Metropolis

Released: March 13, 1927

Studio: UFA

Genre: sci fi/silent/animation/foreign

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 1.24 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Fritz Lang

Screenwriting: Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang

Starring: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge

Review:

“Stylized, visually-compelling, [and] melodramatic,” ^FS “Lang’s German Expressionistic masterpiece helped develop the science-fiction genre.” ^FS “With its images of spired skyscrapers and synchronous lines of blue-collar drones,” ^PM this “classic silent-film fantasy” ^LM “set in the 21st century city of Metropolis” ^FS “defined a new type of futuristic-nightmare art, the influence of which can be seen in such films as Brazil and Gattaca.” ^PM

PM Lang’s vision of this “futuristic city and its mechanized society” ^LM “retains its power” ^PM all these years later. “The luxurious, futuristic city of skyscrapers and bridges is stratified and divided into an upper, elite, privileged class and a subterranean, nameless, oppressed, ant-like worker/slave class.” ^FS

Freder (Frohlich) is “the young son of a ruling, aristocratic capitalist Master John Fredersen (Abel).” ^FS He follows Maria (Helm), a beautiful, young, Christ-like woman, and a group of worker children “into the squalid, labyrinthine underground slums” ^FS and “discovers the miserable life of the proletariat.” ^FS He abandons “his life of luxury to join oppressed workers in a revolt.” ^LM

“Heavy going at times, but startling set design and special effects command attention throughout. Many shorter prints exist; reissued in 1984 at 87 minutes with color-tints and score by Giorgio Moroder.” ^LM