Based on accounts of an actual murder case, Lang’s landmark early-sound-era film eschews his previous expressionistic techniques to depict the growing agitation of a town in which a child murderer is on the loose with stylized realism. M captures the prevailing sense of despair and corruption of Germany in the early thirties in its portrayal of a pathetic killer (Brecht-trained actor Lorre in his film debut) hounded by an odd alliance of pursuers: both the chief of police and the highly organized criminal underworld.