Fritz Lang’s first talkie helped forge the serial-killer genre, but M is so much more than a simple stalk’n’slash act. Cloaked in clouds of acrid cigarette smoke, the Metropolis director’s 1931 classic meticulously follows lawman and low-life alike as they struggle to catch a kiddie killer (a bug-eyed and baby-faced Peter Lorre) in Düsseldorf.
Lang not only registers subtle horror at the grisly murders; he also teases out unnervingly premonitory parallels between the mob that rises against the killer and the kind of socio-economic decline in which the Nazis festered a few years later. At once a thriller, a police-procedural movie, a state-of-the-nation address and a psychodrama, M is a dazzling film that, seven decades on, remains as innovative as it is unsettling.
DVD Extras:
Fulsome. Biogs, filmogs, three documentaries (on Lang, the film and its restoration), an audio interview with Lang by New Hollywood helmsman Peter Bogdanovich - hell, even the photo gallery looks stylish. Best of the batch, though, is the rich, detailed commentary, which features recordings from Lang, as well as Bogdanovich and the bods in charge of the excellent restoration. Superlative treatment for a superlative movie.
