'M'

A fantastic film. Gritty and dark (extremely dark). To the point that I'm a bit awed that this could've been made in 1931.

The general feeling about the bygone era is that you could walk the streets, let your kids wander about the highways and biways without worry. You could leave your door unlocked at night. Strangers weren't bad people; just people you hadn't gotten to know yet.

That clearly wasn't the case. This isn't some sick set of images from Fritz Lang. These dead little girls and this creepy psychopath are all part of some reality. Truth is, you couldn't just let your kid run around and not worry about nutcases taking advantage and harming them.

My favorite part of "M" is when Peter Lorre's character is standing in front of the "judges and jury" of his peers in the abandoned brewery basement. Lorre looks out at the sea of faces. They calmly sit on the edge of the seat waiting to stone the guy. But they are waiting. They look collected knowing that their enemy was at hand and they'd be able to dole out their lynch mob justice.

My other favorite part is just after when it looks like a handful of men are going to rush up to Lorre's character and smash his skull in. Then they stop and slowly put their hands up. As soon as they stopped, I didn't need to know the police has shown up. It was obvious and a great and humorous scene.