I just finished watching an old German film. It was Fritz Lang’s 1931 suspenseful “M”. I’d heard of the movie years ago on some AFI special on TV and Netflix recommended it when I first signed up and caught a sudden case of addtoomuchitis, which left me with nearly 300 dvds in my queue and about 500 in my instant queue, of which I have seen way too much of and enjoyed about 3/4ths of it…the queue, I mean.
The film was one of Germany’s first talkies and the very first time a serial killer was portrayed on screen. To be honest, it’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen and it’s no wonder Peter Laurie went on to have such a successful career. The basic storyline is that there’s a serial killer in town who’s going after the children. The police usually don’t like that sort of thing and neither do townsfolk, namely mothers and fathers. The police search seemingly everywhere for anything suspicious and the only thing that turns up is a fair amount of falsely accused and sometimes severely beaten individuals. Amongst them is a man resembling father time and another resembling Oliver Twist Sr.
Police raids are hell on illegal gambling and prostitution no matter how you look at it. After what could have been weeks go by with no trace or clue as to the murderer’s whereabouts, the mob bosses and hoodlums have had enough and decide to take things into their own hands. The gang of ne'er-do-wells wind up finding the man who’s responsible for the deaths of at least three little girls and held their own version of court which hardly seems fair, but then again, who cares, this guy is no gentleman. The leader, a man named Safecracker, gives The Man his own defense “lawyer”, so it seems more fair. Fairer? No. It’s FAIR, it’s got to be. Ope, I guess not. Fairer. Thanks, MS Word. Moving on…
The trial scene (which may or may not have been the first trial scene in non-silent German film. I didn’t look that up, but it sounds right, so I’m going with it) is one of the best because, as we’ve seen in other courtroom scenes since (A Few Good Men, Scent of a Woman, I am Sam, The Last Episode of Seinfeld), places in which people are under the gun so to say, their fight or flight reflexes are at high volume and lose all value of composure. In this part of the film, one of the best performances of a vile, troubled, sick psychopath I’ve ever seen was played out by Laurie. A glimmer of ‘oh, man, this guy needs help or needs to be put down…more probably, the latter) was almost present in my reaction.
Unfortunately, the movie closes with a ‘moral of the story’ moment in which the mother of the last victim tells us that ‘this won’t change anything, but we do need to keep a better watch of our children…this means you’ (not in so many words and not in English words…there are subtitles). It seems cliché to me, being that I’ve seen so many films by now, but I guess that’s just the way it goes.
The acting alone supports the film as a must see. When you consider when it was made and the subject matter, on top of the way the story played out, it fairly gains a 5 star rating. I don’t, of course, think The Man should have gotten away with what he did, but any film that succesfully has you confused on who you’re rooting for: the hoodlums moments away from discovering the hiding murderer, or the murderer who may be moments away from getting away with it, is worth a watch.
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