DREAD-OPHELIA..........HUNTING DOWN THE 1951 "M"........

M (1951)     This strange item, a remake of Fritz Lang's classic  1931 thriller with Peter Lorre, never had a chance in hell........

                      Two strikes against it........#1 -  In no way would 1951 America flock to a film about a psychotic, fetishistic murderer of little girls.........no matter how skilled the filmmaking.

                       Mr. and Mrs. Moviegoer weren't havin' any of that, thank you.........though 5 years later they'd happily munch their popcorn watching "The Bad Seed".......about a little girl who's a murderer.....so you figure it out.....

                        Strike #2 - the director, Joseph Losey, was already well on his way to blacklisted exile from the USA........marked for career extinction by the hounds of HUAC, he was soon to take up residence in Europe where he reigned for decades as a premier expatriate high-art director ("The Servant", "Accident", "The Go-Between")

                       Left behind to languish in obscurity.......this little oddball item......a nasty, unpleasant piece of work from start to finish, but featuring a cream-of-the-crop cast..........

                        As opposed to the decidedly creepy Peter Lorre, Losey uses the gentle, unassuming, ordinary David Wayne as the film's killer. And it's brilliant casting.........Wayne, who spent a lifetime in thankless, best-friend supporting roles, really rises to the occasion here........delivering a brutal portrait of a tortured, tormented soul, living in his own hell while bringing death to his victims and untold grief to their families.   Sadly for cinema, he never got anywhere close to a role this juicy ever again......

                       But let's now move on to the other fascinating half of this movie..........the efforts of the big city's gangland population to hunt down Wayne and dole out their own swift,  lethal punishment.......so their ordinary, usual criminal lives can go back to ordinary.......

                       What a crew.........it's like 'Guys And Dolls', only without the laughs and songs.

                      Martin Gabel as the Kingpin, lording it over a prime collection of all your favorite movie thugs.......including plus-sized Raymond Burr affecting a raspy growl, Norman Lloyd, Walter Burke, Luther Adler.......and on the side of law and order, Howard DaSilva and Steve Brodie.

                       This mob of cops and crooks finally converge on the sniveling, pathetic pedophile in an almost operatic kangaroo court held in a parking garage  Overwritten, overheated and wildly overacted, it's one helluva piece of old-fashioned theatrical melodrama........

                       You can debate whether this movie holds together as a combo thriller-drama.........even if you don't think it does, it's damn watchable all the way through. So BQ says 3 stars (***)