This old movie is in German.\u00a0 Peter Lorre stars as M, a psychotic murderer of young girls in Berlin.\u00a0 The movie chronicles how the murderer\u2019s crimes terrorize the city and galvanize the police to roust the criminal element of the city in an effort to find the murderer.\u00a0 And this interference with their normal operations convinces the criminals to organize and find the murderer themselves.\u00a0 So, the movie is made up of the murderer\u2019s actions including his killings, the police investigation and the effort of the underworld to find the murderer themselves.<\/p>\n
Up front we have to address the foreign language aspect of the film.\u00a0 If you cannot tolerate a subtitled foreign film then let this one be.\u00a0 If you can, then follow my review and see if this sounds interesting.\u00a0 Peter Lorre\u2019s character is satisfactorily creepy and despicable.\u00a0 Luckily a movie from this era would not include any graphic violence against a small girl so all the murders occur off camera.\u00a0 The police procedural scenes and the investigator\u2019s analysis of the evidence and the psychological profiling of the killer are well done and satisfy that part of the movie\u2019s work.\u00a0 But it is the underworld\u2019s capture and subsequent treatment of M that are the centerpiece and most interesting aspect of the movie.\u00a0 Because after locating M.\u00a0 The underworld gang have to break into a bank building to extricate him from where he is hiding out.\u00a0 So, all of their criminal expertise is employed in an enterprise that is actually admirable.<\/p>\n
And finally, after capturing M they put him on trial for his life.\u00a0 They provide him with a defense attorney and have a prosecutor, judge and the membership of the underworld serve as the jury.\u00a0 The only effective defense that might sway the jury is M\u2019s own testimony that a terrible compulsion forced him to kill against his own will.\u00a0 But led by the women who formed part of the criminal jury the verdict comes in guilty and they are right at the point of carrying out the death penalty when the police break in and rescue M for his legal arrest and trial.\u00a0 The last scene is the judge giving a verdict which appears to be the death penalty and a sort of Greek Chorus of the mothers of the murdered children lamenting that M\u2019s death will not bring back their children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
I like this movie.\u00a0 Certainly, it is so far removed in time and culture from our present world that it makes it slightly difficult to become submerged in the cinematic experience but I don\u2019t find it too great a barrier to enjoying the story.\u00a0 And it is a very clever idea.\u00a0 Criminals policing their own and a parallel manhunt going on by the police and by their usual quarry.\u00a0 And a trial before the underworld is a wonderful invention.\u00a0 Finally, Peter Lorre is perfect for the part.\u00a0 Here he is a younger and surprisingly chubbier Lorre than we are used to seeing in such things as \u201cThe Man Who Knew Too Much\u201d and the \u201cMaltese Falcon.\u201d\u00a0 But his manner with the young girls makes your skin crawl.\u00a0 So, acknowledging the caveat about foreign language films I highly recommend this film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This old movie is in German.\u00a0 Peter Lorre stars as M, a psychotic murderer of young girls in Berlin.\u00a0 The movie chronicles how the murderer\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,237],"tags":[3342,43,191,1240,38,1355],"class_list":["post-16503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-m","tag-movie-review","tag-ocf-classic-movie-review","tag-peter-lorre","tag-review","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n