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Metropolis (1927): The Sci Fi Classic Directed By Fritz Lang

A Major Influence On Blade Runner, Star Wars and any other Sci Fi Movie you care to name

DVD: 1 disc

Format: PAL    

Region: 4

Rating: PG

Year of release: 1999

From the cover: Set at around the year 2,000 (then a lifetime away in the future), a mammoth city is ruled by the super-efficient industrialist John Fredersen (Alfred Abel) and, on the surface, apperas to be a utopian dream with wealthy inhabitants living in palatial apartments set in colossal glass and concrete spires. But underground it’s a different story; armies of slaves work gruelling shifts to maintain the luxurious lifestyles of their masters. The workers, a sub-human species of sluggish creatures, are led by the ’saintly’ Maria (Brigitte Helm), who urges them not to rebel but to wait patiently for the arrival of a ‘Mediator’. Frederson has kidnapped Maria and orders mad scientist, Rothwang (Rudolph Klein-Rogge), to create a robot replica to take her place. His plan is doomed when the evil mechanical Maria incites the massed workers to revolt and destroy everything in sight. Taking sixteen months to film, with a cast of 37,383, and costing over $2 million at 1920s’ prices, everything about this epic German science-fiction film, which was inspired by the towering Manhattan skyline, is gigantic. Although director Fritz Lang hated the cancel of his film, it was an instant hit with Adolf Hitler and Goebbels, who first saw it in a small German town. When they came to power in 1933, they asked Lang to make prestige pictures for the Nazi party. He packed his bags and left for Hollywood the same day. On its first releases it was a box-office flop and nearly bankrupted its financiers UFA, Germany’s largest film production company. ‘Metropolis’ is now a monument to Fritz Lang’s artistic vision and film craftsmanship; this version is the closest yet to the director’s original vision.