M

It takes audacity to remake a film widely considered a pioneering masterpiece. Joseph Losey’s redo of Fritz Lang’s 1931 M is not only a valiant effort but a respectful attempt in that, aside from its relocation from Berlin to Los Angeles, Lang’s story is kept faithfully intact. In the role that made Peter Lorre a star, David Wayne stars as serial child murderer Martin Harrow who eludes the police so successfully — with his latest little victim in tow — that criminals are recruited to assist in the hunt. Ultimately trapped in LA’s legendary nineteenth-century Bradbury building, Harrow and his captive hide in a storeroom of mannequins while police and gangsters descend on the building, famous for its dramatic sunlit atrium and open stairwells. Straightforward police procedural work, headed by Inspector Carney (Howard Da Silva), alternates with unnerving glimpses of Harrow in private, often crying or destroying objects, unable to contain his boiling rage and confusion. While Lang reportedly disliked the film, Losey’s version is generous to Lang: the police raid of a smoky nightclub is replicated, the blind man hears the same tune on the recorder, and Harrow’s hysterical monologue at the end brings us right back to 1931. Losey brings a modern noir aesthetic, however, most visible in a scene in which Harrow sits on his bed kneading the overhead lamp string in his hand, his face blackened in shadow, classical music blasting on the radio.