M... THE FOREIGN REVIEW

Berlin Newspaper: "What is he like? Where is he hiding? No one knows, still he is one of us, Is he your neighbor?"

Hans Beckert quote: "I can't help what I do. This evil thing inside me, the fire, the voices, the torment!!"

Friz Lang's black and white masterpiece of suspense, M starts off showing us a group of children playing in a courtyard of an apartment building. Standing in a circle, one little girl stands in the middle singing the following song, as she individually points at each of the children. "Just you wait a little while, The nasty man in black will come, with his little chopper, he will chop you up! You're out!"

With this charming little ditty, the audience is introduced to what is terrorizing Berlin - the assault and murder of 7 little girls by an unknown killer. A lady lugging clean laundry up the stairs sternly tells them to stop, and proceeds up the stairs to Frau Beckmann's apartment, where the song is explained further in their conversation.

In Frau Beckmann's apartment, one sees Frau Beckman (Ellen Widmann) preparing a meal, setting the table and the camera focuses on her cuckoo clock, which strikes 12:00 noon. The film cuts to a shot of the school house, where the noon bell is ringing, sending the children home for lunch. Uh oh!

The film then cuts to young Elsie Beckmann walking home from school, bouncing her ball. She stops by a large, wide, round cement post, with a newspaper pasted on it, announcing the 10,000 mark reward for the capture of the killer stalking the neighborhood. Elsie is oblivious and starts to bounce her ball up against the post, seeing how high she can get it. Suspense mounts as the audience then sees the shadowy figure of a man approach her, befriending her. A trusting child, she walks away with him. The audience sees the man, who is whistling the ominous theme from Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite," buying a balloon for her from a blind vendor, StraBenhandler (Georg John).

Meanwhile, Elsie's mother, Frau Beckmann, becomes more and more concerned as it becomes later and later. She asks the children going up the stairs, a vendor, but no one has seen her. Finally, she cries her name frantically out the window. The camera moves to the table and focuses on the unused place setting.

The next shot is in a grassy area with a tree. Little Elsie's ball rolls down the knoll, and one sees her balloon floating up, getting caught on the telephone wires, and it fades to black.

Against a black frame, the audience at first hears the newspaper sellers yelling Extra, Extra, with the latest news of this 8th killing. The story resumes, showing people rushing to buy the paper. The tension begins to build once more. One man reads for the crowd, the paper posted on the cement post."Candy, a toy and fruit can be the murderer's weapons. We must remind you that a mother's first duty is to guard her children."

The audience then sees the murderer from the back, writing on his window sill, a letter to the newspaper, giving them information about this man, establishing him as the serial killer.

Meanwhile, the emotions of the people of Berlin are over the top, as they start to read innocent behavior of others and jump to conclusions, resulting in some almost ugly occurrences.

The minister (mayor) of Berlin (Franz Stein) calls the Chief of Police (Friedrich Gnab) getting the point across that while the police are putting good effort into the search, "We must have results!" The Chief of police goes into detail as to what his men are doing to solve the case, voiced over film montages of their various searches, checking out over 1500 clues, such as candy papers found at the scene of the crime, trying to find the store where the candy was bought, but always hitting a dead end, only able to go so far.

Even the witnesses who think they saw something, turned out to be faulty in their memory. A scene is shown how two men in the detective's office, nearly get into blows over the color of the little girl's hat.

Not knowing what else to do, the police continue to follow up every clue, and raid the flop houses, railroad stations, underground hang-outs checking all for papers, hauling off those who don't have any every night.

One such raid is shown in a local bar. The lady bar owner complains to the police that this is bad for business, and that they are looking in the wrong place at the wrong people, who will surely wring the neck of the murderer for causing a raid every night. The camera shows all the loot, tools taken from these people from the underworld.

The film then takes the audience to an apartment, where all the leaders from the underground unions are meeting, waiting for the leader of them all, Schranker (Gustaf Grundgens), a well-known, mastermind bank robber, who has been on the lam for 6 years. Schranker arrives, stating that all these nightly raids, and scrutiny by the police is ruining business. "A non-member is screwing up! We have to put things right again or we'll all be ruined. This is ruining our reputation as the cops are looking for him in our ranks!"They all begin to think, what can they do. Each has a suggestion.

Meanwhile, the town officials are meeting with the police department, also discussing how this man must be caught soon before he kills again, as the people are getting angrier and angrier because of their fear. Each person there has a suggestion. When the handwriting expert testifies how the writing shows that the murderer doesn't have both oars in the water, the film cuts to a chilling insert of the murderer, Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) looking crazily in the mirror illustrating this point. This is the first time the audience gets a real good, close-up look at him.

Someone gets the brilliant idea to check with the mental hospitals and clinics to see who has been released. A list of new clues is also given to Inspector Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), who is head of the Murder Squad, and is in charge of finding this killer.

The film then jumps back to the meeting with Schranker, who comes up with their solution."We'll have to catch him ourselves." They decide that if they watch every square foot, they will be able to catch him. They assign this task to the beggars union, as they can watch children and people, without notice from others. In this union, not only were there those who just ask for money, but also others who sold items on the street or played musical instruments for a donation.

The film then cleverly switches back and forth between the progress police investigation and the enormous stake-out by the beggars and their progress, intertwined with showing the actions and emotional state of the tormented killer, Hans Beckert, who at one point nearly walks off with another little girl, whistling his theme song, but luckily the mother shows up just in time to save her daughter, who had come to surprise her.

While the beggars' stake out brings results, so does a list of recent patient releases, along with clues picked up by a detective on a routine search bears fruit as well for the police. The clever forerunner of detective Periot, Inspector Lohmann puts two and two together, and after further investigation, Lohmann and his detective figure out the truth. Both parties are soon on the trail of Hans Beckert.

The whistling of Beckert identifies him as the murderer, and the beggars intervene just in time to save another little girl,which is another suspenseful scene, that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. One beggar pretends to trip, and slaps a M in chalk on Beckert's back, as he stands in front of a fruit stand, using the knife he kills children with, to cut an orange for another potential victim.

However, the beggars chase him into an office building, where Beckert hides in the attic. He is inadvertently locked in by a building guard at closing time. Schranker and company show up in the middle of the night, knock out and tie up the guards, and start searching for Beckert. After an exciting, suspenseful search, Beckert is caught and dragged away, just minutes before the police arrive.

However, a man was left behind, Franz the burglar, (Friedrich Gnab), who proves to be the big break needed for Lohmann. Thinking that this was an attempted robbery by a large gang, Franz is handed over to Inspector Groeber (Theodor Loos), head of the Burglary division. Though Franz claims to know nothing, Groeber on a cop's hunch thinks that something else may be the cause of the break-in, as nothing was taken. So, he gets together with Lohmann, and hatches a plan to frighten Franz into telling what they were after, saying that one of the night watchmen had died.

Meanwhile, Beckert finds himself in front of the whole assembly of underground union members, officiated by the hardened leader, Schranker, who is in control of this kangaroo court. Beckert is given a rather unenthusiastic defense counselor, who does offer a vigorous defense after Beckert tries to explain his horrendous actions.

The last 20 minutes gives the audience a powerful, dramatic, suspenseful experience, where both sides of the question, whether mercy or death is in order for the accused is debated. Does his vile actions condemn him to death, despite the fact that he can't help himself? Should a mentally unbalanced person who kills out of obsession causing pain and terror be killed because the mental health hospitals are incompetent and not foolproof?

The audience is kept in suspense as to whether the police will arrive in time to save Berkert.

M has been described as a film of "tremendous suspense and heightened drama," that was directed and put together by the gifted German expressionistic master, Fritz Lang, who really knew how to put a suspenseful crime thriller together. M has held up beautifully over the years because of Lang's creative genius.

Lang believed that a picture is worth a thousand words. M is very visually oriented, which supports and brings the written script powerfully to life. There are several favorite scenes where this technique is effectively used.

1) One knows that Elsie has been murdered when her ball rolls down the grassy knoll, and her balloon floats up unattended into the telephone lines.

2) Lang introduces the criminal meeting at the apartment scene by showing a man taking out one by one a total of 6 pocket watches, while another man practices his card technique, and another is copying money.

3) Nothing makes the mental sickness of Hans Beckert more chillingly clear, than the mirror scene mentioned above.

4) The sequence of scenes showing Beckert trying to fight his impulses, when he sees a young girl looking at the shop windows, next to where he is standing. As he stands in front of a knife shop, he suddenly sees the reflection of this young girl in the mirror which is in the middle of the knife display. Slowly but surely Beckert succumbs to his inner devils, as his eyes become glazed, and he begins to whistle his psychotic tune, he methodically turns to follow the girl mentioned above, giving the audience a sense of dread, knowing what he is up to.

This gripping screenplay was the result of a collaboration of Fritz Lang and his wife, Thea Von Harbou. This writing team was very successful in creating successful films, the most famous one being THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, the last film they wrote together, which some say was Lang's prediction of what was to come with the Nazi in power. The Nazis banned it from release in Germany, because the main nemesis was an evil genius that is defeated by a sharp detective, and winds up in a mental ward, writing down his future plans. This character resembled Hitler too closely, and may remind the public that Hitler wrote Mine Komfe in jail.

While pretending to think about Goebel's offer to head the Nazi's UFA Films, Lang skips the country and makes his way to America. His feelings about the Nazis broke up his marriage, as Thea supported the Nazis.

Under the strong, gifted direction of Lang, the cast, which was made up of German actors and actresses, gave performances that showcase their talent. Many went on to have long, successful careers in German films and TV.

Otto Wernicke is very convincing as the smart, clever Inspector Lohmann, who step by step puts the clues together to find Hans Beckert. My favorite scene is when he helps out Inspector Groeber and tells Franz the burglar that a guard has died, making Franz a candidate for a murder charge. Lohmann turns his back, as Franz 's resolve to remain silent quickly melts away and he pleads to be able to tell everything he knows. He then drops the bombshell that the others had taken the child murderer out of the building's attic. Wernick's nonverbal reaction is priceless.

Gustaf Grundgens is right on the mark portraying the cold, calculating, clever mastermind, Schranker, whose brilliant plan to catch the murderer works quickly to deliver Beckert into their hands first.

Another well-done performance is by German character actor, Georg John who portrays the blind balloon seller, StraBenhandler, a member of the beggar union, who is key in the catching of Beckert.

A young actor, in his first major role was a young man by the name of Peter Lorre, who gave the performance of his life, that was so stunning that it got him international recognition, propelling him into American films as a well-loved character actor, who played oily, sinister villains (The Maltese Falcon). It didn't matter that he spoke German in M, for his incredible talent reaches out over the language barrier and zaps the audience fully involving them, leaving them spellbound. He would've been a shoe-in for a best supporting actor Oscar if this film would've been made in an era where the Academy of Arts and Sciences was more open to foreign performances.

In M, Lorre had the ability to really crawl into the criminally sick mind of his character, Han Beckert. It is no wonder that this was his defining role as a character actor. In the mirror scene, he gives the audience a taste of his hidden torment in a silent pantomime that builds in intensity. He looks intently at himself in the mirror. Slowly, his face changes as he methodically pulls the corners of his mouth down with his fingers, moving his head left to right. The terror of insanity in his bulging eyes and facial expressions at the end of this sequence gives the audience a chilling sense of dread and fear.

Another great scene of Lorre's is when he tries to struggle against his impulses after seeing the girl in the mirror in the shop window. He builds on what was established in the mirror scene. Slowly, convincingly Lorre shows the audience his tormenting struggle with his inner voices, his evil obsession, without uttering a word. Finally he bends to the sickness within, and in a psychotic trance begins to hunt the child.

The crown jewel of Lorre's performance happens during the kangaroo court sequence of scenes, when he combines his ability to physically act with his ability to act verbally, portraying a terrified, tormented man, pleading for his life, fully explaining his mental problems. After pointing out the criminals' hypocrisy and the fact that they could choose to take up legal trades if they wanted to, he explains his sickness. At the end of his impassioned speech, he collapses in a heap, holding his arms over his head, hiding his face, not able to face his accusers.

M is unrated in the United States, but I would give it either a PG or a PG-13 rating, depending on how sensitive your children are. It is suggested that parents see the first to evaluate the film. While there is no blood, no showing of a body, and is tame when compared to today's standards, Peter Lorre would give a sensitive child nightmares, as he looks and acts like the perfect bogeyman. It may also be upsetting and too suspenseful for a child to watch his torment, let alone his hunting expeditions. Also, the film is in German with English subtitles, which may make it hard for young readers to follow.

If you enjoyed M, you may also like IN COLD BLOOD, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, MAN HUNT, MINISTRY OF FEAR, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, M (1951), and THE FURY.

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