"M” was Lang's first sound picture, and he was wise to use dialogue so sparingly. Many early talkies felt they had to talk all the time, but Lang allows his camera to prowl through the streets and dives, providing a rat's-eye view. One of the film's most spectacular shots is utterly silent, as the captured killer is dragged into a basement to be confronted by the city's assembled criminals, and the camera shows their faces: hard, cold, closed, implacable.
It is at this inquisition that Lorre delivers his famous speech in defense, or explanation. Sweating with terror, his face a fright mask, he cries out: "I can't help myself! I haven't any control over this evil thing that's inside of me! The fire, the voices, the torment!” He tries to describe how the compulsion follows him through the streets, and ends: "Who knows what it's like to be me?”
This is always said to be Lorre's first screen performance, although McGilligan establishes that it was his third. It was certainly the performance that fixed his image forever, during a long Hollywood career in which he became one of Warner Bros.' most famous character actors ("Casablanca,” "The Maltese Falcon,” "The Mask of Dimitrios”). He was also a comedian and a song-and-dance man, and although you can see him opposite Fred Astaire in "Silk Stockings” (1957), it was as a psychopath that he supported himself. He died in 1964.
Fritz Lang (1890-1976) became, in America, a famous director of film noir. His credits include "You Only Live Once” (1937, based on the Bonnie and Clyde story), Graham Greene's "Ministry of Fear” (1944), "The Big Heat” (1953, with Lee Marvin hurling hot coffee in Gloria Grahame's face) and "While the City Sleeps” (1956, another story about a manhunt). He was often accused of sadism toward his actors; he had Lorre thrown down the stairs into the criminal lair a dozen times, and Peter Bogdanovich describes a scene in Lang's "Western Union” where Randolph Scott tries to burn the ropes off his bound wrists. John Ford, watching the movie, said, "Those are Randy's wrists, that is real rope, that is a real fire.”
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