M: experimentation with sound

A gong marks the transition from the title cards to black screen. . .. The screen remains black for 15 seconds, then the children's chant fades in. We hear the chant before we see the children.

After the murder of Elsie Beckmann, the screen goes black again, with the cries of newsboys spreading the news, heard before they are seen.

The handwriting analyst describes Beckert; on the word "acting," the film cuts to Beckert making faces in a mirror.

As the blind balloon seller covers his ears, the sound of the organ grinder disappears, then reappears when he removes his hands. Anton Kaes calls this "the auditory unconscious."

 Later, in the cafe scene, Beckert makes a similar hands-over-ears gesture when whistled sound of the Peer Gynt theme is heard.
Fritz Lang showing Peter Lorre how to make the gesture in the still above. The sound of whistling on the film soundtrack is actually Lang himself, since Peter Lorre could not whistle.

The blind balloon seller identifies Beckert as the murder through his whistled tune. (Note Beckert's shadow behind.)
Overlapping sound: we hear a voice reading the text, then cut to the tavern scene where one of the men is the voice we've been hearing.

Cutting on sound: in the examples above and below, the film is edited on specific words that connect separate images: 'slanderer,' "street," and 'murderer.'
An offscreen voice arrests Beckert.
The mother's statement overlaps a black screen. M ends as it began.

the opening sequence
point of view and identification
mirrors and shadows
the official world and the underworld
the surveillance society
street scenes
social issues