion. And watch chapter 15, where Lorre is thrown down those steps with his coat
over his head. That was no stunt double -- Lang risked his star’s life and limb
without care, making him re-take the shot 12 times. It’s no surprise that Lorre never
worked with Lang again.
Criterion has done their usual stellar job of refreshing a
very old film negative and coming up with a beautiful transfer that, excepting small
variations in brightness, is probably as good an image of M as anyone has seen
since Lang saw the first cut. In addition, there is a 32-page booklet with a masterful
essay by Stanley Kaufman and a 1963 interview with Lang. The second disc includes a
50-minute conversation with Lang by director William Friedkin and a number of other
enlightening additions. All of it adds up to a fascinating portrait of a three-dimensional
genius who ended life a bitter man.
As Hitler’s power rose, Lang knew it was time to leave
Germany. He came to the US, where he was treated well, and offered work in the best
studios with top actors at his beck and call. His response was to treat them just as
miserably as he had Peter Lorre. One after another, Hollywood’s A-list -- actors such
as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, and Marlene Dietrich -- refused to work with him. Randolph
Scott was nearly maimed in Western Union when Lang made him keep trying to burn
rope off his wrists over a fire.
By 1956, Lang had made his last Hollywood movie. Hollywood
abandoned him, despite his incredible talent, because he treated everyone around him
cruelly. For the next 20 years Lang lived in Beverly Hills, waiting for the day he could
make a comeback. That day never came. Fritz Lang’s life ended in 1976. He was 86.
Several obituaries referred to him as "the German Hitchcock."
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
