M

8/10

Germany 1930/1 : Fritz Lang : 118 mins

Seventy years on, Lang’s legendary thriller deserves its classic status – as does the performance by Peter Lorre as the psychopathic murderer around whom the story takes shape. But Lorre occupies much less screen time than you’d expect – even more surprising is the amount of humour in what should be very downbeat material. This is, after all, both the specific, straight-from-the-headlines story of the hunt for a child-killer (Fritz Haarman’s real-life exploits also inspired Ulli Lommel’s Fassbinderish In A Year With 13 Moons [1973]) and also more wide-ranging parable illustrating the fearful atmosphere which allowed the Nazis to seize power.

The Hitler figure is Schranker (Otto Wernicke), ranting leader of the criminal fraternity, never seen without his Gestapo-style leather trenchcoat. Alongside his calculating brutality, Lorre’s unnamed killer becomes an almost sympathetic figure, especially in the remarkable, climactic kangaroo-court sequence in which the killer, captive before a vast underworld ‘jury,’ desperately pleads for his life. This isn’t a restrained performance by any means, but it’s certainly effective – and the scene is all the more powerful for the occasionally plodding nature of what’s gone before.

Knowing the strength of his finale, Lang takes his time in the early stretches – we hardly see Lorre at all, instead switching (sometimes mid-sentence) between the police and the criminal fraternity as they plot the culprit’s capture. The crooks are outraged because Lorre’s antics mean an increase in police presence and activity: “A non-member is ruining our businesses!” they moan. After a lively, documentary-style opening that sets the scene (“8 victims, 4 million inhabitants, 1,500 leads…”) the pace slows as the simultaneous manhunts swing into action. You could drive a bus between some of the ponderous pauses as the cops and criminals debate their respective strategies, often in some of the smokiest smoke-filled rooms ever committed to celluloid. It doesn’t help that, in many surviving prints, the subtitles are often patchy and, occasionally, illegibly white-on-white.

But if the dialogue drags, Lang’s technical ingenuity is enough to keep us absorbed – he’ll train his camera on an empty area, which suddenly fills with a teeming throng of people, as in one startling shot of a vacant staircase that’s rapidly overrun with policemen. M repeatedly alternates between nervy silence and hysterical tumult, dramatising one of the key aspects of the encroaching totalitarian atmosphere: crowds and their power. There’s a remarkable special effect early on involving a map, and an even more jaw-dropping one-take tracking shot through a crowded bar that would be impressive today, never mind in 1930.