'M' [DVD]

Peter Lorre in his greatest role portrays a psychotic child molester - a pathetic vagabond figure who experiences a frenzy at the sight of tender young school girls, and try as he may, he is unable to control the fervour of his criminal inclinations. The police disregard his letters of confession to them as the work of a lunatic, leaving the underworld to take the law into their own hands. The stylised realism of the sets and the detachment with which the opposing forces of law and outlawry are portrayed place this now classic film within the ambit of the so-called ‘new objectivity’ which was a reaction in Germany to the expressionist movement. This version is the longest available.