M (1951)

Why so much hype?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"M" is a remake of the Fritz Lang film shot twenty years earlier. In this version, the setting is Los Angeles, where the public is up at arms about a child killer on the loose.The first half of the film feels like a public service announcement for parents, warning them to protect their children from strangers. It's not a dramatic start, and the weaknesses easily shine through--the uneven acting, the contrived script, the repetitive exposition.Still, the film has interest as a document of its time--with its perhaps unintended swipes at the unprofessionalism of police, and the current views of crime and big city life. It also captures the nascent views of basic criminal psychology, much as some Hitchcock films do.The latter half of the film is about the actual apprehension of the murderer. There's a chase, which gives the film more interest, then a final denouement that examines common views of morality and opposing views of the nature/nurture dichotomy. If only the two halves were more cohesive.There is a lot going on in the film, and the cast offers many moments of surprising recognition. I recommend that viewers watch it, but I cannot assign a higher grade.

***SPOILERS*** Excellent English language re-make of the 1931 German Fritz Lang crime classic "M" about a child murderer who's caught and tried by his own kind-criminals-for crimes that even they find beyond the pale. Martin Harrow, David Wayne, has been suffering from mantel illness since he was a child and now fully grown up, at age 35, those horrors of his childhood have come to manifest themselves to him as an a adult. Picking up school girls and offering them candy and ice cream Harrow ends up murdering them and mysteriously keeping their shoes as trophies of his crimes. With an all out dragnet by the L.A police to catch the child murderer it's the mob headed by crime kingpin Charlie Marshall, Martin Gabel, who puts out a contract on him; Not to whack him or rub him out but capture him and put him on trail from the crimes that he committed.Marshall feels in him bringing the child killer to justice it will take the heat of him and his crime syndicate by the LAPD headed by Chief Carney, Howard De Silva, and his hot handed assistant Lt. Becker, Steve Brodie, who seem to be totally helpless in capturing him. With the mob mobilizing all its resources they finally track Harrow down with his latest but still live victim 10 year old girl Janine Perreau at the deserted Bradbury Building in downtown L.A. Caught and brought to this mob run taxi garage Harrow is to learn his fate as Marshall's mouthpiece or high priced, with bottles of gin & scotch, shyster Daniel Langley, Luther Adler, acting as his public or mob picked defender.****SPOILERS**** Langley despite his severe alcoholism makes a brilliant defense of the what looked like doomed to die Harrow about his mantel illness that has controlled his actions during his six month murder spree. This is not what Marshall wanted in being put, together with his goons, in the same boat as Harrow who he feels he's an upright and law abiding citizen in comparison. With the helpless, from being beaten up by the mob, Harrow looking on his trial turns out to be not just against him but the person who had him captured and put on trial for murder the mob boss Charlie Marshall! With the police suddenly showing up and about to arrest,from his mob captors, Harrow Marshall lose it and with Langley exposing him and his mob's actions blows him away with the startled police being eyewitness to the murder looking on! Check out Marshall's top enforcer who does all the dirty work and heavy lifting, like breaking heads arms & legs, for him Pottsy played by a gorilla like Raymond Burr before he shed over 100 pounds and played a slimmed down looking Perry Mason on TV.

Wow. This is a really under-sung, but still great remake of M. Like anyone else, I assumed this would be an inferior version of the Lang classic, but this movie stands alone and takes the already disturbing plot to a very '50's place.If you're interested in noir, and you're seen the original M, you definitely, so much, HAVE to see this. The performance from David Wayne rivals Peter Lorre's and if nothing else, for you Americans, he is surprisingly sympathetic and relate-able.The original M is one of the first great thrillers and bridges the gap between expressionism and what would become noir in film. This movie serves an exact opposite purpose - it takes the plot of "M" and does an amazing job of turning it in to a local film that both serves as a great thriller and a great commentary on our society.

This is a wrongly maligned film. Fritz Lang, director of the original version, famously hated Joseph Losey's remake, but that is no reason to brush if off. Even if the remake of "M" were poorly directed and acted, the film has so much value as an historic document of old Los Angeles, it is a crime it is unavailable for the general public on video in any format. Yet, the film has far more than its historic legacy. Losey's "M" is not the masterpiece that Lang's original is, but it's sure a darn great film, with fine performances by David Wayne as the killer, Howard De Silva as the head of the investigation, and Luther Adler as the drunken crime boss lawyer. I must also add that there are a number of changes to Lang's film. In one regard, the remake is simplified, with less delineated individual characters and an overall faster pace. This actually streamlines the action somewhat, while losing the strength of Lang's depth of minor characters. In other ways, the film expands on the original. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!) While it has shortchanged some of the minor characters, Losey's film has developed the crime boss beyond Lang's film, and is more explicit in revealing the man's violent nature, particularly in the closing moments when he he shoots his lawyer just as the police arrive. There's a fine irony as a result of at least one change. Another reviewer pointed out that the children in the film would hardly have gone off with the murderer as easily as they did, however, they do so in the original version as well. What is interesting in Losey's film is that both the murderer and a little girl (his intended victim) get trapped in the Bradbury building at the film's climax. It is the crime syndicate (not the police) that finally rescue her and as they carry her away (to take her back home) the girl finally asks, "Where are you taking me?" (something she never asked the murderer). The remake goes into more detail as to why the man commits his murders, and David Wayne's big confession scene in the garage (a perfect update of Lang's subterranean mock trial) is both compelling in terms of his gut wrenching performance as well as psychologically sound (or maybe I should say "PSYCHO-logically"). In this regard, I think the remake improves on the original. I am a big fan of Frtiz Lang. His "M" has long been one of my favorite films. I avoided seeing the remake for years because I thought it might taint or spoil my feelings for the original. This has not been the case. My appreciation of the original has only been amplified by seeing how Lang's film and screenwriter Thea Von Harbou's original script, so universal in its moral perceptions of human behavior, effectively translated to another time and place in such fine and expanded form. The remake was made only 30 years after the original, so it could be that in 1951 Lang's film was still too revered to allow for an upstart low budget Hollywood remake to take any credit for itself. However, I think it's not too far fetched to imagine someone having not seen the original, stumbling upon the remake and considering it an American classic. Now that the original "M" is 75 years old, we have nothing to fear by appreciating Losey's remake for the good film it is, classic or not.