In Spies Agent no 326 is ordered to stop a spy-ring but he falls in love with one of the spies sonja. Studio: Kino International Release Date: 11/09/2004 Run time: 143 minutes Director: Fritz Lang


M is a 1931 German film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It was Lang's first sound film, although he had directed over a dozen films previously including Metropolis. Over the years the film has become a defining classic that rivals Lang's other works for the title of magnum opus. Lang himself maintained that this film was his finest work. The lead, Peter Lorre, was typecast for years after the film's release as a villain for his portrayal of a child murderer. M also pioneered the use of leitmotif to give the film score a more intense feel.

A psychotic child murderer stalks a city, and despite an exhaustive investigation fueled by public hysteria and outcry, the police have been unable to find him. But the police crackdown does have one side-affect, it makes it nearly impossible for the organized criminal underground to operate. So they decide that the only way to get the police off their backs is to catch the murderer themselves. Besides, he is giving them a bad name.

Now able to track the killer, the criminals pursue him and, after a lengthy search of an office building, finally catch him, bringing him before a kangaroo court. There, Beckert delivers an impassioned monologue, saying that he doesn't want to commit these crimes, and that he should not be punished for being insane. The monologue ends with the line (delivered by Lorre in a near scream) "Who knows what it's like to be me?"

As the criminals are on the point of killing Beckert, the police arrive, snatching him from their grip.

The final image of the film is that of five judges about to give Beckert his sentence. Before the sentence is announced, the shot cuts to three of the victim's mothers crying, with Elsie's mother delivering the moral of the film: that killing the murderer will do no good, and that parents must watch their children more closely.