M (1931 Film) - Plot

Plot

A group of children are playing an elimination game in the courtyard of an apartment building in Berlin using a chant about a child murderer. A woman (Ellen Widmann) sets the table for dinner, waiting for her daughter to come home from school. A wanted poster in the street describes a serial killer preying on children, as anxious parents wait outside a school. Little Elsie Beckmann (Inge Landgut) leaves school, bouncing a ball on her way home. She is approached by Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), who is whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. He offers to buy her a balloon from a blind man. He walks and talks with her. Elsie's place at the dinner table remains empty, her ball is shown rolling away across a patch of grass, and her balloon is lost in the telephone lines overhead.

In the wake of Elsie's death, Beckert sends an angry letter about his crimes to the newspapers, giving the police new clues using the new state of the art techniques of fingerprinting and handwriting analysis. Under increasing pressure from city leaders, the police work around the clock, harrying the criminal underworld without obtaining any solid leads. Inspector Karl Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), instructs his men to intensify their search and to check the records of recently released psychiatric patients to look for those with a history of violence against children. They stage frequent raids to question known criminals, affecting underworld business so badly that Der Schränker ("The Safecracker", played by Gustaf Gründgens) calls a meeting of the city's crime bosses. They decide to organize their own manhunt, using beggars to watch and guard the children.

The police discover two clues corresponding to the killer's letter in Beckert's rented rooms. They wait there to arrest him.

Beckert sees a young girl in the reflection of a shop window. Following her, he is thwarted when the girl meets her mother. When he encounters another young girl, he succeeds in befriending her, but his whistling is recognized by the blind balloon vendor. The blind man alerts one of his friends, who tails the killer with assistance from other beggars he alerts along the way. Afraid of losing him, one young man chalks a large M (for Mörder, meaning "murderer" in German) on his hand, pretends to trip and bumps into Beckert, marking his upper back with it.

The beggars close in. When Beckert finally realizes he is being followed, he hides inside a large office building just before the workers leave for the evening. The beggars call Der Schränker, and a team of criminals arrive. They tie up and torture a guard for information, capture the remaining watchmen, then systematically search the building from coal cellar to attic, finally capturing Beckert. When one of the watchmen trips the silent alarm, the crooks narrowly escape with their prisoner before the police arrive. One, however, is captured and eventually tricked into revealing the purpose of the break-in (nothing was taken) and where Beckert would be taken.

The criminals drag Beckert to an abandoned distillery to face a kangaroo court. He finds a large, silent crowd awaiting him. Beckert is given a "lawyer", who gamely argues in his defense but fails to win any sympathy from the "jury". Beckert delivers an impassioned monologue, saying that his urges compel him to commit the crimes which he later regrets, while other criminals present break the law by choice. His "lawyer" points out that the presiding "judge" is himself wanted on three counts of murder. Beckert pleads to be handed over to the police, asking, "Who knows what it's like to be me?" Just as the enraged mob are about to kill him, the police arrive.

Five judges prepare to pass judgment on Beckert. Before the sentence is announced, the shot cuts to three of the victims' mothers crying. Elsie's mother says that no sentence would bring back the dead children, and that "One has to keep closer watch over the children." The screen goes black as she adds, "All of you."