DVD Tuesday: Peter Lorre as the Father of All Serial Killers
DVD Tuesday: M, Peter Lorre and Fritz Lang: The serial killer thriller is born!
I just received a copy of Jon J Muth's stunning four-part 1990 graphic-novel adaptation of the groundbreaking serial killer film,
M, newly reissued by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and it inspired me to recommend
Fritz Lang's 1931 original.
Inspired by the real-life crimes of Peter Kurten, the child-murderer dubbed "monster of Dusseldorf," is a first class thriller driven by the simultaneous pursuit of killer Hans Beckert (
Peter Lorre) by the police and the Berlin underworld: Normally bitter enemies, they're united in common revulsion for a murderous pedophile. The police have law and up-to-date technology on their side, but the criminals know the darkness.
Lang's brilliant visual touches are haunting: The slashing shadows, the high angle shots that suggest menacing angels hovering over Berlin, children's playthings a ball, a clown-shaped balloon --set forlornly free as their owners are whisked away, the "M" a blind street vendor chalks onto the coat of the man he recognizes by the whistled snatch of Edvard Grieg's
Peer Gynt, a tune he heard just before a little girl vanished.
But Peter Lorre's performance as Beckert is the film's dark heart. Pasty, bulging-eyed and pudgy (Hollywood studio executive put him on a crash diet that produced his slim silhouette in
The Maltese Falcon), Lorre looks like an oversized baby, and his anguished interior monologues have a child's selfish single-mindedness. It's not his fault, he can't help himself, no-one knows how awful it is to be him that's a far cry from the elegant intellectual posturings of Anthony Hopkis'
Hannibal Lecter and has the awful ring of truth.
The Criterion double-disc special edition of
M comes loaded with top-notch extras, but any version is fine you don't need a word of commentary or a historical featurette to be plunged into Lang and Lorre's world of madness, desperation, horror and despair.
Things to Consider:
What's the difference between empathy and sympathy?
Is it possible to empathize with someone who does hideous things say, a child murderer?
What do you think of Latin writer Terence's (190-160 B.C.) famous maxim, which addresses this question: "I am human; nothing human is alien to me" (
Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto).
Do you agree that
M is the template for subsequent films about serial killers? Why or why not?
Send your movie questions to
FlickChick.
Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast
TV Guide Talk.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the
Movie Talk
vodcast.
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
2008:
Touch of Evil
Bonnie and Clyde
Atonement
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Rififi
Michael Clayton
Network
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Shoot 'Em Up
Freeway
A Mighty Wind
2007:
It's a Wonderful Life
Waitress
Laura
Cop
All About Eve
Severance
Sweet Smell of Success
Daughters of Darkness
The Crazies
Blade Runner
Zodiac
Manhunter
A Simple Plan
Taxi Driver
Renaissance
Blowup
Hot Fuzz
300
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! - Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
