M (1951)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

. . . unfolding in such an inferior fashion compared to Fritz Lang's original that poorly informed viewers will assume that it was fabricated by the potheads from BE KIND REWIND. As a low-budget "tribute" flick by a couple wannabes who were drunk as skunks the only time that they watched Lang's masterpiece, this 1951 alleged version of M might merit a grade of "D+" from soft-hearted evaluators. However, when we learn that Lang's original producer was behind this 1950s travesty, it's clear that this bozo set out to destroy both Mr. Lang and the original M's stellar reputations (not unlike Edgar Allan Poe's initial obituary writer, or Ty Cobb's first biographer). History has many examples of Sychophantic hangers-on (such as Mozart's jealous rival in the film AMADEUS) who cling to life hoping for an opportunity to soil the legacy of their betters. All the police reports in the so-called American version of M specify that the unknown child killer keeps ONE shoe as a souvenir from each victim, but when M's shoe stash is found, it clearly consists of PAIRS! From whistling the wrong "killing tune" to being given an "M" handprint bigger than Goliath could provide, from spouting pure psychobabble in his own "defense" (turning pathos into bathos) right through to the complete omission of Mr. Lang's cautionary ending, the hack producers behind this 1951 massacre of M MUST remain nameless, as the only way to deprive them of having "the last laugh" of name recognition (which would force poor Fritz to cartwheel in his grave).

***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.

I just saw it at the Film Forum in Manhattan, and the notion that your review of "abysmal" could be the topline comment for this movie is really a shame. Far from having a terrible reputation, this unknown classic is just now being rediscovered. And your description of the conflict between the cops and the mobsters as being like "Ed Wood" says more about you personally than it does about the movie. And to everyone else: this is a lost classic, unfairly dismissed in its day because it was a low-budget remake. The vintage L.A. locations alone make this movie well worth seeing, almost like a documentary of a past that is mostly gone.And Raegan, I love how you so consistently make statements and then retreat from them, claiming that it's interesting, yet a failure, dated, yet not without merit. Pick a side buddy. I also love how you say that the movie is set in San Francisco (you too, repticicus!). Uh, it's set in L.A., buddies. They're two different cities, and they're about 6 hours away from each other on the 5.

Seymour Nebenzal didn't have an especially illustrious career as a producer, either in Europe or the United States. Two of his American movies, in fact, SIREN OF ATLANTIS and this one, were remakes of movies he had produced in Europe. But in this case, he hired the right director. Was it the growing Blacklist that resulted in this movie having no writing credits on screen? Perhaps, but also perhaps not, as the soon-to-be-blacklisted Howard da Silva and Joseph Losey both use their own names. Losey and his team make excellent use of numerous Los Angeles locations, including Angel's Flight, Bunker Hill, the Bradbury Building (which is identified by name and location) and what seems to be that old amusement park in Long Beach, although what's seen here could be Venice. David Wayne is fine as the disturbed child killer, and delivers the required final act speech very well. But he doesn't have the power and poetry of Lorre's performance--but then who in Hollywood in 1951 would have? The movie still has some of the comedy of Lang's original, but it's not as dry and sardonic, and there isn't as much of it. The score isn't good, and shoves the movie even more firmly in the direction of the melodrama it keeps threatening to become. The very last shot is oddly theatrical in a literal sense: it looks like it is being performed on a stage. And I'm not sure what the point of the drunken lawyer trying to grasp a bit of his former glory really was. However, this element merely weakens the film, it doesn't destroy it. No, this isn't as good as Lang's original, but Lang's original is perhaps the best film of a great director. It's a classic in almost every regard. This version of "M" is an interesting and largely successful attempt at adapting the themes and ideas of the original to Los Angeles, and to 1950s Hollywood. Naturally there are some weaknesses, but the movie is brisk and engrossing, and certainly doesn't deserve the obscurity into which it has fallen. Some condemn the film merely for being a remake, but remakes have always been a large part of movie history. There's little reason to object to them, especially now that the original films tend to be available on video. (In the 1930s-50s, originals were generally withdrawn.) If the remake is good, then hooray, there are now two good movies on the subject. If it's bad, then the remake will soon be forgotten.