M (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY

No introductions needed surely for M, Fritz Lang's most celebrated masterpiece. Made in 1931, it seems as modern today as it must have been the day it was released and remains a thrilling experience. Analyzed to death by social scientists, exhausted over frame by frame by university film academics, x-rayed to infinity by amateur (and professional) psychoanalysts, both Jungian and Freudian, and ripped apart by structuralists, there is something for everyone in this extraordinary text. As Tom Gunning has observed in his excellent book (The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity), no one critic can really get to the bottom of all M represents or means, so radical is it's range, so penetrating into the human condition are its insights. But let me try to summarize a few of the reasons why M should be in every serious film collection. First of all surely must be the film's unique narrative structure. There is no main character in the conventional sense of the term. The film may be all about the serial child killer, Hans Beckert (an astounding performance by Peter Lorre), but he barely appears, let alone speaks until the film's last 15 minutes. He is represented by his absence more than anything else. If you see M as a police procedural then the chief detective, Karl Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) could be seen as the main character, but he isn't introduced until 20 minutes in and doesn't appear at all in the film's concluding kangaroo court. Perhaps it's Der Schranker (Gustaf Grundgens), the head of the underground who organizes Beckert's capture and trial, but again he isn't introduced until late. If anything he is Lohmann's doppelganger, Lang taking great pains in the film to parallel both sides of the law in their hunt for Beckert. No, the main character of the film isn't a person. Instead Lang makes the 'main character' the city of Berlin itself together with the effect Beckert's crimes has on the city's populace. The film's opening few shots, starting with the opening 'gong' of a clock and the children playing their sadistic 'counting out' game (continuing the clock theme), going through Frau Beckmann's reactions to the fact that her daughter, Elsie is late coming home, inter-cutting with scenes of her daughter leaving school to be picked up by a shadow, and then closing with her murder (a ball rolling out of a bush, the balloon bought from a blind street vendor by Beckert for the girl, now entangled in electric wires), all show Lang constantly forcing us to focus us on what lies outside the camera frame (the city), rather than what lies within it. If the main character of the film is Berlin and its denizens then the main subject is the effect of Beckert's reign of terror, most notably the process by which the killer is trapped and condemned. The film is structured accordingly. Lang's relentless depiction of this process has an obsessiveness which drives the narrative mercilessly forward with no thought at all given to conventional notions of characterization. No film made before or since concentrates so hard on making one shot lead into the next with such inexorable logic. The balloon caught in the wires implies the news has already been transmitted by technology. This leads to the next scene of 'extra' newspapers being distributed on the street, to people reading about the murder on a wall, and to the deep feelings of paranoia that this inspires in everyone. The bad news doesn't unite the people against the murderer. Instead, it divides them and makes them accuse each other in a frenzy to find the beast, the Murderer Among Us (Morder unter uns - the film's original title). Accusations lead to counter-accusations, which lead to pressure on police to try harder to find the murderer, which leads to the criminal underworld being unsettled by the unwanted over-attention given them by the investigation, which leads to the underground deciding to find the murderer themselves, which leads to...and so on, down and down. The relentless logic and inherent mirroring and paralleling made between the 'official' investigation of the police and the 'unofficial' investigation of the criminal underworld is structured by Lang as a tightly coiled spiral which runs around and around, tighter and tighter, gradually roping Beckert in to his fate. Moreover, it is done by excluding him from the screen almost entirely, and it is of course his absence which looms over everyone and everything. It is when Beckert is revealed finally in the kangaroo court where Lang plays his ace card. For instead of a snarling, hideous monster deserving of the death penalty, Lang gives us a poor, frightened, shivering victim of persecution who mouths the (now standard) plea of insanity wherein he can't help doing what he does. He kills, but he has no control over that impulse. His 'defense lawyer' says Beckert is sick and that sick people should be taken to the doctor, not to the executioner. And so Lang achieves the miraculous here. He creates an atmosphere of terror where a whole city is shown to have been shaken by the actions of one monster of a man, but when the monster is revealed, he becomes the film's most sympathetic character. This reversal of audience sympathy is a masterstroke from Lang for suddenly we are in the area of social science. Which is the monster, the man or the society that creates and persecutes that man? That is the question Lang poses when he has Beckert address the camera directly. Are we with him, or against him? Closely bedded into the relentless obsession of Lang and Thea Von Harbou's narrative structure (his wife's contribution to the script cannot be over-emphasized) is an extraordinarily complex mise-en-scene. Perhaps in no other film is the frame of any one image packed with so much information at any one time. Working closely with cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner Lang constantly alternates between overheads to huge close-ups to create a visual texture which resembles finally a huge net which closes in around Beckert. The numerous topographical shots take their cue from the scene where the police draw circles around the area of the Elsie Beckmann murder on a map of the city. For example, the overhead shot of Beckert running to and fro trying to elude his pursuers (following the realization that he has been identified) makes him resemble a cockroach around which a giant glass has been up-ended and against the sides of which he is bounced around as it closes in on him. He is trapped by the urban grid demarcated by the map of the city. In other words he is trapped by the city itself - the film's main character. These topographical shots alternate with huge close-ups (Beckert reflected in the mirror, Lohmann shot from a camera buried underneath his desk) which exaggerate and caricature. 'Caged' compositions abound, especially of Beckert trapped behind bars in the office attic, the burglar left by his mates climbing up out of a hole to find himself caged by the police, the scene where Beckert sees a potential victim in a shop window framed in a mirror which is then refracted back with Beckert himself in the frame, and then of course the vast vault of the distillery cellar used for the final scene. Lang takes as a basis for his mise-en-scene the work of the German Expressionist movement, especially Georges Grosz, Max Beckmann and Ludwig Kirchner to create a series of stunning images - the circle of kids playing in the apartment block courtyard shot from above, the shot of the 'empty despair' of Frau Beckmann looking down the staircase which leads to infinity, the Georges Grosz caricature of the men drinking beer which ends in one accusing another of murder, the overhead shot of the street just prior to the police raid and the crowd scenes which deliberately evoke Beckmann and Kirchner. Lang was aware in 1931 that expressionism was somehow old fashioned (his earlier silent films make even greater use of it) and so he also took on board the Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity) of the time as evinced by sequences where objects take on the meaning of emotions. The shot of Elsie's empty table place speaks volumes of absence and the effect it has on her mother. The horror of Elsie's death is portrayed by means of a ball and a balloon (innocence lost). Then there's the amazing shot after the police raid on the bar of the paraphernalia of criminality. Guns, knives, knuckle-dusters, wrenches, drills, screw-drivers, stolen jewelry, wallets, expensive furs and so on are all displayed in one shot by Lang with fastidious precision to show the passion for crime that these people possess. Most recognizably Langian of all is the use of shop windows where goods are laid out especially to attract and inspire consumer desire. It is in such windows that Beckert finds his victims (goods designed to satisfy his desire?). The new objectivity first introduced here in M marks a transition in Lang's work from his obsessive arranging of people (in Metropolis (1926) for example) to an obsessive arrangement of objects - something that dominates Lang's films here on in. Shop windows appear in almost every film after M. Closely allied with Lang's meticulous mise-en-scene is the innovative sound design of the film. This was Lang's first sound film, but he uses it with consummate expertise - the use of over-lapping dialogue in the crowd scene where people are reading about the Beckmann murder on the wall show Orson Welles wasn't the first to use it in Citizen Kane (1941). The telephone conversation between the minister and the policeman is a wonderful example of how to convey information quickly and with maximum impact. As they talk the visuals move with supreme logic from one police method of investigation to another - I'm sure Lang remembered this when he made the first sequence of The Big Heat (1953) where he used the telephone to similar jaw-dropping effect. Then there are the sheer number of scenes in which Lang uses no sound at all - the lead-up to the police raid, the chase of Beckert where he is marked on his back with an 'M' and the frightening court scene where the poor victim begs for mercy as the majority bay for blood. There is no music in the film. The only tune comes from a whistled (by Lang himself) rendition of Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' by Beckert. On one level this was the very first example in cinema where a character becomes identified by a little leitmotif to sinister effect - something which has become commonplace in films ever since. On a deeper level Lang alludes to the original Ibsen play where the troll king asks Peer Gynt, "What is the difference between a troll and a man?". The Old Man of the Mountain later answers "Out there, where sky shines, humans say: 'To thyself be true'. In here trolls say: 'Be true to yourself and to hell with the world'". This of course takes us into the heart of Beckert, a man split in two (he is first introduced as two by way of mirrors) whose ego has no control over his troll-like id when turned-on sexually. There are so many levels on which we can approach M. One important strand must be its very contemporaneity. Inspired initially by a newspaper article by Egon Jacobson, the film seems to leap out of the 1931 newspapers reporting real mass murderers like Harrmann, Grossmann, Denke, and most notoriously of all Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf monster. Kurten was important for the film as not only were memories of him recent among Germans, but elements where lifted literally from the case. Kurten was apprehended with the help of members of the criminal underground, and the character of Lohmann is based on one of the detectives involved in the case. It is even alleged that Kurten was one of many child killers who Lang and Harbou interviewed when preparing the script. Then there's the film's analysis of the way the mass media insinuates itself within each of us, the film's use in penological debate and its investigations into basic metaphysics. And, of course we can't ignore the film's political dimension. Replete in sinister black mac, bowler hat and cane, Der Schranker looks every bit the Gestapo interrogator, especially of course in the final scene. He constantly recommends exterminating Beckert the way the Nazis later exterminated the mentally sick and of course the Jews. Is the 'M' on Beckert's back a precursor for the star of David later worn by Jews? Josef Goebbels certainly thought so as shown by his later use of M as propaganda by linking psychopathic behavior with the Jews, taking Peter Lorre's Jewishness in real life as a springboard for his foul assertions. The fact that Lang offers all this (and much more) with no pat answers of any kind shows what a masterpiece the film is. The only moral drawn in the film would be that of the mothers at the end, that mothers mustn't neglect their children. Beyond that, Lang leaves us free to draw our own conclusions. The ambiguity is fascinating. Goebbels thought the film the greatest argument for capital punishment he had ever seen! Lang himself later had people believe exactly the opposite. The truth is M can be interpreted any which way we like and to take one concrete interpretation over any other is to ignore the truly radical complexity of this stunning work of art. If perfect cinema is defined as original narrative told with innovative pictures and sound then there isn't a more perfect example of the phenomenon than M. The film should be seen by everyone and this superb Masters of Cinema release makes it a mandatory purchase. The quality of the restored version is little short of stupendous with both sound and vision ultra-sharp. Included along with the usual informative booklet are two commentaries and also the whole of the British release of M where Peter Lorre acts in English. It is shorter than the restored release and the out-takes are very interesting in what they say about Lang's construction as it was meant. For example, several gongs accompany the credits at the beginning, not just the one 'gong' of fate present in the restoration. Also, the end is changed with the mothers gone and replaced by the kids continuing their game from the film's beginning. Finally, there is a 24 minute interview with Lang himself in which he shows himself to be a showman forever steeped in pushing myths about himself. As Patrick McGilligan has demonstrated (in his biography, Fritz Lang, the Nature of the Beast), both tales, first of the way Lang came to shoot M at an old Zeppelin hanger, and then second, how he left Germany overnight after being offered leadership of the German film Industry by Goebbels, are fictitious. These MoC releases do seem rather expensive and I have hesitated to buy some of them, but this release of M is worth every penny. See it and be astounded.

Just an outstanding film. I chose to watch the German version with English subtitles as that's the original format. There is also a version shot in English and filmed simultaneously but some scenes use different actors. Clearly no one had mobile phones when this was made, or instant tv news to watch for updates about a child murderer but the plot stands up really well considering how old the film is. The plot, which I won't go into detail on is very different to just about every othe film I've seen and had me gripped from start to finish which just wouldn't happen with a modern Hollywood blockbuster. Watch this film and then consider how it would be made today. Hollywood would do it very differently and would give it a different ending IMHO......which would completely ruin the film. There is a complete honesty about this film which in one scene is brutal 'stripped to the bones' honesty. I've done my best to just recommend it without any plot spoilers which was difficult :) I'd say just watch this film, and even though it's eighty years old it will have an impact on you!

This series from Eureka is simply fantastic, blu-ray and dvd in one neat package, with a booklet too. Having not seen this film since 1997 in a small art house cinema, I was itching for this release. The film is by far my favourite Lang film. Peter Lorre is superb in his debut starring role. I don't want to leave spoilers for anyone who may not have seen the film before, so will assume that most people reading this know the film and appreciate its excellence. If you haven't seen it, then you must!! The transfer on Blu-ray is very good to my untrained eye. I have a 50 inch LED, and this film has never looked better. The Subtitles are nice and sharp too. I have not played the DVD version yet or the extras, so cannot comment on those yet.

I would never have thougt that an old movie from the early thirties should be among my favorite films. The Blu-ray is masterfully restored. The script, editing and plot are magnificent. A masterpiece! The acting is somewhat teatrical and typical for the early moviemaking, but none the less, the story and plot got hold of me. This is a must for people that are not afraid of old b&w movies with only mono sound. Impressive!

I bought this to watch for Halloween as I was interested in the concept the killer was only heard whistling and is never seen. Except they do show him now and then so it was less suspenful. The plot is cleverly written and the frustration/fear of the parents is felt strongly. The film acknowledges their pain but also questions the right the government has in executing someone with clear mental health issues. It's a lot more philosophical than one may think at first and certainly what I would class as forward thinking for the time. If it wasn't for Nazi occupation causing the film to be banned, I could see it being as well regarded as Citizen Kane. There are some things wrong with it of course, no film is without flaws. I would say that the killer didn't have the right amount of screen time. Either have little to none so we know nothing about him and it makes it more frightening and suspenseful. Or we have a window into the mind of someone distubring and unsettling. The actor who played him was good but did litreally bite his nails during a scene where he is meant to be anxious. I would say that was more of a product of the time with film still in it's infancy and actors being taught for the stage rather than the screen. Definetly worth a watch.

5sur5 satisfait, film au combien cult.

El servicio y la rapidez del envio

Arrived in good time and good quality.

Berlin in den frühen 30er-Jahren: Eine Stadt ist in Aufruhr. Über einen Zeitraum von acht Monaten verschwanden acht Kinder, die zum Opfer eines Serienmörders wurden. Die Handlung setzt mit dem Verschwinden der kleinen Else ein. Dies wird zum Ausgangspunkt einer akribischen und verzweifelten Suche der örtlichen Polizei. Da verhöhnt der Täter mit einem Brief auch noch die Gesetzeshüter. Da das öffentliche und schattenhaft-zweifelhafte Leben immer schwieriger auszuüben ist, beschließen die Kleinkriminellen und deren Vereinigung, allem voran die Bettler, nun selbst tätig zu werden und den Mörder zu fassen. Und tatsächlich: ein blinder Ballonverkäufer liefert ausgehend von einer gepfiffenen Melodie den entscheidenden Hinweis. Ein Kampf mit der Zeit entbrennt... Die vorliegende DVD ist die der "Edition Deutscher Film" der Spiegel-Reihe. Die hier dargebotene 2002er Filmfassung des 1931 erschienen Films schließt eher, - mehr dazu unten - aber Achtung leichte Spoilergefahr. Fritz Langs früher Tonfilm überzeugte und begeisterte mich auf ganzer Linie. Einfach überragend. Das beginnt schon mit der Symbolik ganz am Anfang: Schulschluss einer "Gemeinde-Schule" - das "D" ist aber verdeckt, demnach eine Schule für das "GEMEINE Volk". Die kleine Else schwimmt gegen den Strom - sie bewegt sich entgegen aller anderen Kinder, landet so in den Fängen ihres Mörders, den man nur als Schatten vor einen Litfaßsäule sieht. Er kauft ihr bei dem blinden Ballonhändler einen heliumgefüllten Ballon, der als Symbol ihres Ablebens in den Himmel steigt, somit die Himmelfahrt der kleinen Else andeutet. So bleibt das Tellerchen Elses leer und zeigt wie alles andere andeutungsvoll, was Sache ist. Gelungen auch die Darstellung des trostlosen Lebens in den Hinterhöfen - die Kargheit, die Enge - auch durch das verwinkelte und heruntergekommene Treppenhaus dargestellt. Zudem weist selbiges neben der Enge bedrohliche Strukturen (Geländer...) auf. Der Mörder, dessen Schatten wir bislang kennen, schreibt einen Brief - à la Jack the Ripper - an die Polizei. Verhöhnt sie. Scheint ungestraft mit dem Morden davonzukommen und eine Stadt mit über vier Millionen Einwohnern in Angst und Schrecken zu versetzen. Jeder verdächtigt jeden. Hysterie und Angst an der Grenze zur Psychose grteift um sich. Prägnant und pointiert reiht Fritz Lang Szenen aneinander, die dies eindrucksvoll belegen und den Zuschauer erschauern lassen. Eine Saat des Misstrauens und des Zweifels wird gesät. Berlin wird stimmungsvoll und ungeheuer atmosphärisch dargestellt, voller Lokalkolorit. Gelungen auch die Charakterstudie des Mörders. Man erlebt eingängig und nachhaltig seine Zwänge und Ängste mit. Eine sehr gute Darstellung eines kranken Geistes. Lorres Mienenspiel, gerade am Ende, ist eine Klasse für sich. Er verkörpert sehr eindrucksvoll den gejagten, von seinen Trieben geleiteten und besessenen Mann, der einem im Grund vor dem Tribunal fast - aber nur fast - schon leid tut. Sein Abgleiten in den wahnhaften, besessenen Zustand wird durch Ausblenden der anderer Geräusche, als auch durch zunehmend heftigeres Pfeifen Peer Gynts symbolisiert. Allerdings dachte ich mir, Beckerts Geschichte hätte etwas mehr psychotischen Background. So war ich ob der Auflösung der psychischen Komponente doch ein klein wenig enttäuscht. Will aber an dieser Stelle nicht mehr verraten. Krass, wie Lorre es schafft die Augen einzusetzen. Einige Male mal war ich geneigt anzunehmen sie springen gleich heraus ... Man erkennt, dass der Film ein früher Tonfilm ist - teils überzogen-manieriert wirkende Gestik, Mimik und Sprechweise, trotzdem nie deplatziert. Lang bedient sich des Stilelements "Subjektiver Ton" d. h. er stellt die Szene aus Sicht des jeweils erlebenden Subjekts dar. So ist der Mörder so in seiner Welt versunken und pfeift Auszüge aus der Peer-Gynt-Suite vor sich hin, alle anderen Alltagsgeräusche sind ausgeblendet. Merkwürdig allerdings die Razzia-Szene: hier ist plötzlich der Ton weg. Man ist geneigt zu denken, dass dies aus Sicht der Kleinkriminellen dargestellt wird, die im Keller von nichts wissen. Allerding ist die Aufnahme aus der Vogelperspektive dargestellt (wie vieles andere in diesem Film auch - lediglich einmal ist mir die Froschperspektive aufgefallen, aber der Sinn warum gerade Frosch erschloss sich mir nicht so wirklich), deswegen sollte man eigentlich Geräusche vernehmen. Weiteres Stilmittel: die Fortführung von Dialogen über Szenewechsel hinweg, genannt Parallelmontage. Da greift geht Gangster-Szene nahtlos in die Polizei-Szene über, denn Halbsätze werden von dem anderen vervollständigt. Zum Regisseur Lang ist folgendes zu sagen: zusammen mit seiner Frau Thea von Harbou verfasste Lang ein Drehbuch, das vor allem von seiner intensiven täglichen Zeitungslektüre geprägt war. So basiert der Film auf wahren Tatsachen. Quasi inspiriert von Peter Kürten, dem "Vampir von Düsseldorf", weiterhin von Carl Großmann und Karl Denke (Mord an den Schwestern Fehse); auch der Hannoveraner Mörder Fritz Haarmann (berühmt bis heute das Haarmann-Lied) findet Eingang. Am stärksten aber erstgenannter Kürten. Sein Prozess und das Urteil endeten kurz vor der Erstaufführung Ms. In anderen europäischen Ländern dann gleich werbewirksam unter M - "El Vampiro de Dusseldorf" vermarktet, wobei Dialekt und Einwohnerzahl definitiv auf Berlin hindeutet. So recherchierte das Paar ausgiebig u.a. in psychiatrischen Kliniken, als auch bei der Berliner Polizei. Die Figur Karl Lohmann ist eine Reminiszenz an den berühmten Berliner Kriminalbeamten Ernst Gennat, der im Fall Kürten ermittelt hatte in Langs Dr. Mabuse hat er einen weiteren Auftritt.. Interessant ist auch der Anklang auf Zeitgeschichtliches im Bezug auf das Plädoyer des Tribunals am Ende: "Diese Bestie hat kein Recht zu existieren, die muss ausgerottet werden." (Anmerkung: nur ein Volk kann ausgerottet werden). Hier wird eindeutig auf das Unrechtsregime angespielt. Auch greift der Film die Ohnmacht der Weimarer Republik gegenüber dem erstarkenden Unrechtsregime auf. Dargestellt in der Wühlarbeit im Bürogebäude. Der Schränker erinnert dabei in seinem Ledermantel und Auftreten/Gebaren an eine namhafte Größe. ***** Achtung Spoiler bzgl. Ende ***** Die restaurierte 2002er Fassung schließt die Endszene mit dem Todes-Urteil aus. Sie schließt mit den Worten der Mutter, aus denen ich allerdings die gleiche Schlussfolgerung zog. Während mein Mitschauer anderer Ansicht war. Also wer es ganz genau wissen möchte - einfach nachlesen. Nun verstehe ich auch, warum die Mutter am Ende mitten im Satz - nach einem Wort abbricht! Mich hat es aber nicht sonderlich gestört. Die DVD weist für das Alter eine überragende Bildqualität auf, in Folge der Restaurierung. ******* Spoiler-Ende ****** Fazit: Geniales, frühes Dokument des Tonfilmes mit eindrucksvoller, tiefsinniger Geschichte! Unbedingt empfehlenswert. Ob man nun die Jubiläums-Sonderediton oder die Edition Deutscher Film wählt ist wohl Geschmackssache, als auch Preisfrage. Ich bin mit dieser vollauf zufrieden.

So how is it that one who enjoys movies, good and bad, as much as I do, has never seen Fritz Lang's M (1931) until last night? I've certainly heard about it, I've seen clips from it, I've read John J. Muth's beautifully rendered four issue comic/graphic novel adaptation of it, heck, I even bought the film at the end of last year, and it's been sitting on my `to be watched' shelf ever since...perhaps there was a sense of intimidation on my part, or fear...fear that I may not have liked the film that many acknowledge as a classic work of cinema, and one of the best examples of early German expressionist films (it's also one of the first, big German talkie films), from which so many others have since drawn upon for inspiration. After finally buckling down and watching it last night, I have to say, I really didn't know what I was missing, especially given how much I enjoy the noir films released by Hollywood in its heyday. Co-written and directed by Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Blue Gardenia), the film stars Peter Lorre (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Mad Love), whom I first became familiar with, unknowingly, when I was a child, watching the Warner Brothers cartoons, shown on Saturday morning. It wasn't until later when I actually saw Lorre in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) that I made the connection and realized his distinctive manner and appearance (bedroom voice, bug eyes, and moon face) was the one characterized within the various cartoons. As the story begins, the city streets are buzzing with news of a child murderer on the loose, one whose just recently claimed yet another victim. We learn there have been eight murders so far, in as many months. The general public is visibly distressed, especially with the authorities and their inability to catch the killer who leaves very little behind in terms of useful clues. Soon people begin pointing fingers at each other, making accusations based on paranoid reactions...if you're seen on the street even near a child you're the killer...if you're seen being arrested by the police for something completely unrelated, you're the killer, and so on...the police may have very little to go on, but that doesn't mean they're not working the case. On the contrary, they're working themselves to exhaustion, following up anything and everything in hopes it will pan out into a viable lead...the problem is, besides the fact that they are being inundated with dead end leads, is that there's no seeming connection between the killer and his randomly chosen victims. The authorities have even begun scouring the criminal districts, in hopes of turning up something, which, of course, upsets the criminals as there's a heightened sense of awareness permeating the city and interfering with their trade. In an interesting juxtaposition, we see two groups meeting separately, yet at the same time, one being the authorities, the other being a criminal syndicate of sorts, both striving for the same outcome, but for relatively different reasons. The authorities want this murdering psychopath off the streets for obvious reasons, while the criminal element wants to catch him because not only is the intensive manhunt interfering with their business, but also because there reputations are suffering given the public's inclination to not distinguish one criminal from another. Based on the respective outcomes of the meetings, the authorities broaden their search to include the recently released individuals who were wards of the state, deemed `harmless' to society, while the criminals employ a very different, unique, and ultimately effective strategy. Eventually both methods pay off and the killer is identified (by the most unlikely source), and the real manhunt begins...who will find him first, the police, or the `organization'? I have to say, this is probably the best film I've seen in an awhile. The one aspect that really stood out was the exquisite beauty within the cinematography, the usage of shadows along with an incredibly wide array of shots used to tell the story and develop tension throughout. Normally when someone uses that many different kinds of shots, it tends to draw unwanted attention, but here they seemed to have been chosen and ordered in such as ways as to feel seamless, hardly ever disrupting the flow. There was one shot, in particular, that comes to mind and it's when Lorre, who plays the killer, is being chased by emissaries of the underworld, through darkened streets. There's a high angled long shot, featuring an expansive view of a wide street, and we can see Lorre's character down below looking like a cornered animal, his escape routes cut off as various individuals appear, blocking off the exits. There are also many scenes featuring dialog being spoken by a character not on the screen, describing to another in detail what we're seeing as an example on the screen. One example of this was after the police raids on the criminal districts, we hear voice of one of the authorities speaking to another about the raids, while seeing a slow pan across a long table featuring all the contraband confiscated, including guns, knifes, brass knuckles, burglary tools, stolen booty, etc. Lorre's performance was amazing, even more so considering he wasn't even really featured in the first half of the film. The scenes were he's leading a potential victim around, buying candy and such, were particularly creepy, whistling that tune, but his real talent comes through near the end, as he tries to explain his despicable actions to an audience bent on seeing him destroyed. Despite the ugly nature of the character, Lorre almost makes you feel sympathetic towards his monstrous character...almost. One element that surprised me was the very subtle comedic touches included in the film dealing with such serious material. An example of this can be seen during the meeting of the criminals to discuss the effect the investigation of the killer is having on their business ventures. One individual asks another for the time, to which the one calls and asks the operator, and then proceeds to remove watch after watch from his garments to set the time...obviously he's a pickpocket by trade, and there was something comical about him taking out all these stolen watches to set the time. I've read that, with regards to some elements of the film, Lang intended to surreptitiously comment on his distaste for the prevalent Fascist regime within Germany at the time, and I can see collaborative material within the film to justify such a claim, specifically in terms of the public's reactions (accusations, finger pointing, apathy), and the authorities general sense of contempt for those it is trying to protect...whether this is true or not, I do not know, as I'm not one of historical knowledge, especially of a political sense...regardless, this is an excellent film, with a definite contemporary relevancy even after nearly 70 some odd years, and worth watching, if, for nothing else, to gain an appreciation for its influence on films that followed. The film on this Criterion Collection DVD release runs 110 minutes, and looks beautiful in its original aspect ratio of 1.19:1. The picture is very clear and clean, as is the Dolby Digital monaural audio. This release also features a `new and improved' English subtitle translation. This is a two disc set, the first featuring a new, restored in high definition digital print, along with an audio commentary by German film scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler. The second disc contains a conversation with Fritz Lang (50 minutes), a short film titled "M le Maudet", by Claude Chabrol, classroom tapes of M editor Paul Falkenberg discussing the film and its history, an interview with Harold Nebenzal, son of the producer, a physical history of M, and a still gallery with behind the scenes photos and production sketches. Also included is a 32-page booklet with essays, interviews, and a script for a missing scene. Cookieman108 By the way, as far as the meaning of the one letter title, it's pretty simple, one that's made perfectly clear within the film, so there's no sense in my spoiling it here...