next up in the 1930s countdown…
by Allan Fish
(Germany 1931 108m) DVD1/2
We must all keep an eye on our children
p Seymour Nebenzal d Fritz Lang w Fritz Lang, Thea Von Harbou, Paul Falkenberg, Adolf Jansen, Karl Vash article Egon Jacobson ph Fritz Arno Wagner, Gustav Rathje ed Paul Falkenberg md Adolf Jansen art Emil Hasler, Karl Vollbrecht
Peter Lorre (Franz Becker), Otto Wernicke (Insp.Carl Lohmann), Gustav Grundgens (Schraenker), Theo Lingen (Bauetnfaenger), Theodor Loos (Police Commissioner Groeber), Georg John (blind balloon seller), Inge Landgut (Elsie), Ellen Widmann (Frau Becker),
M is a remarkable film for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that it was made at all. It was a return for Lang to the crime world that he depicted so memorably in his Doctor Mabuse films nearly a decade earlier and deserted in favour of the epic Die Nibelungen, the future world of Metropolis and the spy rings of Spione, but with a twist; the criminals weren’t the bad guys.
Lang’s film, based loosely on the case of the Dusseldorf child murderer, follows the hunt for a child killer in a German city, but where police investigations are becoming so fierce that business is dropping off; buyers are not coming to the black market, and prospective clients are not coming for their quickies with the local prostitutes. All in all, things are looking bad and from the opening scene Lang sets the audience on edge, as he shows children singing a song about the bogeyman coming to get you with a knife (rather similar to the English tradition of Ring-a-Ring-o-Roses during the plague of 1665) and a woman shouting from the balcony above warning of singing such songs. Sure enough, one of the girls is doomed to become the murderer’s next victim. Rather than show the murder (indeed no murder is ever shown), Lang just cuts between an empty place at the dinner table where the child hasn’t returned from school and her ball falling to the ground and balloon caught in the electricity pylons. In the style of the Jack the Ripper Dear Boss letters, the murderer writes to the police and then to the press, which further increases police presence and anxiety and prompts the head of the local underworld to take drastic action. But whereas the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee’s efforts in catching the Ripper were about as effective as an English leg-spinner, the underworld eventually get their man and carry out a phoney trial of their captured fox.
For a long time, Lang’s German films were written off as trials for his more serious Hollywood fare, but I feel it’s an injustice as, in my opinion, he never made another masterpiece once he went to America. I do not wish to disparage the various merits of such excellent films as Fury, You Only Live Once, The Woman in the Window or The Big Heat, but they are inferior to his German films. Furthermore, the influence of the film has been subliminal; the montage of the police undergoing their enquiries predated those of The Naked City by seventeen years and the dragnet search through the woods for clues is as familiar now as it was then, as if leaping from a thirties newsreel shot in a style which is still fresh today. What’s more, the potency of the message of protecting our children has never been more telling in the wake of such horrific cases as James Bulger and Sarah Payne. It also lays a serious claim to being the first serial killer film and, though that has brought as many groans as cheers from film critics in recent times, it remains the best film of its type ever made. The photography is as gleaming as one would expect from Fritz Wagner, the deliberate lack of music (aside from the murderer’s whistling Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”) maintains the uneasy feel of the narrative and the performance of the 27 year old Peter Lorre is nothing short of breathtaking (and also note Otto Wernicke’s memorable Inspector Lohmann, so popular he returned in The Testmanent of Dr Mabuse the next year). M is not an easy film to watch, and I hope it never will be, but it is essential viewing and Lang’s pride and joy. In Le Mépris, Brigitte Bardot tells Lang how much she enjoyed Rancho Notorious and Lang replies “thank you, I prefer M.” He was right.
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Marvelous review, Allan. Your line, “M is not an easy film to watch, and I hope it never will be,” is chillingly appropriate. The continuation of Lang’s themes from the Mabuse series in particular, and the launching of newer obsessions here, combined with a crackling, perverse story and Peter Lorre’s “breathtaking” performance, conspire to create a masterpiece.
There is also the noir element of a malevolent universe where tragedy is but a chance encounter.
Yes, Tony I dare say that noir element is ubiquitous. Beautifully written.
And yes, Alexander I most definitely agree that those elements, including one of the great performances in all of cinema by Lorre, do conspire to ‘create a masterpiece.’
Fabulous review again (what elese in new?) of a film that ranks among my own very top films of the 30’s, as my list reveals.
Well Mr. Fish, I wouldn’t quite agree that “Lang never made another masterpiece after “M” but I agree with your reasoning that the German stuff for a while was unappreciated. “The Big Heat” is a masterpiece in my opinion. I like the comment above by Tony D’Ambra.
This is a great review of one of the greatest of all films. I need to place this on my list before the week is out.
The use of sound in this film was perhaps it’s most effective element. Of course Lorre was never better in his career, and I think this is Lang’s best film.
HEY ALLAN!!!
YOU SCREWED UP THE REVIEW!! WHAT LETTERS COME AFTER THE “M” ???
After recently watching The Big Heat again for my review of it, my opinion of that film changed and I too consider it Lang’s American masterpiece, Joe.
………..my No. 2 film, and this review does it right! One of Germany’s greatest statements…………
Nice Frank.
Alexander did write a TREMENDOUS review there for THE BIG HEAT Joe, and I urge you to read it.
Russell, I think you may be right, Allan has lost it here. LOL!!!!
I’ll leave Allan to address the rest of you.
Now this is one of the scariest films ever. A great one of course.
Hey Allan, you say here Man Hunt is excellent, yet you commented on my review this week at http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/man-hunt-1941-the-thriller-as-propaganda.html, “I feel this film has been overrated in some quarters. It’s quite a schematic piece, part propaganda, but with a laughably unlikely plot and an atrocious attempt at cockney from Joan Bennett which should carry a Government Health Warning.”?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unbelievable.
“M” is truly a great film. Why is it that when great filmmakers from abroad come to work in Hollywood their art turns to shit? I am thinking here of Peter Weir and Fritz Land here particularly. Imagine if Kurosawa or Bergmann or Fellini were greedy enough to sign on with Paramount or MGM?
If anyone in the northern New Jersey area is old enough to remember the murders of the two Lodi police officers in 1963 bet your bottom dollar that that the cops turned the screws on all the rackets in the area to give up the two fiends: Falco and Trantino. The former was hold up in a flop house in New York where the NYPD turned him into Swiss cheese so to speak but the other turd turned himself in the next day and stripped down for the cameras.
He is out of jail now and the two cops have been under a ton of dirt and rocks for the las 45 years or so.
I think Peter Lorre lost all the weight he carried in M from running from the Nazis.
Tony, Man Hunt is an OK piece, but not up to his best stuff by a long shot. Please, Tony, bear in mind, many of these reviews were written several years ago. My pieces are only about the great ****½ and ***** films – I write about the stuff worth writing about, anyone can tear a turkey to shreds – and were begun in late 2003, and total over 1,000. My All Quiet on the Western Front piece, for example, was written in December 2003. I have watched Man Hunt again since writing this piece and enjoyed it less than the first time because the implausibility and Bennett’s sheer atrociousness were just too annoying. Nothing against Bennett, she’s great in say The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street and The Reckless Moment, but not here. Most of the time I will take the time to go back and change any little pieces that reconsideration has affected, but sometimes you don’t get chance. I was not attacking Man Hunt for the sake of it, I just speak my mind when it comes to films and, much as though I like you and your writing, when I disagree, I say so. It was a very nice piece, but I didn’t agree with it.
Most talent does turn rancid once it arrives in Hollywood…that’s what happens when you sell your soul to Tinseltown, Deadpan.
Thanks for your response, Allan. I am not arguing with you, I was merely pointing out the contradiction. There is no way Man Hunt is in the same league as M, and I don’t believe I intimated that in my review or here.
Having said that, and let me be frank, it is no excuse to say a review was written 5 years ago. If you post a review today, you have an obligation to review it first and make sure it reflects your current views.
And while we’re being frank, statements such as “most talent turns rancid one it arrives in Hollywood” is as ridiculous as it is unfounded. It smacks of snobbery and egotism. Lang made a number of significant films in Hollywood, and I agree with Joe that The Big Heat is a great film and its scathing social critique remains a major historical artefact.
What of the whole generation of European émigrés that flourished in Hollywood? Yes, they saw the flaws in the American dream as it was lived out in reality, but the fusion of their great talents and the idea of America that inspired so many to leave hearth and home for a strange new world, spawned a cinema that has embraced all people not just a coterie of film fanatics huddled in irrelevant cloisters lecturing on masterpieces of a past long dead and buried.
As the gloves are off, as it were…
My statement regarding directors’ downgrading in Hollywood is a simple fact. Yes, there were émigré successes in Hollywood, from Curtiz to Wilder, but they didn’t have great illustrious careers beforehand to live up to. Name a masterpiece either made before coming to Hollywood?
Look at what happened to Lang. He made some very fine films. I’d rate You Only Live Once and The Big Heat as ****½ just short of great films and I have written essays on both, but I’d take Dr Mabuse, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, Spione, M and Testament of Dr Mabuse as at least their equal and four of them as superior.
Look at Murnau, he made Sunrise, yes, but with a full German craftsmanship he never had again. Eisenstein couldn’t even get work there. Ditto Pabst. Stiller was spat out and returned a broken, dying man. Renoir was sanitised. I could name many more examples but I won’t bother.
The additional fact, and this again requires frankness, is that, as the very name of your site attests, film noir to you is beyond criticism a sacred cow whose altar is adorned with black candles. Lang made many films noir, some more cherished than others. Thus, to attack those films for not being as good as his German stuff is, to you, heresy. Now you are entitled to do so, but some of us – huddled away in irrelevant cloisters, as you might say – think more objectively. If you knew my whole work, and my whole outlook, you’d know I’m anything but a snob, but I also call a spade a spade.
Take other film authors, including David Thomson. If one compares his opinions in his Biographical Dictionary of Film to those in his recent Have You Seen there are discrepancies there, but this doesn’t mean he has double standards, but rather that movie criticism remains fluid, and ever open to change, for better or worse. His opinions on films changed from one book to the next, but he didn’t justify those changes with comments like “I didn’t like this quite so much a few years ago when I wrote the Dictionary’s last edition.” Why should he? Or if a film gets an increased or decreased rating in a film guide, should the author justify this? I have just reviewed this week another ten films afresh and gone through punctiliously for statements in other essays that now opine differently to my current feelings, sometimes having to change entire reviews accordingly. True, I should have read through punctiliously every single word, this is true, and in general I do so, going to the sort of detailed, intricate lengths as to make your head spin. Do you, however, in writing a piece and making statements about another film therein, go back and change that piece 5 years later in your blog history just incase some Jobsworth comes along and pinpoints a slight change of opinion? Somehow, I don’t think so.
The fact is that you have a history of argumentativeness, and have been warned accordingly on sites as to this. I criticised one of your sacred cows, so you were quick to point out something which is fluid, to say the least. Man Hunt is an excellent film in some ways in terms of having good things in it. I’d give it *** which is fair enough, whereas once I’d have given it ***½.
Now, please, your answer has made it perfectly clear that you do not wish me to make comments on your site as you do not want honesty but sycophancy. That is self-defeating. The M essay was published purely coincidentally as part of the countdown series, as the 25 list attests. But I will not take accusations of double standards from you or anyone.
To please Mr D’Ambra I have removed Man Hunt from the review of M and from my master file.
Allan, get off your high horse. I am a hack and know it.
I respect your knowledge and abilities, and have made many truthful statements to that effect. But you are arrogant and opinionated.
If I was seeking sycophantic praise, I would have abandoned FilmsNoir.Net long ago. It has only been in the recent past that my posts have attracted any comments whatsoever. Why would I write a review saying Vertigo sucks if all I was after was praise?
You cheapen your diatribe by lies such as “Thus, to attack those films for not being as good as his German stuff is, to you, heresy”. Just where exactly did I say that? I merely pointed out that you had made contradictory statements. Oh and by the way, my wife made me give up the black mass a while back. I now genuflect in front of a poster for The Big Sleep before retiring.
I made no accusations. I merely pointed out evidence of your double-standards.
As to being argumentative, that is open to debate, and I will not lose any sleep over it. Just knowing that other sites find the time to gossip about me gives me great heart. If I am such a jerk, why would I help you and Sam in getting the blog started? Just what is in it for me?
And let us not forget the feeding frenzy you and the other sharks partook in when I had the temerity to offer a contrary view of Vertigo in comments to your review, and speak of my personal battle with depression.
“A shark it was.
Then there was another.
And another shark again.
Till all about, the sea was made of sharks…
and more sharks still.
And no water at all.
My shark had torn himself from the hook…
and the scent or maybe the stain it was, and him bleeding his life away…
drove the rest of them mad.
Then the beasts took to eating each other.
In their frenzy…
they ate at themselves.
You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes.
And you could smell the death reeking up out of the sea.
I never saw anything worse…
until this little picnic tonight.
And you know…
there wasn´t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.
l´ll be leaving you now.”
I feel absolutly terrible about all of this. Allan and Tony are both my good friends, I recognize Tony has done so much for WitD, both with his writing and his endless assistance. I want peace.
This is the final word I will say about it. M was written, I have just confirmed from analysing my MW Word file history, in June 2004. I should, true, have checked every single word not just spelling and grammar when I posted the review.
Up until not so long ago I rated Man Hunt at ***½, which edges it into the excellent category according to my rating system. When I watched it again recently it didn’t hold up as well. I dropped the rating from ***½ to ***.
My only faults are twofold. When commenting on your site I only pointed out the faults I have with the film, not the good things (Pidgeon, Sanders, McDowall, photography, etc). Yet is it a cast iron law we should all do this? If so, the comments may be longer than the essays.
Secondly, I didn’t notice I had left Man Hunt in the M essay as per the earlier evaluation. Now I myself have seen several books where certain films are disparaged in a review on another piece, but praised in their own entry. Should we criticise the author (s) thereof for double standards, or just admit that they made an error in forgetting that they once wrote disaparagingly about it in another piece. I myself make such changes frequently, and indeed did so only last night with relation to another film I upgraded in a new essay.
It’s an error and I hold my hands up, but accusing me of double standards is completely out of order as it’s an accusation of dishonesty. That much I stand by. We’ll leave it there.
Sorry to read about all this haggling. I am confident all parties will cease their testiness, and all will be well in WitD Land. Look forward to reading more stuff from both Mr. Fish and Mr. D’Ambra.
I third Sam and Joe’s respective feelings.
Though, I must confess, I wish all Internet arguments were this fecund and intellectually rigorous.
Thanks, Joe and Alexander. As far as I’m concerned it’s over, and I’m sure Tony probably feels the same way. I think we all have too much crap in our lives to waste time on such arguments – in my case I’m especially touchy at the moment as I have been suffering with flu continually coming back over a six week period, the most recent last night.
A new day and water under the bridge…
Absolutely. Though the way it’s raining here at the moment, there’s only so much water under the bridge opposite my house I think it can stand.
This is one of my all time favorite films. It’s probably the eeriest film I have ever seen, especially the opening sequence. I love how there are just enough hints of German Expressionism to make everything feel just a bit off kilter without being obvious.
And I’ll never hear “The Hall of Mountain King” the same way again. It was my mom’s ringtone for a while…until I told her its significance to me in context with this film…she immediately changed it haha.
Matthew, what a magisterial comment you have posted, both about the hint of German expressionism and eerieness of the film and that wonderful (and funny) anecdote about your mother changing her ringtone!
Indeed about “The Hall of the Mountain King” too.