Fritz Lang directs Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke and Gustaf Gründgens in this thriller where the criminals of Berlin hunt down a child killer when the police prove ineffective and obtrusive to their “business”. 

A movie that works best when it is a cold hard portrait of a city in terror; the endless sifting of evidence by the baffled detectives, montages of the worried citizens going about their business and Peter Lorre gliding through the populace on the hunt for young prey. When the “Court of Criminals” gets introduced, the plot kicks off but it all becomes a bit fantastical- John Wick: The Pre-War Years. Having said that their illicit dragnet provides some intense set-pieces, especially when they corner Lorre in a warehouse overnight and attempt to scour it for him before the alarm is raised. You just can’t help but think the unlikely shenanigans of the team of villains dilute Lorre’s fascinating central turn – pitiful yet merciless. Also, I cannot be the only viewer who notices more than a few shots that accidentally (?) echo the Nazi horrors on the horizon. People being herded into trucks, the mob mentality on the streets, the tables full of perfectly organised confiscated belongings. A haunting visual prediction which must merely be based on the infrastructure the authorities already had in place to suppress their undesirables. Fascinating.

8