Perhaps I saw Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M at a far too impressionable age, but was Peter Lorre ever better than in this role as a child murderer?
After he came to America, Hollywood never quite figured out what to do with himthey knew he was impossibly talented, but he was always cast as something too eccentric and foreign to take seriouslyand often as comic relief. Often as a homosexual, too, or am I misremembering the clues that old movies would give? Certainly he was openly intended as such in The Maltese Falcon .
Anyway, in a conversation today I mentioned M , and it made me remember Lorre’s extraordinary performance as he delivers his final monologue:
But II cant help myselfI have no control over this. This evil thing inside me, the fire, the voices, the torment! It’s there all the timedriving me to wander the streets, following me silently . . . . I cant escape, I have to obey it, I have to run endless streetsI want to escape, to get away and Im pursued by ghosts . . . . Who knows what its like to be me? How Im forced to acthow I mustmustdont want tobut mustand then a voice screamsI cant bear to hear itI cant go on, I cant go on . . . .
UPDATE : I found the YouTube video of the speech: