A complete, uncut version of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” has recently been recovered from Buenos Aires. “Metropolis,” the first epic science fiction film, was shown to U.S. distributors who initially cut 80 minutes from it. Those scenes have long since been considered lost, until now.
For those unfamiliar, “Metropolis” is a 1927 silent film directed by Fritz Lang. It’s the story of a city where above ground, people exist in a futuristic society free from any worries. Below the city are the workers who toil endlessly to keep the city going. They want to revolt against the privileged above, but are convinced otherwise by a girl named Maria (Brigitte Helm). Maria goes above ground to plead her case and hopes for “The Mediator” between the two groups. Freder (Gustav Frolich), one from above, becomes infatuated with Maria and decides to help her with her cause. When inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) kidnaps Maria and replaces her with a robot lookalike, the robot encourages the workers below to incite rebellion, which brings the city to a halt.
The film varies in length from distributor to distributor. There are cuts of the film at 87 minutes and cuts that run 159 minutes. This version just discovered will restore the film’s original length of 230 minutes (3.5 hours).
For more information on the movie, check out the IMDB page at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/
Click here for the original article. Note: it’s in German.
http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/27/metropolis-vorab
If you need translation, I recommend putting the URL into BabelFish at: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
Chas Andrews' Movie Blog 