I watched the Criterion Collection commentary for this rewatch. Starts out as a newscast. Lang took time to make his first sound film and resisted for over a year and refused to add a Soundtrack to his previous film. Makes sound an equal partner in his arsenal after he had time to study it.
This movie feels to precede police procedural films and the film noir genre. Many uses of shadow to show people from Expressionism brought to film noir, Lang and this film are definitely an influence on that.
The plot is set during the Great Depression, it's very fairytale like, hard times. The people in the town are almost never shown as full families with mother, father, and kids. The antagonist, killer recalls Peter Kürten mass murder of children of recent history in Germany and Fritz Haarmann is another murderer who influenced Peter Lorre’s appearance.
It’s hard to keep your eyes off Lore. His small actions to start scenes, like rubbing his hands together and his darting eyes that always seem nervous, worried, yet very aware. Apparently Peter Lorre has a German Southern accent indicating he's from Austria. Peter Lorre is foreign from Hungary, but typecast as foreign murderer.
There are lots of cues of sound from clocks, indications of newsreels & non-diegetic sound. In the films' context, it's interesting that sound seems to connote danger.
Sound and no video to lead into a scene so early on in sound history. It's really something we sort of take for granted now, a way of prepping the viewer gradually into a changing scene. The film sees offscreen space to use voice to make it more mysterious. Silence feels eerie despite having all silent films for most of film history up to this time. But these techniques have been used in plays for a long time.
There many unique angles like the beautiful stair architectural shots. Make people look unique and yet in a group for example a group of grotesque men talking politics. Lots of shots from above indicating power struggles. The people/masses are shown out of power and feel out of control.