The criminals organize the "association of beggars,"
based on real "beggars organizations" that were in Germany at this
time to find the criminal. The prevalence of beggars that seem to be everywhere
is also a social critique of the economics of the time. They organize them into
a network of spies and informants. They eventually track him down and mark him
with an 'M' for murder to signal to the other criminals who he is. The idea of
marking "social undesirables" was another feature of the
Nazi regime, and so "foreshadowed" by this film.
M was portrayed as a German thriller drama picture which was
produced in 1931
and directed by Fritz Lang. Apparently the director
motives in making this film
was to “to
warn mothers about neglecting children.” Prior to the time of making
this film, In the era of the late 1920’s, there
were a few well known career serial
killers. This movie main character played as a
serial killer who bribed children by
offering candy and friendship. The one scene
that caught my interest is the scene
that is shown above. It’s amazing how this film
is decades old and we are able to
compare it to what is happening now in society.
In this film , it was said that
criminals in this time of era were marked with
the letter M if they were caught by
the association of beggars. The reason behind this was to alert
the public on who
was considered a threat to society and to also
notify the other “gangsters”. The
Nazis made it their business to intervene and
look for the killers simply because
they wanted to take some drastic measures that
the higher authority was not willing
to make. These people who were involved in this
association was known as the
“spies.” In comparison, As of today, Criminals
usually work against the law
enforcement and most likely “handle” the
situation themselves. It became a
unwritten general rule on the streets that working closely with the police was an
bad move to make. This “rule” is still in effect as of today.
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