YMMV / M

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Hans Beckert:
    • Is Hans really unable to control his impulses? How strong are they? Do they even exist or is the whole insanity thing a sympathy play to justify his crimes and keep the mob from lynching him?
    • It has been suggested that Hans simply is an evil person, and a total psychopath, not unlike most serial killers. At the beginning, he sends a letter to the press about his crimes. His Insanity Defense might at best be self-delusions he tells himself to avoid blame and responsibility for his actions. If he truly is incapable of controlling himself, then he should have turned himself over to avoid hurting anyone else (if he was a moral person, he would agree this to be the lesser worse even if his conditions are deplorable, because you know, he would be stopped from killing and raping little girls), but this is rendered sort of null by his letters, which gives credit to the idea that he's playing the victim card. He is also conscious of the fact his actions are wrong.
    • On the other hand, his psyche truly could be fragmented by mental illness, as he describes not remembering the act until given an indication that he was the one responsible, which suggests that he has blackouts with psychotic breaks. Between the murders, he simply tries to go forward with his life, otherwise unaware that the police and the mob would be searching for him. The posters could be the reason that he's able to remember his crimes and then reach out to the authorities to help catch him, as a way of begging to be stopped before he kills again.
  • The Mob:
    • Are they really solely concerned with their own well-being and not with justice? If so, why not just shoot Hans and be done with it? Why hold a trial where his evils are spelled out, and why provide a defense advocate to argue for him?
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Otto Wernicke's Kommissar Lohmann was so popular with viewers that Lang brought him back for The Testament of Dr. Mabuse one year later.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Very much like in Lang's other famous work, the Nazis were completely oblivious the blatant Take That! made against them in the film — or, for that matter, the film's intentionally Grey-and-Gray Morality. Joseph Goebbels, who was directly mocked in the movie as der Schränker, said that it was "fabulous! Against this 'humanitarianism' tripe. For the death sentence!" It took them the emigration of Lang to finally see the movie for what it was. May have been helped by the fact that, once again, Thea von Harbou co-wrote the script.
• Jerkass Woobie: Only Peter Lorre could make a child killer and rapist so tragic.
• Misaimed Fandom: Nazis, of all people. They even took Hans' speech at the end to "prove" that Jews were all evil (using it in the infamous antisemitic pseudo-documentary Der Ewige Jude - "The Eternal Jew"). Because Peter Lorre was Jewish, and he played a Serial Killer, that means that all Jews are serial killers, right? (Note that his character is never referred to or even implied to be Jewish, his ethnicity and/or religion is not once brought up.) It's doubly ironic from the lawyer's equally-impassioned speech in which he states, "No one has the right to kill a man who is incapable of responsibility for his actions! Not even the state!"
• Moral Event Horizon: You'd expect the act of murdering little girls to automatically lose the audience's sympathy, and yet many feel bad for Hans. It is arguably a great example of someone who does monstrous, unforgivable things and can still retain deep down some sympathy.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The way the killer approaches Elsie Beckmann in front of the wanted poster. His shadow enters the frame and looms over the little girl as she plays with her ball. The natural curiosity and trusting nature of children being put in the hands of someone in a position of authority is a precarious thing.
  • We don't get to see what happens to Elsie, just the aftermath of it. One can only imagine the brutality she suffered in the last moments of her tragically short life.
  • The killer's signature habit of whistling "Hall in the Mountain King". This is the only indication we get that he's about to strike.
  • Beckert often isn't so much as suspected for a large part of the movie. He's able to blend into the crowd frighteningly easily because he looks like just about anyone else.
• One-Scene Wonder: Leeser only appears in one scene, but it's a pretty memorable one, given how he follows the killer through the streets and marks his overcoat with chalk so that others will recognize him.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Elsie Beckmann's death. The last thing her mother knew about her whereabouts was that she was supposed to be coming home from school, and unbeknownst to her, her daughter is gone. The way the mother continues to call out Elsie's name to no avail is heartbreaking, especially for the parents in the audience.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Beckert does have a point that he can't help the way he is and the criminal mob lacks the moral authority to lynch him. That said, neither of those things mean he deserves to face no severe consequences for his hideous deeds, even if only in the interests of stopping him from doing it again.

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