Fritz Lang's M: Fritz Lang's First Film with Dialogue

The first "talky", or movie with dialogue, done by Fritz Lang was a huge success not just for him, but also for the advancement of film in general. M is the story of a serial child murderer who has the entire city in hysteria. The police respond by cracking down on all crime in the city and are completely overwhelmed. They arrest every lowly criminal. The petty crimes, which would usually be ignored, are now being treated as major felonies. The criminals find this move by the police as terrible for business. According to the mob, the only way they can stop this is to set up a sting and capture the murderer themselves. Most of the criminals of the city also absolutely hate the murderer and find him just as sick as everyone else does, which is another motivation for them to capture him. The criminals hire all the homeless people in the city and finally chase the murderer into an office building and trap him there. The mob searches the building, finds him and puts him on trial in a court set up entirely by the mob. They were even fair enough to give him defense counsel. At the end and climax of the film the murderer gives a speech in his defense claiming insanity. Just as the mob is about to put him to death for his crimes, the police come in and "save" him.

Fritz Lang explores the issues of insanity, mob rule, and what can happen when a whole city is in a state of fear. Is it wrong to put an insane man to death for crimes his disease caused him to commit? Fritz Lang appears to make the viewer begin to feel sorry for the murderer, despite him killing many children. He also explores the theme of mob rule. M illustrates how the police and the criminals are very similar. Finally, one of the biggest themes of the movie is about living in a state of fear. Some people speculated that this was Fritz Lang's attack against the Nazis, warning people of things to come, but that can not be proven.