M (1931 film)

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M poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Fritz Lang
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal
Written by Fritz Lang
Thea von Harbou
Paul Falkenberg
Adolf Jansen
Karl Vash
Based on A newspaper article by Egon Jacobson
Starring Peter Lorre
Otto Wernicke
Gustaf Gründgens
Music by Edvard Grieg
Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner
Edited by Paul Falkenberg
Distributed by Vereinigte Star-Film GmbH (Germany)
Paramount Pictures (US)
20th Century Fox (UK)
Release dates
  • 11 May 1931 (1931-05-11) (Germany)
  • 3 May 1933 (1933-05-03) (United States)
Running time 111 minutes[1]
Country Weimar Republic
Language German

M is a 1931 German drama-thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. It was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou and the director's first sound film.[2]

Now considered a classic, Lang himself believed it was his finest work.[3][4]


A group of children are playing an elimination game in the courtyard of an apartment building in Berlin[5] using a chant about a child murderer. A woman sets the table for dinner, waiting for her daughter to come home from school. A wanted poster warns of a serial killer preying on children, as anxious parents wait outside a school.

Little Elsie Beckmann leaves school, bouncing a ball on her way home. She is approached by Hans Beckert, who is whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. He offers to buy her a balloon from a blind street-vendor. He walks and talks with her. Elsie's place at the dinner table remains empty, her ball is shown rolling away across a patch of grass, and her balloon is lost in the telephone lines overhead.

In the wake of Elsie's death, Beckert sends an angry letter about his crimes to the newspapers, from which the police extract clues using the new techniques of fingerprinting and handwriting analysis. Under mounting pressure from city leaders, the police work around the clock. Inspector Karl Lohmann instructs his men to intensify their search and to check the records of recently released psychiatric patients to look for those with a history of violence against children. They stage frequent raids to question known criminals, disrupting underworld business so badly that Der Schränker ("The Safecracker") calls a meeting of the city's criminal bosses. They decide to organize their own manhunt, using beggars to watch and guard the children.

The police discover two clues corresponding to the killer's letter in Beckert's rented rooms. They wait there to arrest him.

Beckert sees a young girl in the reflection of a shop window. Following her, he is thwarted when the girl meets her mother. When he encounters another young girl, he succeeds in befriending her, but the blind beggar recognizes his whistling. The blind man tells one of his friends, who tails the killer with assistance from other beggars he alerts along the way. Afraid of losing him, one young man chalks a large M (for Mörder, meaning "murderer" in German) on his hand, pretends to trip and bumps into Beckert, marking the back of his clothing.

The beggars close in. When Beckert finally realizes he is being followed, he hides inside a large office building just before the workers leave for the evening. The beggars call Der Schränker, and a team of criminals arrives. They tie up and torture a guard for information. After capturing the remaining watchmen, they systematically search the building from coal cellar to attic, finally catching Beckert. When a watchman manages to trip the silent alarm, the crooks narrowly escape with their prisoner before the police arrive. One, however, is captured and eventually tricked into revealing the purpose of the break-in (nothing was stolen) and where Beckert would be taken.

The criminals drag Beckert to an abandoned distillery to face a kangaroo court. He finds a large, silent crowd awaiting him. Beckert is given a "lawyer", who gamely argues in his defense but fails to win any sympathy from the "jury". Beckert delivers an impassioned monologue, saying that his urges compel him to commit murders that he later regrets, while the other criminals present break the law by choice. His "lawyer" points out that the presiding "judge" is himself wanted on three counts of totschlag (a form of homicide under German law). Beckert pleads to be handed over to the police, asking, "Who knows what it's like to be me?" Just as the enraged mob is about to kill him, the police arrive to arrest both Beckert and the criminals.

As the real trial passes, five judges prepare to pass judgment on Beckert. Before the sentence is announced, the shot cuts to three of the victims' mothers crying. Elsie's mother says no sentence would bring back the dead children, and "One has to keep closer watch over the children." The screen goes black as she adds, "All of you."[6]


  • Gustaf Gründgens as Der Schränker ("The Safecracker"). Gründgens received acclaim for his role in the film and established a successful career for himself under Nazi rule, ultimately becoming director of the Staatliches Schauspielhaus (National Dramatic Theatre).[9]



M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s,[11] although Lang denied that he drew from this case.[12] "At the time I decided to use the subject matter of M there were many serial killers terrorizing Germany — Haarmann, Grossmann, Kürten, Denke," Lang told film historian Gero Gandert in a 1963 interview.[13]

In 1930, when Lang placed an ad in the newspaper stating that his next film would be Mörder unter uns (Murderer Among Us) and was about a child murderer, he immediately began receiving threatening letters in the mail. He was also denied a studio space to shoot the film at Staaken studio. When Lang confronted the head of Stakken studio to find out why he was being denied access to the studio, the studio head informed Lang that he was a member of the Nazi party and that the party suspected that the film was meant to depict the Nazis.[14] This assumption was based entirely on the film's original title and the Nazi party relented when informed of the film's plot.[15] M was eventually shot in six weeks at a Staaken Zeppelinhalle studio just outside of Berlin. Lang also made the film for Nero-Film instead of UFA or his own production company. It was produced by Nero studio head Seymour Nebenzal, who later produced Lang's The Testament of Doctor Mabuse. Other titles given to the film before "M" were Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (A City searches for a Murderer) and Dein Mörder sieht Dich an (Your Killer Looks At You).[16] While researching for the film Lang spent eight days inside a mental institution in Germany and met several real child murderers, including Peter Kürten. He later used several real criminals as extras in the film and eventually 25 cast members were arrested during the film's shooting.[17]

Peter Lorre was cast in the lead role of Hans Beckert, the mentally ill child murderer. During filming, Lorre acted in the film during the day while appearing onstage in Valentine Katayev's Squaring the Circle at night.[18] Lorre's character whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. However, Peter Lorre himself could not whistle – it is actually Lang's wife and co-writer Thea von Harbou who is heard.[19] The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, associating "In the Hall of the Mountain King" with the Lorre character. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from opera, is now a film staple.[20]

M was Lang's first sound film[21] and Lang experimented with the new technology. As opposed to the more theatrical "talkies" being released at the same time, M has a dense and complex soundtrack that includes a narrator, sounds occurring off camera and motivating action and suspenseful moments of silence before sudden noise. Lang was also able to make fewer cuts in the film's editing, since sound effects could now be used to inform the narrative.[22] Lang did not show any acts of violence or deaths of children on screen and later said by only suggesting violence he forced "each individual member of the audience to create the gruesome details of the murder according to his personal imagination."[23]

Release and reception[edit]

M premiered in Berlin on 11 May 1931 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo in a version lasting 117 minutes.[18] The original negative is preserved at the Federal Film Archive in a 96-minute version. In 1960, an edited 98-minute version was released. The film was restored in 2000 by the Netherlands Film Museum in collaboration with the Federal Film Archive, the Cinemateque Suisse, Kirsch Media and ZDF/ARTE., with Janus Films releasing the 109-minute version as part of its Criterion Collection using prints from the same period from the Cinemateque Suisse and the Netherlands Film Museum.[24] A complete print of the English version and selected scenes from the French version were included in the 2010 Criterion Collection releases of the film.[25]

M was later released in the U.S. in 1933 by Foremco Pictures. After playing in German with English subtitles for two weeks, it was pulled from theaters and replaced by an English version. The re-dubbing was directed by Eric Hakim and Lorre was one of the few cast members to reprise his role in the film.[18] As with many other early talkies from the years 1930–1931, M was partially reshot with actors (including Lorre) performing dialogue in other languages for foreign markets after the German original was completed, apparently without Lang's involvement. An English-language version was filmed and released in 1932 from an edited script with Lorre speaking his own words, his first English part. An edited French version was also released but despite the fact that Lorre spoke French his speaking parts were dubbed.

A Variety review said that the film was "a little too long. Without spoiling the effect - even bettering it - cutting could be done. There are a few repetitions and a few slow scenes."[18] Graham Greene compared the film to "looking through the eye-piece of a microscope, through which the tangled mind is exposed, laid flat on the slide: love and lust; nobility and perversity, hatred of itself and despair jumping at you from the jelly."[23]

In 2013 a DCP version was released by Kino Lorber and played theatrically in North America[26] in the original aspect ratio of 1.19:1.[27] Critic Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called this the "most-complete-ever version" at 111 minutes.[28] The film was restored by TLEFilms Film Restoration & Preservation Services (Berlin) in association with Archives françaises du film - CNC (Paris) and PostFactory GmbH (Berlin).[29]




The original 1931 M was ranked #33 in Empire magazines' "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[30]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "M (A)". British Board of Film Classification. 24 May 1932. Retrieved 30 July 2013. 
  2. ^ Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep: A Brief History of Child Murder in Cinema
  3. ^ Reader Archive-Extract: 1997/970808/M
  5. ^ While the location is never mentioned in the film, the dialect used by the characters is characteristic of Berliners, and a police inspector's map labeled "Berlin" and a policeman's order to take a suspect to the "Alex", Berlin's central police headquarters on the Alexanderplatz, make the venue clear.
  6. ^ Garnham, Nicholas (1968). M: a film by Fritz Lang. New York: Simon and Schulster. pp. 15–108. ISBN 9780900855184. 
  7. ^ Erickson, Hal. "Biography". Allmovie. Retrieved 2007-01-14. 
  8. ^ Staedeli, Thomas. "Otto Wernicke". Cyranos. Retrieved 2007-01-14. 
  10. ^ Garnham. pp. 13.
  11. ^ Morris, Gary. "A Textbook Classic Restored to Perfection". Bright Lights. Retrieved 2007-01-12. 
  12. ^ Ramsland, Katherine. "Court TV Crime Library Serial Killers Movies". Crime Library. Retrieved 28 October 2006. 
  13. ^ "Fritz Lang on M: An Interview," in Fritz Lang: M—Protokoll, Marion von Schröder Verlag, Hamburg 1963, reprinted in the Criterion Collection booklet
  14. ^ Jensen, Paul M.. The Cinema of Fritz Lang. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co.. 1969. SBN 498 07415 8. pp. 93
  15. ^ Wakeman, John. World Film Directors, Volume 1. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. 1987. ISBN 0-8242-0757-2. pp. 614.
  16. ^ Jensen. pp. 93
  17. ^ a b c Jensen. pp. 94.
  18. ^ a b c d Jensen. pp. 93.
  19. ^ Falkenberg, Paul (2004). "Classroom Tapes — M". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2007-08-08. 
  20. ^ Costantini, Gustavo. "Leitmotif revisited". Filmsound. Retrieved 10 May 2006. 
  21. ^ a b Jensen. pp. 95.
  22. ^ Jensen. pp. 103.
  23. ^ a b c Wakeman. pp. 615.
  24. ^ M, Janus Films, Criterion Collection, closing credits.
  25. ^ Review of 2010 M Blu-ray/DVD release (region 2), DVD Outsider.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
  26. ^ Erik McLanahan (2013-04-09). "Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ is a great entertainment, but it’s also a genre mashup". Oregon Artswatch. Retrieved 2014-05-20. 
  27. ^ "M (Thursday 9PM)". The Charles Theater [Baltimore, Maryland]. Retrieved 2014-05-20. 
  28. ^ Kenneth Turan (2013-04-09). "Critic's Choice: 'M' stands for masterpiece". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-05-20. 
  29. ^ "M". Kino Lorber. Retrieved 2014-05-20. 

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