Based on news accounts of an actual murder case in Düsseldorf, Lang’s landmark early-sound-era film was produced almost entirely in the studio. Eschewing his earlier expressionistic techniques, the director created 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: both the chief of police and the equally efficient criminal underworld.