M (1951): The Remake

This 1951 version of M is a remake of the 1931 German film starring Peter Lorre, and David Wayne was brave to take on a role that made Lorre famous. But he does a good job of playing the lead, a child murderer named Martin Harrow. The male leads are not the only reasons to make comparisons.

The 1931 version very effectively portrayed a man tormented by his demons and who had been hospitalized before his killing spree. It also portrayed the arguments for and against capital punishment, which were debated in Germany at the time the film was produced, in much more detail compared to the remake. In contrast to the original film, which did not mention any police brutality, the 1951 remake depicts a Los Angeles police detective willing to use violence to get what he needs from suspects. The only check on this detective in the 1951 film is his superior, who has to keep reminding his subordinate not to go overboard.

The 1931 film was set in Berlin in the interwar period, between World Wars I and II. The 1951 remake is set in the now-demolished neighborhood of Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. Both films use their locations to orient the narratives in very specific ways. The 1931 film also relies on current events to fill out background information, which gives the film a lot more coherence, although this isn’t always obvious to U.S. audiences today. It’s hard to compete with a film that made Peter Lorre a star, and Lorre isn’t the only reason for that.

The 1951 remake of M is available free online. Click here to see it at the Internet Archive. Click here to see my article about the original 1931 film, and click here to read about Jim Dawson’s book about the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The 1951 film starts with two women approaching and then boarding the Angel’s Flight car in the neighborhood of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles. Bundles of newspapers are piled at the end of the small platform, all with the headline “Child Killer Sought.” Another man dressed in a suit and white fedora runs and jumps onto the car. As the car pulls away, the man in the suit leans forward into the opening of the car and looks out at the view of Los Angeles spread out below the hills.

The opening credits appear over various shots of young children who have been abducted and killed. (1) A young girl at a vending machine is approached by the man from the Angel’s Flight car, the one in the suit. (I noticed that the candy machine includes modern-day candy bars: Butterfinger, Hershey’s, and Baby Ruth! Me? A sweet tooth?) (2) The man then goes to an amusement park and helps a young girl at a water fountain. (3)  Then he watches a young girl drawing with chalk on a sidewalk. (4) Next, he stands on the boardwalk at a beach and watches a young girl there take off her shoes so she can play in the sand. After she runs onto the beach, he picks up her shoes.

The narrative starts after the credits with the man in the suit, Martin Harrow, getting his shoes shined and watching, from inside the shop window, two children cross the street toward the storefront. He gets up as they get closer. He spots Elsie Coster, his fifth murder victim, who crosses the street while bouncing a ball. The man goes outside and picks up the ball when it gets away from her, then takes her hand and offers to lead her home.

The girl’s mother, Mrs. Coster, sets a table for lunch in a small apartment. The film cuts abruptly to a screaming mannequin at an amusement park (it is the same mannequin from Woman on the Run), which is very jarring and very effective because viewers are expecting something bad to happen at any moment, but they are not expecting a screaming mannequin. Harrow and Elsie approach a blind balloon seller, and Harrow buys a ballon for the girl. Then he whistles and plays a pipe. The pipe seems to be a link to Harrow’s mood and inclination to kill, although the reasons for this are not entirely clear.

Mrs. Coster becomes frantic when Elsie doesn’t come home with her two neighbors, the first two children who crossed the street in front of the shoeshine shop. Viewers know that Elsie came to harm when her balloon floats into the sky over some tenements in Bunker Hill and when her ball rolls into a pile of trash.

This cutting back and forth between Mrs. Coster waiting for her daughter to come home for lunch and Martin Harrow selecting Elsie Coster as his next victim follows the 1931 original very closely. Most of the remake is remarkably similar in structure and narrative form, but there are some important differences. For instance, the abrupt cut to the screaming mannequin creates a sudden burst of tension, but the original 1931 film is more effective at building the tension of its story at a steady pace.

(This article about M, the 1951 remake, contains spoilers.)

I already mentioned that one of the Los Angeles detectives, Lieutenant Becker, favors violence to get what he wants from suspects. Police brutality is not a feature of the original German film, and viewers don’t see Lieutenant Becker put any of his ideas into action, but that’s because his superior, Inspector Carney, is always there to remind him of citizens’ rights. Becker mentions his proclivities so often that I wondered what he would do if Inspector Carney weren’t around to keep him in check. At one point during their investigation into the murders, Inspector Carney says to Becker that the killer could be a professor, a storekeeper, and with a pointed look at Becker, “maybe even a cop.”

When the police conduct one of their many raids on known sites of illegal activity in Bunker Hill, Lieutenant Becker says that he can shut everyone up so that they can conduct their interviews. Inspector Carney warns him to take it easy. Later, when the police consult a psychologist about recent releases of psychiatric patients who could be potential murder suspects, Becker is not happy with the interviewing methods and testing used by the psychologist:

• Inspector Carney: “You got a better way?”

• Lieutenant Becker: “Yeah. A dark room and a rubber hose and about a half dozen cops.”

• Inspector Carney: “The courts don’t like it that way.”

• Lieutenant Becker: “Yeah, that’s just the trouble. We need less courts and more cops. . . .”

This is one feature of the remake that resonates today, but for different reasons.

Inspector Carney is definitely the more philosophical of the two. When he finds Police Chief Regan being pressured by the mayor to find a suspect and resolve the case, he says, “The ordinary murder, you look for a dame or a bank book. Got a victim with no enemies. . . . What are we looking for? A man with a twisted mind. Could be anybody.” This same dilemma came up in the original film, too: No one seemed to know what kind of criminal they were looking for.

Jim Backus plays the role of the mayor in the remake, and his performance made his one big scene seem like comic relief. I don’t think this can be blamed on modern viewers, myself included, who know Backus’s starring role in the 1960s sitcom Gilligan’s Island. I don’t know if it was the filmmakers’ intentions, but the shift in tone was jarring in a film about the police pursuit of a child murderer. In the original, there never was such a break in the seriousness of the subject matter, and the consistency in tone worked much better.

The original 1931 film also spent more time than the 1951 remake on the pros and cons of capital punishment. Both Hans Beckert, Peter Lorre’s character, and his mock defense counsel at the trial staged by the criminal elements of Berlin near the end of the film discuss why Beckert should not have to face the death penalty. Beckert cannot be held accountable for his actions if he is insane and therefore not criminally liable. But in the remake, Inspector Carney only alludes to this issue. When he reports what he and Lieutenant Becker found at Harrow’s apartment to Chief Regan, he says:

• Inspector Carney: “. . . We’ll pick him up, but then what? Back to the booby hatch? Man like Harrow should never have been released in the first place. Hospitals so understaffed, they free dangerous men.”

• Police Chief Regan: “Well, he won’t get out this time. He’ll burn.”

• Inspector Carney: “That’s right, [more loudly as Police Chief Regan leaves his office] That’s right. [to himself, with doubt in his voice] That’ll fix everything.”

Another issue I couldn’t help noticing in the remake was the lack of search warrants. Lieutenant Becker poses as a health department official to talk to Harrow at his boarding house. Harrow isn’t home, but the landlady allows Becker to wait in Harrow’s room, and Becker does a search of the room while he is waiting. Becker doesn’t produce a search warrant for the landlady, but even if he had one, he has already claimed to be a health department official, not a police officer. He doesn’t find anything related to the murder case in his initial search, but when he and Inspector Carney return to Harrow’s room later to conduct another search, they eventually find Harrow’s stash of children’s shoes hidden in his closet. This search yielded evidence, but would it have been admissible without a search warrant in 1950s Los Angeles?

I wish that I could have found this film on a DVD that came with audio commentary. I would have loved to hear some historical context in relation to both the Bunker Hill neighborhood and police practices. I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would, but it is no match for the 1931 original. Maybe that’s partly because I saw it first, but the original treated its subject matter with the right level of seriousness and kept this tone throughout. I bet the remake could have deleted the mayor’s character altogether!

March 1951 release date  •  Directed by Joseph Losey  •  Screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine, Leo Katcher, Waldo Salt  •  Remake of M (1931), starring Peter Lorre, directed by Fritz Lang  •  Music by Michel Michelet  •  Edited by Edward Mann  •  Cinematography by Ernest Laszlo

David Wayne as Martin W. Harrow  •  Howard Da Silva as Inspector Carney  •  Luther Adler as Dan Langley  •  Martin Gabel as Charlie Marshall  •  Steve Brodie as Police Lieutenant Becker  •  Raymond Burr as Pottsy  •  Glenn Anders as Riggert  •  Karen Morley as Mrs. Coster  •  Norman Lloyd as Sutro  •  John Miljan as the blind balloon vender  •  Walter Burke as MacMahan  •  Roy Engel as Police Chief Regan  •  Benny Burt as Jansen  •  Leonard Bremen as Lemke  •  Jim Backus as the mayor  •  Janine Perreau as the last little girl  •  Frances Karath as the little girl in the hallway  •  Robin Fletcher as Elsie Coster  •  Bernard Szold as the Bradbury Building security guard  •  Jorja Curtright as Mrs. Stewart  •  William Schallert as the last Rorschach test taker

Distributed by Columbia Pictures  •  Produced by Superior Pictures

I Love Trouble (1948)

And I just love the title of this film noir. I Love Trouble is one of those films noir with so many twists and turns that you have to follow the plot closely and, as is typical with so many films noir, it helps to see the film more than once. It also has plenty of snappy dialogue, which adds to the fun. And to make things even better, I Love Trouble has plenty of roles for female actors, with not one femme fatale among them.

Just writing that last sentence is something of a spoiler. And just so you know: This article has more spoilers ahead.

I Love Trouble is in the public domain. You can watch it for free at the Internet Archive by clicking here. There are a few versions of the film at the Internet Archive, but this one was the best print that I could find there.

Private investigator Stuart G. Bailey has been hired by Ralph Johnson to learn more about Johnson’s wife. Johnson is a prominent local citizen in Los Angeles (L.A.); he is the estate planning commissioner and chair of the civic council. He has been receiving notes hinting at his wife’s dark past and threatening blackmail. Bailey has gotten on his bad side from the start because he is following Mrs. Johnson (aka Jane Breeger) in L.A., not digging around in her past in Portland, Oregon, as he was instructed to do. Bailey’s work in L.A. has paid off, however. He asks Johnson if he knows about his wife’s account at a bank in Westwood. Johnson knows nothing about it. He decides to retain Bailey’s services after all, but he still wants him to investigate his wife’s past in Portland.

In Portland, Bailey discovers that Jane Breeger’s former home address is now a shipping yard. The address for her first job, at a club called Keller’s Carousel and owned by a man named Keller, was closed by the police years ago. Bailey keeps looking for Keller and finds an illegal club in what appears to be an abandoned building He meets someone there named Reno, who just so happens to be working for Keller. Keller tells Bailey that Jane Breeger left Portland in 1941 with a comic named Buster Buffin. When Bailey leaves Keller’s club and reaches the street outside, someone attempts to run him down—twice. When that doesn’t work, someone knocks him out. Bailey believes Reno is responsible so, before he leaves Portland, Bailey returns to Keller’s club, punches Reno twice, and knocks him out. This antagonism between the two men will flare up again during Bailey’s investigation back in L.A.

Bailey’s next stop is Buster Buffin’s Buffet in Venice, California. (The film is yet another one from the period that shows the beach studded with oil derricks, back when California was a major oil producer, back before the environmental movement took shape.) Buster Buffin now owns a café on the beach in Venice, and he tells Bailey that Jane Breeger once worked under the name of Janie Joy at Club Zorro in Long Beach.

Bailey was followed on his way to Buffin’s Buffet, and he stops his car to confront the person following him. The person just drives away, but Bailey is followed repeatedly throughout his investigation, and this particular person and his associates, including Reno, catch up with Bailey eventually.

Mrs. Ralph Johnson has a very complicated past that adds to the very complicated plot of I Love Trouble. She has changed her name, moved from Portland to L.A. (and from a past that seems to have been obliterated by new construction more than once), and lied to her husband about when exactly she left Portland. Why all the lies? And why are so many people so hesitant to talk about Janie Joy? Why does her sister, Gretchen Breeger, fail to recognize the one photo that Stuart Bailey has of Jane Breeger? Gretchen Breeger moved to L.A. to work as a model, and she has changed her name to Norma Shannon. But this naturally draws more suspicion, at least at first, on the part of Bailey. Stuart Bailey falls for Norma Shannon, but he confirms everything that she tells him before acting on his feelings.

Why is Keller, Jane Breeger’s former employer, so interested in finding her? He goes to great lengths to learn what Bailey knows, setting Reno and two men named Sharpy and Herb after Bailey. They kidnap him and try to beat information out of him. The police, Lieutenant Quint in particular, start to believe that Bailey isn’t very forthcoming with information about the murders, first Buster Buffin’s, then Mrs. Ralph Johnson’s, both of which occur only after he has started his investigation. Someone tries to frame Bailey for the murders, and Lieutenant Quint is happy to take Bailey into custody. Although viewers know that Bailey is innocent, police suspicion complicates his life and the plot even further.

Stuart G. Bailey is a competent private investigator. He solves the mystery and even gets the girl in the end. I enjoyed the fact that his secretary, Hazel Bixby (played by Glenda Farrell), is just as competent at coming to Bailey’s rescue on more than one occasion. Bixby keeps the office tidy and functioning smoothly, and she can trade wisecracks with Bailey, especially when clients get huffy. And she can handle a gun and herself out on the streets. Stuart Bailey owes some of his success to Bixby.

The character Stuart G. Bailey likes the ladies, and he meets many in this film. I hear that Franchot Tone, the actor who plays him in I Love Trouble, might have been similar. He was married four times to several actresses, including Joan Crawford, and his private life may have been more scandalous that Stuart Bailey’s. For more information about Tone and the film’s production, click on the following links:

◊ Wikipedia—Franchot Tone—Personal Life: The entire entry at Wikipedia gives a lot more information about the actor, but the focus on his personal life is fascinating. Many fans of film noir may already know about his troubles with the actor Tom Neal.

◊ Noir Alley—I Love Trouble (1948) Intro, September 25, 2022: As he always does, Eddie Muller gives lots of great information about the film’s production; the screenwriter, Roy Huggins; and Franchot Tone. But I do suspect that he overplays Franchot Tone’s relationships with women just a bit.

I Love Trouble is a lot of fun, and I cannot recommend it enough. Watching it more than once to make sure I followed the plot was a pleasure. So many film noir regulars have parts in this film that the fun also comes from watching the supporting cast. Glenda Farrell, Janet Blair, Janis Carter, Adele Jergens, John Ireland, Raymond Burr, Steven Geray, and Tom Powers all give wonderful performances. It really is too bad that Franchot Tone didn’t make more of this type of film.

January 15, 1948, release date  •  Directed by S. Sylvan Simon  •  Screenplay by Roy Huggins  •  Based on the novel The Double Take by Roy Huggins  •  Music by George Duning  •  Edited by Al Clark  •  Cinematography by Charles Lawton, Jr.

Franchot Tone as Stuart Bailey  •  Janet Blair as Norma Shannon  •  Janis Carter as Mrs. Alicia Caprillo  •  Adele Jergens as Irene (aka Boots) Nestor  •  Glenda Farrell as Hazel Bixby  •  Steven Geray as Keller  •  Tom Powers as Ralph Johnson  •  Lynn Merrick as Mrs. Johnson  •  John Ireland as Reno  •  Sid Tomack as Buster Buffin  •  Donald Curtis as Martin  •  Eduardo Ciannelli as John Vega Caprillo  •  Robert Barrat as Lieutenant Quint  •  Raymond Burr as Herb  •  Garry Owen as Gus  •  Eddy Marr as Sharpy

Distributed by Columbia Pictures  •  Produced by Cornell Pictures

Please Murder Me (1956)

Please Murder Me is surprisingly good, especially considering its very low production values. I wondered how noir it could be: such a polite request in its title, even if it does involve murder! The stars, Raymond Burr (as Craig Carlson) and Angela Lansbury (as Myra Leeds) give a couple of great performances. It’s worth it to see both of them. Lansbury is once again playing the femme fatale. She did the same in A Life at Stake, which is the last film that I wrote about and a noir Lansbury had starred in just the year prior, in 1955.

(This article about Please Murder Me contains spoilers.)

Burr usually plays the criminal in film noir, but not in Please Murder Me. This time, he is the defense lawyer, and his acting throughout—and especially in the bare-bones courtroom (which is probably closer to the reality of many cash-strapped judicial jurisdictions)—still reminded me of his future role in the long-running television series Perry Mason. His character Craig Carlson eventually turns the tables on Myra Leeds, the femme fatale who has been outwitting men for their money until Carlson learns of her schemes.

Please Murder Me is in the public domain. Click here to watch it at the Internet Archive.

The Internet Archive is up after it was taken down by hackers earlier this month. But not all its services are available yet, and films seem to be unavailable still. You can get updates at Internet Archive’s blog by clicking here.

The film starts with Craig Carlson walking at night through what seems to be a rather seedy part of town, with all-night bars, pawnshops, and strip clubs. He stops to buy a handgun, then gets into a cab. He loads the handgun in the cab while the opening credits roll. The cab drops Carlson outside his office building. He enters his office, sits behind his desk, and starts to record his story on a tape machine (Carlson and his office are the low-rent versions of Walter Neff and his insurance office in Double Indemnity). Carlson addresses his story to Ray Willis, district attorney, and he states that he will be dead, murdered, in fifty-five minutes.

Carlson’s story starts in World War II, during the Iwo Jima campaign. He was a captain in the Marine Corps, and his top sergeant was Joe Leeds. They became great friends after Leeds saved Carlson’s life in battle. This backstory helps to explain the close bond between Craig and Lou.

The film now introduces an extended flashback, which begins with Craig admitting to Joe Leeds that he is in love with his wife, Myra. The story switches to Joe Leeds’s point of view, which is a bit disorienting because Carlson is still telling his story into the tape machine. After Joe Leeds hears Craig Carlson’s news, he returns to his own office. His business manager and friend, Lou Kazarian, can see that something is wrong and asks Joe about it. Joe doesn’t want to talk much about it. He asks Lou to mail something for him, then calls Myra to say that he will be home early. When he does arrive home, he finds Myra in their bedroom. He closes the door on the camera, and viewers hear a gunshot.

When the police arrive on the scene, Craig Carlson is already there. Myra called him first, and he was the one to call the police. Myra claims she shot her husband in self-defense. Carlson believes her. One of the law officers on the investigation, Detective Lieutenant Bradley, doesn’t. It becomes clear, in fact, that both the police and the district attorney do not believe anything about Myra’s story and that she did murder her husband.

Myra Leeds goes on trial for murder in the first degree. These courtroom scenes are perhaps the weakest parts of the film. The details revealed are necessary to the story, but the pace is tedious, and there aren’t many dramatic moments, even though Carlson is good at making his points and introducing enough doubt about the evidence. He is eventually able to convince the jury that Myra didn’t kill her husband by revealing that she was in love with another man and that he is the man she loves.

This moment in the courtroom was supposed to be dramatic, I suppose. Viewers already know about the affair, but apparently no one in the courtroom did. How did the police and the district attorney investigate this crime and never learn about the affair between Craig and Myra? And wouldn’t a love affair provide the perfect motive for both Craig Carlson and Myra Leeds? I wondered about both these points, but apparently no one in the courtroom did. And the screenwriters never addressed them. Somehow, Myra Leeds is found not guilty of murder.

After the verdict, Lou Kazarian wants to talk privately with Craig Carlson about Joe Leeds. Viewers learn that Lou never mailed the letter that Joe had given him before he was killed. Lou had forgotten all about it and didn’t find it until after the murder trial was over. He never noticed before that the letter is addressed to Craig Carlson, and he is anxious to deliver it now in person.

This letter turns the story around. Joe acknowledges that his marriage was loveless. He describes Myra in one of my favorite quotes from the film: “She isn’t a woman. Myra’s a disease.” Craig Carlson now learns a lot about Myra, details that he should have learned during the murder trial if he, the police, and the district attorney had been more thorough. Myra Leeds was never in love with her husband Joe or with Craig Carlson. Her first and only love is Carl Holt, a starving artist who could never hope to give Myra the life that she has always wanted. She decided long ago that she was going to get it for both of them herself, in her own way.

Craig Carlson decides to beat Myra at her own game. But he doesn’t plan murder or fraud; he insinuates himself into her life and into Carl Holt’s. Before too long, Myra has to worry about Lou’s letter and whether Craig will hand it over to Carl. Then there is the case file that Craig has started on her while he is digging up more evidence. The plot turns into a cat-and-mouse game that is a lot of fun to watch. And the title, believe it or not, doesn’t give all that much away.

Please Murder Me may be a B movie with a low budget and minimalist sets, but it has a great plot that really picks up after the courtroom drama, especially with the arrival of Joe Leeds’s letter. Both Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury seem cast against type, Burr because he is a lawyer instead of a criminal, which was his usual role in film noir, and Lansbury because she is the femme fatale used to getting her way instead of the mystery writer from Murder She Wrote. The two of them make the film so much more enjoyable because they give so much to their roles. Another actor to watch for is Denver Pyle as Detective Lieutenant Bradley. If you are used to seeing him in supporting roles in 1960s sitcoms, his role here will come as a pleasant surprise.

And I could swear this film has a connection to The Dick Van Dyke Show. Carl Holt’s artist loft reminded me of similar artist lofts in a couple of episodes used in The Dick Van Dyke Show. I am thinking in particular of “October Eve” in season 3 and “Draw Me a Pear” in season 5. A little redecorating, new camera angles, more expensive film stock—and voilà! It may be my own simple nostalgia for The Dick Van Dyke Show that makes the connection, but it adds a little more fun to the viewing experience for me.

March 1956 release date  •  Directed by Peter Godfrey  •  Screenplay by Al C. Ward, Donald Hyde  •  Based on a story by Ewald André Dupont, David T. Chantler  •  Music by Albert Glasser  •  Edited by Kenneth G. Crane  •  Cinematography by Alan Stensvold

Angela Lansbury as Myra Leeds  •  Raymond Burr as Craig Carlson  •  Dick Foran as Joe Leeds  •  John Dehner as District Attorney Ray Willis  •  Lamont Johnson as Carl Holt  •  Robert Griffin as Lou Kazarian  •  Denver Pyle as Detective Lieutenant Bradley  •  Alex Sharp as the police sergeant  •  Lee Miller as the patrol officer  •  Russ Thorson as the judge

Distributed by Distributors Corporation of America  •  Produced by Gross-Krasne, Inc.