“This will not bring our children back to life, people should take better care of their children.”
The final line of the film stands as an open question about what justice could possibly look like. After the hunt for the killer, we're not quite sure if whatever verdict a judge can deliver will truly solve any problem.
“People like you only have one right, to be killed. We want to neutralize you, that’s what we want. You will only be harmless if you are dead”
As Nazi politicians were gaining influence around the time of M, Lang used the character of Der Schränker to reflect the rhetoric and fascist ideals that were entering the German discourse at the time. Amongst the Weimar Republic's declining influence, a violent rhetoric was taking hold and retribution was becoming confused with justice. This quote, complete with dehumanizing rhetoric about "neutralizing" enemies, embodies that rhetoric.
“Every single square meter must be under constant vigilance.”
This is how Der Schräker lays out his plan to surveil the entirety of the city by way of a massive team of street people, and it sounds awfully authoritarian. Again, a fantastic example of Lang sensing the dangers of the coming Nazi regime.
“You better forget about the cooperation of the citizens, just thinking about it makes me want to throw up”
This quote reflects inspector Lohmann’s contempt for the public. Here, we see that the government has little faith in the people, mirroring the public's total lack of faith in the government. This is a reflection of the public's degrading trust in traditional institutions of power during the later part of the Weimar period.
“So you can appeal to paragraph 51, and be fed by the state your whole life, then you escape, or an amnesty is granted, and you can have fun, with a license to kill, as if nothing can happen to you, you’d come out for the children again."
Paragraph 51 refers to the clause in Weimar law in which a mentally unsound person can plead insanity and escape the death sentence. Letting the mentally insane avoid being tried as healthy people is a staple of fair justice systems, and the underworld's contempt for such a system elicits a negative reaction from the viewer. Here, Der Schränker complains about the clause and implies that it should be done away with. Lang is making the point that even though Beckert is a monster, he is a still a human being with basic rights.
"At least while we hear them sing, we know they're still there."
As spoken by an exhausted Mrs. Breckmann early in the film, this quote reveals her fatigue not just with the series of brutal, unsolved murders plaguing the city, but with life itself. Prior to her realizing that her daughter is running late, we watch Mrs. Breckmann slave over her domestic duties with little joy. There's something dehumanizing about this modern life, Lang shows us.
"I always feel it behind me. It's myself. And I follow me."
Beckert speaks precious little in this film, and when we are finally given access to his mind, we find out it's the mind of a madman. In this iconic monologue, Peter Lorre channels the depths of madness to give us an exquisite performance of a man split in two. Beckert's monologue about his split personalities drives a surprising kind of sympathy into the viewer.
"Heinrich! Can you hear that whistle there?"
One of the must acute ironies of the film is that Beckert is identified by a blind man. This quote comes when the blind vendor hails a fellow street person, enlisting him to follow the whistling man. At first, the one who is capable of seeing can't hear the whistling and doesn't quite know what the blind man is going on about. But ultimately, the blind man who trusts his senses becomes the ultimate resource in this investigation.
"Soon will come the man in black for you,
and with his little chopper,
he will turn you into ground beef."
The macabre song that opens this film is chanted by a little girl to a group of children with whom she is playing a game. It sets up tension between the innocence of the murderer's child victims and the way the whole city has been taken over by the morbid obsession with these crimes.
"Ariston, Aritson. Where did I hear that, Ariston?"
About halfway into the movie, the police finally generate a decent lead. This quote comes during Inspector Lohmann's eureka moment that will ultimately lead him to Hans Beckert's apartment. But Beckert will not be there, and Lohmann's wiles as an investigator have come a day late and a dollar short.
