Lang was a tough director. He had everything planned out to precise detail. He drew lines in coloured chalk for the actors to walk along, exact marks where they stop. He controlled the actors and made them bend to his method. Some of his films do have a rigid form, not robotic, but hardly fluid either. Some later films are really B-movies. But when Lang got a strong story and a talented actor, his films were classics. Spencer Tracy starred in Fury in 1936, an innocent man getting revenge on a lynch mob. Woman In The Window has Edward G Robinson mixed up in murder in 1944. Lang is most famous for Metropolis, presented as an example of silent films, usually at the wrong speed. Metropolis has more to do with Expressionist art than cinema and has probably done more to turn people off silent films than anything else, bar Chaplin of course. The audience sees high melodrama, extreme effects writ large, and associate that style with all German silent films. Ok, there's Lang's Dr Mabuse and the 1919 wierd show The Cabinet Of Dr Caligali, but Metropolis is probably the most famous silent film.

Which is a shame, because it overshadows Lang's best film and possibly the best film ever made; M. M was his first picture with sound and covers dangerous ground even by today's standards. The story (based on real life) is of the hunt for a child murderer (played by the young unknown, Lorre) in Dusseldorf. The police hunt and the panicky response of the public to anything suspicious make ordinary criminal activity impossible. So the underworld call in their leader, a master criminal who organises the beggars & shysters to locate the real killer. When caught, they put him on trial and he tries to explain himself. The police burst in and rescue him to face the state's court.

The film contains excellent, dramatic scenes, disturbing ideas and challenging realities. The criminals' kangaroo court appoints a crooked lawyer to defend the killer, and he puts up a good argument, even mocking the court of murderers themselves. Lorre also speaks in his own defence, trying to explain what drives him to murder children. The very fact that the film attempts to understand this crime is astonishing. Any modern film would avoid the idea, or treat the killer as a charactature monster.

The method of the hunt is entertaining and sinister. The killer is chased into a modern office block, a new idea in the 30s, and at night, dozens of thieves, safecrackers & burglars swamp the building to find where he's hiding. The police arrive too late, and find the building rifled, but nothing stolen! This whole sequence actually provides some dark comedy.

Lang often returned to the ideas about the fine line between morality and crime, between justice and law. His later films like The Big Heat, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, and of course Fury all dealt with twisted justice, double standards and criminality just a step away. But his American films never captured the power or enthusiasm of his German films, especially M. Perhaps he only felt comfortable in his native language, perhaps the American studios didn't give him the opportunities or budget he wanted. I don't know.

What do you think of Lang and M?
Let me know your best film ever.

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