Smothered with suspicion, a shadowy Los Angeles becomes the id-like setting for Losey's remake of Fritz Lang's Weimar classic. Here stalks the monstrous M (David Wayne), whose warped logic has him murdering children to save them from an evil society. When the intense police pursuit, led by Inspector Carney (Howard da Silva), disrupts the criminal underworld, the local crime syndicate joins the hunt. Finally captured, M is taken to a subterranean garage and thrown before a kangaroo court where a soused ex-lawyer (Luther Adler) pleads his case. In this harrowing scenario, Losey presciently parallels what would soon be his own plight facing the scrutiny of HUAC. More poignant, though, is the way in which M uses the “baby killer” as a medium to unleash the pathology of the mob. The crescendos of vigilantism join all members of society, high and low, into one vengeful mass. Bleak black-and-white lensing by Ernest Lazlo (Kiss Me Deadly, D.O.A.) beckons a muted milieu where it's too dark to distinguish bad from good.