"Twas Anti-German Feeling That Thwarted "M"

Plunkett vs. Paramount For M Marbles

Trade reviews knew a quality thing when they saw it, but expressed deep reservation about M. "A new high note in German production," said Motion Picture Herald, "but doubly unfortunate ... that there are several inherent factors which may be handicaps for the American exhibitor." The language barrier was overcome somewhat by "expertness of its dramatic action," but M needed "at least fifty percent ... more subtitles" to be fully understandable. Lack of humor or even "occasional lightness" to relieve "stark, tragic stuff" put further weight to the anchor. "More readily appreciated by the class, rather than the mass audience" was kiss of death in a trade where mass was essential to keep doors open, outside of art housing where empty chairs were a given. "By no means should this be shown to children" was salt to wound inflicted by MPH, their review adding that "women, especially mothers, are apt to be somewhat horrified by the subject." Again, and considering M's ongoing power, wouldn't that remain the case today?

Variety found M "morbid to an extreme" despite its being "compelling and at times almost thrilling." All this would "stand against it in its bid for popular appeal" (worth noting is fact that trade reviewers for M saw the original German-language version as opposed to the English alternative as substituted at the Mayfair by Joe Plunkett and Walter Reade). Motion Picture Herald, Variety and others had to address product from standpoint of commercial interest; theirs was not to celebrate aesthetics, however much they'd recognize a "thing simply yet beautifully done." Variety knew there was a classic in M, and even acknowledged its potential use in classrooms, a neat foretell considering the visual textbook Lang's film would become once schools took cinema seriously. All this is well and good to us looking back, but showmen tending turnstiles saw only risk of hosting morbid content from a nation seemingly gone mad and branded outlaw by the civilized world. What worse time for M to go into general US release than spring of 1933, that is, if Plunkett and Reade could interest any distributor in handling the feature nationwide?

Whatever the down side, M had been a hit for the Mayfair, and critics outside the trade were unqualified in their praise. Within a month of initial bow in America, Plunkett/Reade arranged with Paramount for wide circulation of M. By this time, Walter Reade had bought a 25% interest in the film, attorney L. Lawrence Green, who represented Joe Plunkett, kicking in for another 25%. Plunkett himself held the rest. Paramount would take 30% of the "gross rental return" in exchange for distributing M "throughout the country." Offered as a "sensational international film success," M was available in two versions, "Spoken English or German with English titles." A stark trade ad ran in Variety on 5/2/33, four days after Plunkett/Reade's deal with Paramount was announced. Given their enthusiasm for M and its wider prospects, the pair rather than Paramount may have picked up the tab for Variety's ad, owing to distinctly minor interest the major distributor would take in their foreign acquisition.

It didn't take long for fruit of the deal to sour. According to a $100,000 lawsuit filed by Plunkett's company, Foremco Pictures, Paramount had fumbled the ball re distribution of M and stolen story elements besides, their 8/33 release This Day and Age a plagiarized yarn directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Nonsense, countered Paramount, This Day and Age was "diametrically opposite" in theme, concerning itself with "depredations of schoolboy gangs," while M was about "a fiendish murderer of children." The stolen plot allegation may have been icing on cake of Foremco's real concern, which was Paramount's utter indifference to M once they took control of it, most of promised bookings never fulfilled. This, according to Foremco, was "conspiracy to suppress the feature, M, through failure to release it." Para's defense was spirited: M had "poor sales results" based on exhibitors' "natural antipathy to foreign pictures to begin with, and, secondly, that Nazi propaganda was partially responsible." This was a position that showmen, if not a sitting judge/jury, could certainly understand, Paramount making it known to a trade likely to sympathize with them. The lawsuit was settled, as most are, in 6/34 (there was a cash payment, and plaintiffs "get back the picture," said Film Daily) . By then, M was past possibility of mainstream acceptance and headed for exploitation oddity status.

Where you'd catch it at all was art houses, or down-dirty grinds where M played with horrors of more conventional stripe. Peter Lorre, by then a star in American movies, wanted to catch his old act and did so at L.A.'s Regina Theatre, legendary site of doubling for Dracula and Frankenstein in 1938. Lorre saw M on a triple with White Zombie and The Black Room, an observant trade columnist seeing the actor fall fast asleep over the very long haul. Here then, was M's for-most-part US fate, to play as sickie attraction like that other cast-off from polite houses, Freaks. It was inevitable, perhaps, that a refuse dealer like Sherman Krellberg would get hold of it. He was a long time associate of Joe Plunkett's. They had linked during the 30's to acquire a circuit of ten theatres in Gotham, and were further associated in takeover of the prestigious Astor on Broadway. Krellberg practiced law when he wasn't swapping screens or buying up features. He'd peddle M (as M --- The Kidnapper) in trashier-than-trash terms for a 1943 combo with his earlier The Lost City, re-edited yet again from 1935 serial format and re-titled City Of Lost Men. You could wonder from sleazy ads which was nastier. M was sold on basest terms and trimmed from Lang's original to 96 minutes, music/sound fx added to pep up pace. To watch something like this beside Criterion's Blu-Ray would be like experiencing two entirely different movies.