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Title: Metropolis


Date: 1927
Type: Sci-Fi
Rating: 4 Stars 4/5
Colour: Black and White / Silent
Director: Fritz Lang
Producer:

Comment
In a future society the elite live comfortable lives, whilst underground the workers live and operate the machinary that keeps the city going. The son of the master (Freder, Gustav Frohlich) of the city meets Maria (Brigitte Helm) and follows her down to the machines where the workers are and finds that she want to join the wrokers with the elite. He falls in love with her, but then his father gets a scientist to build a robot in her image. This is film making on an epic scale and was shot on huge sets with large numbers of extras. The film is arguably a landmark film and one of the highlights of Eurpopean film making in the 1920's. It contains a numbe of iconic images and the ideas have been used in countless films since. It was hugely expensive to make, using 25000 extras and so was not a financial success. A restored version of the film has been produced that includes scences that had previously been lost. Whilst this film would not attract many current film viewers, but it is significant for its place in film history. The special effects in this film are ground breaking as was Lang's use of the camera. Much later George Lucas used the image of Maria to form the basis of his C3PO character in Starwars.

Actors

Brigitte Helm
Gustav Frohlich
Alfred Abel
Rudolph Klein-Rogge
Theodor Loos
Fritz Rasp

Oscars

None
Metropolis
Metropolis
Brigitte Helm inMetropolis
Brigitte Helm in Metropolis