The best way to appreciate this film, in fact the only way, is to forget that it is a remake. Impossible, you say? Try. Try to accept it on its own, as its own work of art. Have a hypnotist come over, wave a shiny object: "Until I click my fingers you will forget you ever saw Peter Lorre, ever saw a movie of 1931." Open your eyes and regard a masterpiece. Appreciate the cinematography of Ernest Laszlo, the acting of a great ensemble cast. There's Norman Lloyd (the saboteur in "Saboteur"), Walter Burke (the bodyguard in "All the King's Men"), Glenn Anders (immortalized in "The Lady from Shanghai"), Raymond Burr (the sadistic mobster of "Raw Deal"), not to mention Luther Adler as an alcoholic legal mouthpiece (a touch of Van Heflin in "Johnny Eager"). David Wayne (remember, forget Peter Lorre) is brilliant as the killer.
It's no secret. Many of "M's" contributors soon disappeared into the blacklist: Luther Adler, Norman Lloyd, Howard da Silva, Joseph Losey himself. Usually, it is headscratchingly hard to find subversion in the acts of the hundreds of actors, writers and directors proscribed by the Red Scare. What, in heaven's name, did John Garfield do or say in any of his films that rated him an enemy of his country? Try to figure out what in "The Best Years of our Lives" sent Ayn Rand up the wall screaming un-Americanism. Sometimes, however, Ayn had a point - a nasty, vicious point, certainly, but a point, from her point of view. "M" is one case (though she neglected to point to it). It cannot be a coincidence that, of all the actresses available, they chose Karen Morley to play the mother of the killer's first victim. She was the most unapologetic "subversive" of the day. Once the blacklist got her, she waved goodbye to Hollywood and ran for lieutenant-governor of New York as an avowed socialist. This "M" is a remake. So, it needs to follow the original. But its message doesn't follow the original. Sure, the story requires the criminals to act as cops. But it doesn't require that the cops be criminals. Violate every civil right, the detective lieutenant repeatedly recommends. Let's harass the citizenry. Beat the suspects silly. Use a playbook the SS would have approved. If only we policemen could be a law unto ourselves, he laments, we'd soon sanitize society. I don't remember that in the original. They don't do it. But nobody shuts him up. The killer had been hospitalized. He was released because hospitals are underfunded. (I lived in California when Ronald Reagan made a goal of emptying the state's mental health facilities.) The killer is obviously insane. He'll be hospitalized again. No, the chief of police declares. He'll burn. At which Howard da Silva's weary detective captain sighs, ironically: "That's right. That's right. That'll fix everything." The film ends with anarchy. The criminals stand in judgment on the murderer. That's in the original. They become not the mob but a mob, Paris in 1793. Even their cool and efficient boss (Martin Gabel) becomes unhinged. That's not in the original. The police dream of indulging in unchained brutality. The people are rage-filled and conditioned to inhumanity. We are one step from dystopia. The ending, for me, is perfect. The original ends with a tag scene showing the killer's legal trial. It adds a warning: good mothers, guard your good little children. Here that advice comes much earlier in a police broadcast. The good mothers, clearly, ignore it. Here there's no moralizing tag scene. It ends abruptly, in sheer insanity. It's "King of Hearts." The lunatics have left the asylum. How much more subversive can a movie be? Quick! Get the blacklist.
It's no secret. Many of "M's" contributors soon disappeared into the blacklist: Luther Adler, Norman Lloyd, Howard da Silva, Joseph Losey himself. Usually, it is headscratchingly hard to find subversion in the acts of the hundreds of actors, writers and directors proscribed by the Red Scare. What, in heaven's name, did John Garfield do or say in any of his films that rated him an enemy of his country? Try to figure out what in "The Best Years of our Lives" sent Ayn Rand up the wall screaming un-Americanism. Sometimes, however, Ayn had a point - a nasty, vicious point, certainly, but a point, from her point of view. "M" is one case (though she neglected to point to it). It cannot be a coincidence that, of all the actresses available, they chose Karen Morley to play the mother of the killer's first victim. She was the most unapologetic "subversive" of the day. Once the blacklist got her, she waved goodbye to Hollywood and ran for lieutenant-governor of New York as an avowed socialist. This "M" is a remake. So, it needs to follow the original. But its message doesn't follow the original. Sure, the story requires the criminals to act as cops. But it doesn't require that the cops be criminals. Violate every civil right, the detective lieutenant repeatedly recommends. Let's harass the citizenry. Beat the suspects silly. Use a playbook the SS would have approved. If only we policemen could be a law unto ourselves, he laments, we'd soon sanitize society. I don't remember that in the original. They don't do it. But nobody shuts him up. The killer had been hospitalized. He was released because hospitals are underfunded. (I lived in California when Ronald Reagan made a goal of emptying the state's mental health facilities.) The killer is obviously insane. He'll be hospitalized again. No, the chief of police declares. He'll burn. At which Howard da Silva's weary detective captain sighs, ironically: "That's right. That's right. That'll fix everything." The film ends with anarchy. The criminals stand in judgment on the murderer. That's in the original. They become not the mob but a mob, Paris in 1793. Even their cool and efficient boss (Martin Gabel) becomes unhinged. That's not in the original. The police dream of indulging in unchained brutality. The people are rage-filled and conditioned to inhumanity. We are one step from dystopia. The ending, for me, is perfect. The original ends with a tag scene showing the killer's legal trial. It adds a warning: good mothers, guard your good little children. Here that advice comes much earlier in a police broadcast. The good mothers, clearly, ignore it. Here there's no moralizing tag scene. It ends abruptly, in sheer insanity. It's "King of Hearts." The lunatics have left the asylum. How much more subversive can a movie be? Quick! Get the blacklist.