MovieChat Forums > M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931) Discussion > A gorgeous yet flawed film

A gorgeous yet flawed film

posted 9 years ago by targa9
2 replies | jump to latest

I loved watching the excellent cinematography and crisp 1931 print of this movie. The movie does not insult our intelligence, and I like a movie that does not feel the need for music. The premise is standard: a child-murderer on the loose, and society's reaction. Everyone involved in the acting, the direction (esp. the angles), the lighting, the movements--all very good and convincing.

However, there were some things that diminished the film. First,
the movie spent a bit too much time on the common hysteria, as well as all the police details and boring conversations on what exactly is happening to catch this guy. A lot of this could be cut without damaging the film in the slightest.

Secondly was the comically unlikely criminal gang, their incredible scope, and how their motivation to stop the killer played out. I bought their initial motivation to find the killer, because the cops kept busting up their operations in the effort to find him, so he was just "bad for business". But then, they somehow recruit a virtual army of homeless men to keep an eye out for any suspicious man with children. Successfully coordinating such a huge force of drunks and derelicts does not seem plausible. Besides, if a substantial reward was offered by police, then why work for the peanuts the crooks were giving them? Why not just tell the cops? Secondly, when they have the killer cornered in a building, instead of the head honcho crook tipping off the cops, the movie bizarrely decides to complicate things by making the crooks take matters into their own hands, which include punching and tying up a few building guards, donning guard uniforms and actually doing their rounds to not arouse suspicion with the alarms, and drilling holes and smashing locks, in order to flush out the killer and mete out their own brand of justice. The denouement is a sort of kangaroo-criminal court, with a cast of hundreds, surreally gathered together with religious care, silent and respectful to the nature of the case, and even listening to the killer instead of dispatching him right off. Why waste all that time, or have a trial court at all? This angle really hurt the film, and it wasted a lot of time as well, because we had to watch all the logistical details unfold, interspersed with boring, smoky interludes with what the inspectors were up to, and neither of these things seem central to the desperation of the moment, that of finally trapping the killer like a rat. It almost feels as if Lang was afraid that would be that, and so he decided to unnecessarily decided to add an extraneous layer of subplot, and then finish with a sort of ham-fisted social statement about capital punishment vs treatment of the mentally ill. It would have been better if the killer was killed, perhaps in a brutal way, and then have us think about the justice of that.

In all, a watchable, though flawed film which entertains enough, up until the third act, when the killer is trapped in the building. The only interesting parts after that, to me, seemed to be Lorre's logistical problems trying to pick locks and nails to get out.

[–] PopperTheKungFu-Dragon 9 years ago

I agree with a lot of the flaws you mention and I wondered the same things myself.

Still, Lorre's acting and the cinematography alone makes the film worth watching.

Very good. But brick not hit back!

[–] neverthereever 8 years ago

You are not thinking of the movie in the context of the time it was made.

You say the premise is standard. Not in 1931.This was a movie that established standards for other movie to build upon. The idea of a child murderer was sensationalist, so showing the panic and hysteria built on the fear that many of the audience may not have really considered before.

Talking pictures were still a novelty, especially in Europe. Sound equiptment was primitive, singing and screamng were the most effective sounds to be recorded. Two people talking slowly to each other was the best way to advence the narrative. "Boring conversation" was the cutting edge of motion picture art.

In all practicality, if I was a beggar and I was was offered a guarenteed small sum of money to sit and watch a street every day, I would be more willing to do that, than get nothing, in the hope that I discovered the killer that nobody could see and claim the reward before I starved to death.

The whole Criminals and Police working together wasn't just a simple plot device. When Chrales Lindbergh's son was kidnapped less a year after this movie was released, Al Capone declared that if he was let out of prison he would find the child for the authorities.

Organised crime was a big issue at the time but the image here is not of New York mob bosses sitting around a table mapping out their empires, but a more European social democratic vision of mob power.

The comparison between the police working on the case and what the criminals are doing is a very interesting part of the plot. It's like their roles are reversed. The criminals take their task of holding the killer to account very seriously and don't break from the boundaries of due process. Almost like it's a matter of honour to them not to be involved in the kind of miscarraige of justice many of them may have experienced. Having them consider a defence of criminal insanity (incorrectly applied, as the killer was aware that what he was doing was wrong), showed that the criminals were not just beastial cutthroats.

On the other hand the police are more than willing to act like thugs and beat the information they need out of the witness they have to hand.

It's interesting that the plot doesn't just focus on the criminals..... perhaps Lang thought that the censors woulld prefer to see the police making progress with their own investigation, instead of just being shown as inept. Yet then he shows them in a bad light when they want to find the killer at the end.

For the time it was made, it was a very deep plot. If you found it "boring" and full of "extraneous sub plots", perhaps are should stick to action moviies instead,