Based on news accounts of an actual murder case in Düsseldorf, Fritz Lang’s landmark early-sound-era film was produced almost entirely in the studio. Eschewing the expressionist techniques of the period, Lang creates a stylized realism to depict the growing agitation of a town in which a child murderer is on the loose. M captures the prevailing sense of despair and corruption of Germany in the early thirties in its portrayal of the pathetic killer (Brecht-trained actor Lorre in his film debut), who is hounded by an odd alliance of pursuers: the chief of police and the highly organized criminal underworld.