M (1951)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Overrated

Highly Overrated But Still Good

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Oh my gosh, what a cheesy scene with the mock lawyer defending the accused against the mobsters and the angry parents. Nothing but shallow, trite, over-emotional, characterizations designed to alarm the audience. Subtly and sophistication ? Not at all. Why have meaningful ideas when the characters can just yell well-worn slogans. Do you like being provoked for the sake of being provoked? If yes then you will love this movie. Absolutely nothing is believable about this movie.

As an IMDb prolific reviewer I have no objection to the passion shown by other members in comparing this Americanization to the original. I get it.The problem is that, leaving the backstory of the production aside, this is a superb film from a decade not otherwise known for superb films.First I was lucky to catch a new cut of the film in top quality shown on HD TV in 2016. For those fans who complained about poor VHS copies, again, I feel your pain.Again, if you can stand to rate this film on its own, it is brilliant.The story. Some 15 years before the mob and the authorities would get together for real (JFK) here you have a story that captures your imagination. What if it was in the mob's interest to do a job that no one else wanted to do ... or could do? The acting is top notch, especially since there are few big names in the cast, even by 50s standards. Raymond Burr playing a thug is a treat.The script is hypnotizing. The writer just let the subject matter tell itself.However at the end of the day it is the direction and cinematography that capture the viewer. A few more films like this and you can almost make an argument for going back to B&W prints.The subtext is awesome. I found myself thinking of the original French version of Beauty and the Beast (LA BELLE ET LA BETE.) How many movies can give you in the very same film the best and the worst of our species? Amazing and recommended.

This 1951 remake of the Fritz Lang classic of 1931 is overlooked often just simply because of the original. It was banned by the Catholic Decency Board due to subject matter. It is a darned good remake when it is judged on it's own merits.The story setting is moved from Germany to Los Angeles. David Wayne plays the Peter Lorre role with amazing energy. It is a shame this one got so butchered by critics because of the original. It reminds me of Roger Maris getting poor ratings for breaking Babe Ruth's records. He deserves better than he got treated here.If you have never seen the original, you will find this stands on it's own merits. The cast is large and includes some names who would go on to other things after this one. On this first view on TCM I am quite impressed with the film noir quality of the recent restoration of this film. Raymond Burr and William Schalert are in the support for this redoing of the original. It really is so much more.

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.