Tag: Peter Lorre

The Man Who Knew Too Much: 1934 Original and 1956 Remake

People perhaps scoff at the idea of a remake today, even if it’s a director redoing his own film. But Alfred Hitchcock is not George Lucas, and when he chooses to remake “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and both versions are equally great, that’s the sign of a master director.

Hitchcock said in an interview with Francois Truffaut that the original 1934 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” was the work of an amateur whereas the 1956 remake was the work of a professional.

That seems believable, as there are only so many liberties Hitchcock takes in tweaking the story between versions. Each is about a family who has befriended a man who has just been killed. In his dying words, he reveals to them a need to deliver precious information regarding a diplomatic assassination attempt to the British consulate. But before they talk, each family is informed that if they say a word, they will never see their child again.

The newer, American version starring James Stewart and Doris Day is certainly a more polished film, making use of bold color cinematography and elaborate travelogue sets in Morocco and Britain. But Hitch was hardly an amateur when he made this in 1934. He was already building a reputation as a great auteur of the silent screen now breaking out into sound, and he would even make his first masterpiece, “The 39 Steps,” a year later. That said, the quality shows in the original as well, and Hitch actually preferred the original because of its rough edges. It’s an unpolished gem rather than a processed studio thriller.

And while both films are arguably equally good, the battle will rage on deciding which is best and which history will remember more.

Superficially, the original is 45 minutes shorter than the remake and is in so many ways a more immediate, instantly gratifying thriller. The remake on the other hand has star power on its side, a big budget and the inclusion of the Oscar winning song “Que Sera Sera.” Continue reading “The Man Who Knew Too Much: 1934 Original and 1956 Remake”

M (1931)

“M” gave the movies its first serial killer, but it would be horribly reductive to label it as just a crime procedural. Despite essentially being a “silent” foreign film on the cusp of a new era in storytelling, Fritz Lang’s “M” is so overwhelmingly acclaimed and popular (it currently sits at #53 on the IMDB Top 250 with over 46,000 user votes) because it is a brilliantly calculated, masterfully chilling and intensely suspenseful movie that seems to be timeless.

Someone has murdered a series of children in pre-war (obviously, since the movie was made in 1931) Germany, but the film is not about the man but about the city itself. With no leads, the townspeople turn on themselves. Everyone is a suspect, no one can be trusted, and the ones doing the most to end the killings are the least trustworthy of all: other criminals losing business.

“M” was later used as Nazi propaganda material, but the psychological turmoil Lang conveys through the police force’s painstakingly thorough and systematic investigation and how nothing can be done to make the unease vanish is Lang’s own critique political critique on the incumbent Nazi party.

Think of how significant of a historical relic this film is. Here we are captivated by a film without a central character, without ever actually witnessing a murder and that is not just wordless but has near inaction and silence. In everything that is done, nothing is accomplished, and somehow this generates a whirlwind of anxiety, futility and even sexual tension.

It’s important to understand when watching “M” that the movie was made when directors were reinventing the ways they told stories on film. The movie was released only four years after the first “talkie,” “The Jazz Singer,” was released in America, when the sound craze spread nationwide.

For Lang, he continued to follow the strictly economical editing and cinematography rules that governed his silent films like “Metropolis,” but everything that simply makes our skin crawl in “M” is based not just on what we hear but what we don’t hear. One of the film’s most effective suspense trick is the killer’s whistling. It’s a simple, obvious device that’s become common place, but Lang must have been a pioneer in imagining that as the whistling got louder or faster, we would be told all we needed to know about the victim’s imminent danger, and further, as it stops, what had been done.

There’s also the scene in which the murderer is hiding in an attic trying to break his way out of a locked door. His clanking on the lock followed by his clanking stopping is what gives him away, nothing visual. It flies in the face of silent film standards perfected over three decades.

And it has possibly the first great sound performance in the legendary Peter Lorre. Lang’s camera doesn’t have to do much to reveal Lorre’s insanity. His eyes seem to pop out of his skull as he agonizes over how he must kill, how he has as little control as the other criminals who view him as a monster. His terrified tone builds and builds until we almost feel sympathy for this man. Who is the real monster? The man or the system? The murder or the society incapable of fixing it?

Lorre was presented so vividly to the world when he uttered “M’s” last words. From “Casablanca” to “The Maltese Falcon,” his work would never be the same again, but he always maintained his mystique as one of the great character actors. And Lang too would have a similar fate in America. Shortly after “M,” he fled from the Nazis and became a great director of noir. Yet his reputation too would always be compared to his German films, movies so fantastical and chilling that to this day they remain some of the best films ever made.