"Metropolis" 1927 Movie Page at Magic Lantern Video & Book Store

"There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator."
— character Maria, in "Metropolis" [1927]

           A work of genius, a wondrous & sensational experience, with special effects that still astound almost a century later. A hundred years in the future, the vast city-state of Metropolis is run by two distant groups: the managers, who live in luxury and have no idea how things work, and the workers, who live underground and have no vision or purpose. Beautiful Maria exhorts the workers not to revolt, but to hold off and wait for the 'Mediator' who will unite the two halves of society. Freder, son of the city's dictator, sees Maria and is infatuated; he follows her down into the underground and is astounded at what he discovers there; he joins her cause.
           The dictator conspires with an evil scientist to make their new robot look like Maria. They imprison the real Maria and send the robot out; the robot first excites the male gentry with an exotic dance at the Yoshiwara nightclub, then descends into the workers' realm and incites a full-scale rebellion. The workers destroy the city's main power generator, causing the city's reservoirs to overflow. The workers believe that all their children are drowned, not knowing that Freder and real Maria have saved them.
           In deep despair, the workers attack the upper city. They believe real Maria incited the rebellion, and chase her; she escapes and the mob captures robot Maria and burn her at the stake. Realizing that their victim is indeed a robot and not human, Freder locates real Maria on the rooftop of the cathedral and fights with the scientist to save her. The dictator is horrified to find his son in battle with the scientist, and when the scientist falls to his death, the dictator happily reunites with his son and welcomes Maria. Freder then unites the dictator and the leader of the workers, thus fulfilling his destiny as the prophesied Mediator.

History of The Film            Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou (who were married at the time) wrote the screenplay for "Metropolis" in 1924; von Harbou wrote a novelization that was published in 1926. "Metropolis" was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Germany by Universum Film A.G. (U.F.A., the national film studio of Weimar Germany); production took two years and was so costly that U.F.A. nearly went bankrupt (one estimate of the cost in today's dollars is $200 million). The Expressionist visuals are astounding even today, and actually influenced architectural styles thru the early XXth Century. The film premiered in Berlin on 10 January 1927 with a length of 210 minutes. The film was re-edited for wider distribution by Channing Pollock, who hated the film and tore out great chunks of the story; his version ran 159 minutes.
           Pathé released a much-shortened version on 9.5mm film {for home use?} in 1933. The U.S copyright lapsed in 1953, and many public domain versions were in circulation, on 16mm and later on VHS & DVD. But after the Golan v. Gonzales lawsuit was unsuccessful in blocking new copyrights for the restored versions, the U.S. copyright was restored in 1998. Music producer Giorgio Moroder made a restored version of the film in 1984; the modern musical track was not well-received; that version runs 87 minutes and is color-tinted (supposedly per Lang's original intention). After discovery of an original script and musical score, film historian Enno Patalas made a thorough attempt to restore the movie in 1986, using a print from the Museum of Modern Art's collection.
           The F.W. Murnau Foundation/Stiftung [est. 1966] now owns the film's worldwide copyright. In collaboration with Kino International, they released a digitally restored 123-minute version in 2002; it was undertaken by Martin Koerber, and includes a new recording of the original music score by Gottfried Huppertz. Other versions abound at various lengths and film speeds, but the Murnau-Kino release (or the Triad DVD of 2008) is the best then-available.
           A possible original copy of the movie was found in 2005 in the film archive of Universidad de Chile and sent to Germany. In June 2008, a 16mm print that runs 210 minutes was discovered in an archive in Buenos Aires, Argentina; it appears to contain twenty to twenty-five minutes of lost footage (badly in need of restoration); a new restoration print with these elements in place was released in 2009.
           Film composer Giorgio Moroder constructed a new rock music soundtrack for the extant "Metropolis" in 1984. After the 2010 restoration, the Murnau Foundation and Kino/Lorber combined the longer version with Moroder's score; that version is set for a 20-city theatrical release and then DVD & Blu-ray release in November 2011.

Co-written & directed by Fritz Lang; co-written by Thea Von Harbou; cinematography & special effects by Karl Freund,
Günther Rittau, Walter Ruttmann, Eugen Schüfftan, Ernst Kunstmann, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet & Erich Kettelhut;
starring Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Theodor Loos, Erwin Biswanger
& Heinrich George; listed on Time Magazine's All-TIME 100 Movies (5/2005)

Kino Intl. 148-minute version on Blu-ray [11/2010] for $29.49
Extras on Blu-ray disk include a new 50-minute documentary, an interview with Paula Felix-Didier
(curator at the Museo del Cine, in Buenos Aires), and official trailer for the 2010 restoration

	"Metropolis" musical stageplay [1989] Original music & lyrics by Joe Brooks & Dusty Hughes; performed in London, England in 1989 and in Cicero, Illinois in 1990; revised by Joe Brooks & Randy Bowser, and performed in Salem, Oregon in 2002 entry at Wikipedia • official play website
	"Superman's Metropolis" [1997] story by Randy Lofficier & Roy Thomas, illustrated by Ted McKeever Clearly based on Lang's silent film, with Superman in the Freder role, and Lex Luthor as the evil scientist; the retro illustrations are in full color. DC Comics/Elseworlds 10¼x7 pb [1/97] out of print/used
	"Metoroporisu" animé feature film [Toho Japan May 2001, USA Jan 2002] Graphic artist Osamu Tezuka was inspired by a poster for the 1927 "Metropolis" movie to create his very popular manga comic books, first published in the late 1940s; he apparantly never saw the film, and Tezuka's manga tales have very little similarity with Lang's story. The animé film by Katsuhiro Ôtomo & Rintaro was somewhat modernized, though the graphics were intentionally kept close to Tezuka's style. The basic storyline in the animated film is that a detective and his young son arrive in the city of Metropolis seeking a mad scientist, whose talents have produced a female robot who thinks that she is human. Directed by Rintaro; script by Katsuhiro Ôtomo; Japanese voices by Yuka Imoto, Kei Kobayashi, Kouki Okada, Tarô Ishida & Kousei Tomita: English voices by Rebecca Forstadt, Brianne Siddall, Michael Reisz, Jamieson Price & Simon Prescott Sony color DVD [4/2002] 2 disks for $21.99 Columbia TriStar UMD format for PSP [3/2006] for $17.99 Columbia TriStar color VHS [9/2002] out of prodn/used full credits from IMDb • Bandai Visual official movie site
	"The ArchAndroid" [2010] Co-written & performed by Janelle Monáe; co-written & produced by Chuck Lightning & Nate Wonder Atlantic Records music CD [5/2010] 18 tracks for $9.99

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2002 restoration 27"x40" poster from Amazon 27"x40" poster from Amazon 11"x17" poster from Amazon	27"x40" poster from Amazon	robot Maria walking 11"x17" poster from AllPosters.com	photo of real Maria inside apparatus giclee print {4 sizes} from AllPosters.com b&w photo poster {4 sizes} from Amazon
giclee print {3 sizes} from AllPosters.com	11"x17" poster from AllPosters.com 11"x17" poster from Amazon	27"x40" poster from Amazon 11"x17" poster from Amazon	27"x40" poster from Amazon 11"x17" poster from Amazon
poster from Majestic Theater 11"x17" poster from Amazon	half-sheet (gold color) 11"x17" poster from AllPosters.com 11"x17" poster from Amazon	half-sheet (pale yellow) 27"x40" poster from Amazon 11"x17" poster from Amazon	half-sheet (white) retail source not found

Magic Lantern Video & Book Store"Metropolis" 1927 Movie

Magic Lantern Video & Book Store
"Metropolis" 1927 Movie