M (1951)

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Movie
German title M.
Original title M.
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1951
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Joseph Losey
script Norman Reilly Raine
Leo Katcher
Waldo Salt (dialogues)
production Seymour
Nebenzal (as Seymour Nebenzal)
Harold Nebenzal
(Associate Producer)
music Michel Michelet
camera Ernest Laszlo
cut Edward Mann
occupation

M is in black and white twisted American film noir of Joseph Losey from the year 1951. It is a remake of the German crime film M - A city looks for a murderer (1931) by Fritz Lang . As in Lang's original, the film portrays the hunt organized underworld on a wanted child murderer, but moves the action from Berlin of the Great Depression in the Los Angeles after the war. Both versions were produced by Seymour Nebenzahl .

action

A child killer terrifies Los Angeles . All victims were killed without being sexually abused. A police awareness campaign broadcast on television leads to repeated attacks against innocent people, but not to the apprehension of the perpetrator. The mayor, worried about his popularity, is putting pressure on Police Commissioner Regan and Inspector Carney to present the guilty party as soon as possible. In a large-scale operation, the police summons relevant previous convictions and conducts raids on locations frequented by the half- and underworld.

Gang boss Marshall sees his business endangered by the police activities and orders the wanted child murderer to be found in an action carried out jointly by organized criminals, youth gangs and informants. The project succeeds; When trying to kidnap a young girl, the serial perpetrator Martin Harrow is recognized and marked by a young person with an “M” (for “murderer”) on the clothing. Harrow and the child take refuge in the Bradbury Building . In a ruthless maneuver - for example, the persecutors mistreat a security guard in the building, among other things - the gangsters can track down Harrow and bring him before a vocal court . Marshall invites a high-ranking press representative because he wants to present himself to the public as a loyal citizen. He forces alcoholic attorney Langley to take over Harrow's "defense" in the "trial". When Langley instead accuses Marshall and his cronies during his plea, Marshall shoots him. Shortly before Harrow, who tries to explain his crimes with the violence of the world around him, falls victim to the lynch-mad mob , he is rescued by the arriving police to be brought to a proper court.

background

Original and remake

The producer Seymour Nebenzahl had the idea of ​​a remake of M - A city seeks a murderer brought up to Fritz Lang. Lang, who last appeared in 1933 with a minor number in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse had worked hard to refuse remake. Thereupon Nebenzahl entrusted Joseph Losey with the remake, a circumstance that led to the permanent break between Nebenzahl and Lang. According to Lang, Nebenzahl had acquired the rights shortly after the Second World War from Lang's ex-wife Thea von Harbou . Lang also insisted never having seen the remake. The public feud between the two men prompted Nebenzahl to explain his reasons for a remake in a newspaper article. He stated that the psychological approach of the original was “antiquated” and that the problem of the sex offender and his “threat to society” was more topical than ever. The version from 1951 emphasizes, however, that the perpetrator does not sexually abuse his victims ; only the erotically charged fixation of the perpetrator on the children's shoes and laces is indicated.

Nebenzahl produced M with his specially founded film production company Superior Films. Losey later confessed in an interview that he had been reluctant to accept the directorship due to Lang's film being a classic. Ultimately, the decisive factor for him was being able to film with leading actor David Wayne , and the need not to miss the opportunity to work in times of political reprisals in Hollywood (during which many left-wing filmmakers lost their jobs, see Hollywood Ten and McCarthy era ) allow.

The remake moves the events from Berlin to Los Angeles, but is largely based on the original, right down to individual scenes and motifs such as the mother, who is desperately waiting for her child, and the stray balloon that heralds its death. In the original, the murderer, whistling a song, plays a flute in the remake to lure his victims, like a “perverted Pied Piper from Hameln ” (Foster Hirsch). The additions include an army of taxi drivers who are also on the lookout for the killer on behalf of the underworld, and a psychologist whom the police consult to investigate convictions and obtain a perpetrator profile. There are also allusions to the current political climate in the USA: A witness who insists, despite a statement to the contrary, that a wanted child wore a red dress, is asked whether she is a communist , and about the final tribunal, which in one Parking garage is being held, there is a sign that says “Keep to Right”.

Production and film launch

The shooting took place in the spring and early summer of 1950. Losey shot parts of the film in the decaying and later completely modernized Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles and in the nearby Bradbury Building , in which scenes about Victims of the Underworld (1950), Chinatown (1974) and Blade Runner (1982) were recorded . Assistant director was Robert Aldrich , then a regular at Losey's.

M started in 1951 in the USA for distribution by Columbia Pictures and on April 25, 1952 in the Federal Republic of Germany . Despite positive echoes in the American press at the premiere, M suffered from repression that hindered the performance; for example, the Ohio State Censorship banned the film (a decision that was later overturned by the Supreme Court ); and in Los Angeles protest marches formed in front of the cinemas over the "Known Reds" involved in the production of the film . Losey and cast Howard Da Silva , Luther Adler and Karen Morley had been accused by colleagues and in the anti-communist publication Red Channels of being close to or belonging to the Communist Party . Da Silva, Morley and screenwriter Waldo Salt were summoned to appear before the committee for un-American activities , refused to testify and found no employment in Hollywood for many years. Losey evaded the summons by emigrating to Europe .

Columbia M soon withdrew from theaters because of the controversy surrounding the film . M was rarely seen in later years , usually at festivals such as the Melbourne International Film Festival 1981 or the Berlinale 2013. Nebenzahl only produced one other film, the one shot in West Germany Until the End of All Days (1961).

criticism

M received praise for the effective use of the original locations in Los Angeles, including from the Motion Picture Daily and the Hollywood Reporter , but also received criticism. Marked Variety the film as "cruel," the New York Times called it a "horrific" and "appropriate adult-only product." In France , Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton M honored M in their standard work Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 , published in 1955, as a “worthy Freudian remake”.

In retrospect, M received positive reviews, but not without reservations: For Tom Milne from the Time Out Film Guide, the film suffered from a poor ending despite its "excellent first half" and David Wayne's acting. Leonard Maltin spoke of an "interesting, intelligent reinterpretation". The lexicon of international film, on the other hand, rated the attempt to relocate the location from Berlin in the early 1930s to Los Angeles in 1950 as a failure: "The story of the pathological child murderer, whom the underworld calls to account in competition with the police, largely eludes transference to American conditions [...] and for that reason alone does not seem very convincing to German viewers. "

analysis

M and the film noir

James Naremore saw the film noir of the 1940s split into two camps, that of “ humanism and political commitment” on the one hand, and that of “cynicism and misanthropy ” (represented by Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder ) on the other. Left-wing directors such as Joseph Losey, Robert Rossen and Jules Dassin added a social component to the familiar film noir stories, including M or Loseys You don't sing songs to Satan , a “class-conscious version of woman without a conscience ” (Naremore). Thom Andersen created the term film gris for these films, which sought to achieve “greater psychological and social realism” . Andersen M was not one of these films, but accepted Naremore's suggestion to include it: “ [M] is a credible, underrated relocation of Lang's film from Berlin to Los Angeles, in which the connection between criminal underworld and monopoly capital is even more evident is than in the original. [...] it contains the most impressive, on-site recordings of all the noirs in front of the rat nest in Los Angeles . "

Visually, James Morrison already discovered contemporary noir conventions in the opening sequence , which emphasized the distance between Losey's remake and Lang's film. The quality of the images shares the "ash-colored, sharp-edged graininess of the pseudo-documentary thriller [...] of the Hollywood B-film of the late [19] 1940s, which was influenced by neorealism ". Against Lang's “stylized, abstract urban landscape”, Losey set the “inescapable realism” of shooting at the original location, and against Lang's “ late expressionism ” a “toned down neorealism”. However, Losey did without other noir elements such as the voice-over, which is mandatory in the semi-documentary film noirs (see, for example, Das Haus in der 92. Straße und Stadt ohne Mask ) or proven characters like the femme fatale .

Mass media

Edward Dimendberg saw in Losey's remake an increased role of the mass media compared to the original. Dimendberg interprets the newspaper editor inaugurated by gang boss Marshall, whose article is supposed to help Marshall to a better image, as the third power to rule the city alongside gangsters and the police. But regardless of the important role of the print media , the film conveyed an even more important innovation: the increasing influence of television and the way in which it shapes the shape and community of the city. “While the residents of Berlin learn about the child murders from daily newspapers and [...] wanted posters, the residents of Bunker Hill [...] get their information primarily from television broadcasts that they watch together in public. [...] M underscores the arrival of the new medium of television as a cultural power. ”Unlike in Lang's film, the murderer in Losey does not send a letter of confession to the newspaper in a world whose face has changed through live television reports. Dimendberg also emphasized the political dimension of the medium, as can be seen from the fact that the film was released in the same year that the interrogations before the Committee for Un-American Activities received extensive TV slots.

Criminals and law enforcement officers

For Foster Hirsch, Losey's early American films were attacks on the social status quo and allusions to the anti-communist “witch hunt”. "The protagonists [...] are social outsiders who are mercilessly hunted by a community of bigots who do not tolerate deviations from the norm." Brian Neve interpreted the society portrayed as "just as disturbed" as and discovered the criminal they are hunting Parallels between gangsters and law enforcement officers: "The police are like gangsters, even if they are less ruthless and effective."

Another point that made criminals and policemen appear more alike in Losey than in Lang's film, author Tony Williams mentions the lack of a character like Inspector Lohmann. Although Losey's inspector Carney expressed doubts that the violent death of the child murderer hoped for by a colleague would solve all problems, Carney was also a cog in a relentlessly working machine, and the police officers standing in the background of the last film frame looked like Gestapo agents. Only the rebellion of lawyer Langley briefly indicated the possibility that, despite the desolate and hopeless finale, things could change.

Individual and Society

Foster Hirsch interpreted Losey's protagonist M as a person who “needs help rather than persecution as a criminal” and, according to Andrew Spicer, as the product of an “alienating, materialistic society that produces its own outsiders”. In an interview, Losey went even further and called the picture that Lang's film drew of the criminal “unexplained and backward”: “The attitude of filmmakers and society at the time was that a sex offender [...] was a monster, that even should be hunted down by the criminal underworld ”(Losey). Film historians did not agree with Losey's view. In Spicer's eyes, Lang's original also appealed to the viewer to “show understanding for this person instead of dismissing them as a despicable pariah ”, suggesting that “we all have the potential for criminal and deviant behavior”. In both versions, Hirsch summed up on the problem of the individual and society, the actionism of groups is seen as "threatening, robotic and wiping out the individual".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Kalat: The Strange Case Of Dr. Mabuse: A Study Of The Twelve Films And Five Novels. McFarland & Co., Jefferson (North Carolina) 2001, p. 110.
  2. ↑ Lang in an interview with Gretchen Berg, in: Barry Keith Grant (Ed.): Fritz Lang. Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2003, p. 55.
  3. ↑ Article by Ezra Goodman, Los Angeles Daily News, June 28, 1950, quoted in Edward Dimendberg: Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) / London 2004, p. 226.
  4. ↑ Edward Dimendberg: Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) / London 2004, p. 218.
  5. ↑ According to Losey, the closeness to the original script was explained by the censorship of the Breen Office , which only allowed a film on the subject of child murder if it was closely based on the first film adaptation, which is recognized as a classic. Losey in conversation with John Cutts in: John Howard Reid: America's Best, Britain's Finest: A Survey of Mixed Movies. Lulu Press, 2010, p. 268. See also Jim Dawson: Los Angeles's Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero! History Press, Charleston (South Carolina) 2012, pp. 56-61.
  6. ↑ "[...] a perverted pied piper [...]" - Foster Hirsch: Joseph Losey. Twayne, Boston 1980, p. 44.
  7. ↑ a b c d Jim Dawson: Los Angeles's Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero! History Press, Charleston (South Carolina) 2012, pp. 56-61.
  8. ^ Foster Hirsch: The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. Da Capo Press, New York 2001, ISBN 0-306-81039-5 , pp. 128-129.
  9. ↑ In February according to Jim Dawson, on June 10 according to Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, cf. Jim Dawson: Los Angeles's Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero! History Press, Charleston (South Carolina) 2012, pp. 56-61; Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Eds.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , p. 178.
  10. ↑ a b M in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  11. ^ Laura Wittern-Keller: Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915–1981. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2008, pp. 160 ff.
  12. ^ Gregory D. Black: The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1998, p. 133.
  13. ^ Carlton Jackson: Picking Up the Tab: The Life and Movies of Martin Ritt. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1994, p. 28.
  14. ^ Obituary for Karen Morley in The Guardian, April 21, 2003, accessed January 12, 2013.
  15. ^ Paul Buhle, Dave Wagner: Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistes in Film and Television, 1950-2002. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2003, p. 108.
  16. ^ Brian Neve: Film and Politics in America. A social tradition. Routledge, Oxon 1992, pp. 125-126.
  17. ↑ M  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the Melbourne International Film Festival website, accessed March 11, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / miff.com.au  
  18. ^ M on the website of the Berlin International Film Festival, accessed on March 11, 2013.
  19. ↑ Quoted from: David Caute: Joseph Losey: A Revenge on Life. Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 94.
  20. ^ "Harrowing, it should be stressed, is the word for" M ". [...] "M" is strictly adult fare which may even terrorize impressionable parents. ”- Review in the New York Times of June 11, 1952, quoted from Cinegraph.de , accessed on March 15, 2013.
  21. ^ Raymond Borde , Etienne Chaumeton: A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941–1953). City Light Books, San Francisco 2002, p. 108; EA Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953. Les Éditions de Minuit, 1955.
  22. ↑ "The main problem [...] is the weak ending. […] This said, the first half of the film is excellent, with the Los Angeles locations wonderfully used as a strange and terrifying concrete jungle, and a remarkable performance from David Wayne that bears comparison with Lorre. "- Review in the Time Out film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999. Penguin, London 1998, p. 545, accessed online March 5, 2013.
  23. ^ "Interesting, intelligent re-thinking of Fritz Lang classic [...]" - Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide. Signet / New American Library, New York 2007, p. 842.
  24. ↑ James Naremore: More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts. University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1998, ISBN 0-520-21294-0 , pp. 124-125.
  25. ↑ Thom Andersen: “Red Hollywood”. In: Suzanne Ferguson, Barbara S. Groseclose (Ed.): Literature and the Visual Arts in Contemporary Society. Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1985, pp. 141-196.
  26. ^ "Joseph Losey's M (1951) is a creditable, underrated transposition of Lang's film from Berlin to Los Angeles, in which the association between the criminal underworld and monopoly capital is even more evident than in the original. […] It features the most striking location photography of any Los Angeles noir film before Kiss Me Deadly […] “- Afterword by Thom Andersen in: Frank Krutnik: “ Un-American ”Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era. Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 266.
  27. ↑ "[...] the opening shots of Losey's remake announce their literal distance from Lang's film. In its visual texture, the sequence shares the ashen, hard-edged graininess of the neorealist-influenced, pseudodocumentary crime-thriller that gained currency in the late-forties Hollywood B-movie. Against the stylized and abstract cityscape of Lang's film, Losey presents the inescapable realism of location-shooting – even if its stylization, too, is rendered systematic in the course of the film. Against the late-expressionism of Lang's film, Losey's yields a Hollywood-tempered neorealism. ”- James Morrison: Passport to Hollywood: Hollywood Films, European Directors. State University of New York Press, Albany (NY) 1998, p. 153.
  28. ↑ "whereas the citizens of Berlin learn about the child murders from the newspaper and the reward posters plastered througout the city, the residents of Bunker Hill in Los Angeles obtain information Their Primarily from television broadcasts They watch together in public. […] M confirms the arrival of television as a cultural force. ”- Edward Dimendberg: Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) / London 2004, pp. 218-219.
  29. ↑ As an example Dimendberg cites the efforts of a rescue team, broadcast live by the station KTLA, Los Angeles, in 1949 to rescue an injured girl. See Edward Dimendberg: Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) / London 2004, p. 219.
  30. ↑ Edward Dimendberg: Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) / London 2004, p. 225.
  31. ^ " The Boy with Green Hair, The Dividing Line, M and The Prowler are films noirs with a distinct social thrust; they are thrillers that assault the status quo and that, in the kinds of emblematic American communities they portray, contain references to the contemporary witchhunt for communists. The protagonists of The Boy with Green Hair, The Dividing Line and M are social outcasts tracked mercilessly by a community of bigots which cannot tolerate any departure from a bland norm. "- Foster Hirsch: The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. Da Capo Press, New York 2001, ISBN 0-306-81039-5 , pp. 128-129.
  32. ^ "Losey [...] emphasized the extent to which M was a victim, persecuted by an equally disturbed society. The police are like the gangsters, if less ruthless and efficient, while the script, primarily written by Waldo Salt according to Losey emphasizes the role of the murderer as a scapegoat. "- Brian Neve: Film and Politics in America. A social tradition. Routledge, Oxon 1992, pp. 125-126.
  33. ↑ Tony Williams: Body and Soul: The Cinematic Vision of Robert Aldrich. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Maryland) 2004, pp. 67-68.
  34. ^ "Losey regards M as needing help rather than criminal prosecution [...]" - Foster Hirsch: Joseph Losey. Twayne, Boston 1980, p. 40.
  35. ↑ Andrew Spicer: Historical Dictionary of Film Noir. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Maryland) 2010, pp. 187-188.
  36. ↑ "The attitude of the filmmakers and of society then was that a sex maniac or anyone guilty of sexual acts towards children was a monster to be hounded down even by the criminal underworld - who were in fact his peers - because he was worse than they were. This is obviously a pretty unenlightened and even old-fashioned view, and very few people would subscribe to it now. Most people realize that this sort of thing is a terrifying illness. "- David Thomson:" Have You Seen ...? ": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Alfred A. Knopf / Random House, New York 2010, p. 503.
  37. ↑ "[...] the audience is invited to understand this figure rather than dismiss him as a loathsome pariah, suggesting that criminality and deviance are a potential within us all." - Andrew Spicer: Historical Dictionary of Film Noir. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Maryland) 2010, pp. 187-188.
  38. ^ "[...] in both versions group action is seen as ominous, robotical, annihilating to the individual." - Foster Hirsch: Joseph Losey. Twayne, Boston 1980, p. 40.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 28, 2013 .