Directed by Fritz Lang
Produced by Erich Pommer
Written by Fritz Lang & Thea Von Harbou
Cinematography by Karl Freund & Guenther Rittau
Music by Gottfried Huppertz
(1984 re-release score by Giorgio Moroder)
Production Design by Otto Hunte & Erich Kettelhut& Karl Vollbrecht
Costume Design by Aenne Willkomm
Model and Sculpture design by Walter Schultze-Mittendorf
In 1926, only one sci-fi movie worthy of note was produced and this was a true classic - Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." The screen play by Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou, was set in the futuristic year 2000. Metropolis is a gigantic city divided into two distinctive classes, the luxurious upper class who enjoy exotic pleasures above the ground, and a working class who live beneath the city in slums, slaving away at the dials and furnaces of the great machines that power Metropolis. The ruler of this vast domain is Joh Frederson (Alfred Able), a man with enormous responsibilities. His young son, Freder, (Gustav Frohlich) becomes curious about the workers below, but his father is too preoccupied and evasive to satisfy him. A brief glimpse of a beautiful girl named Maria (Bridgitte Helm), and her charge of ragged children, sends Freder down into the underground levels to search for her.
Dressed in the anonymous overalls of the workers, Freder mingles with the workers, and sees for the first time the horrors of life below: the monstrous "Pater Noster Machine," which resembles a hideous idol demanding human sacrafice. From there he see's the exhausting and meaningless tasks, moving dials,jiggling levers, and opening valves amid a steam filled hell. When a worker collapses at a huge thermometer guage, Freder takes over for him to prevent an explosion, but is soon reduced to near-exhaustion himself. He barely makesit through the treeible ten hour shift before being relieved by a fresh worker, and then finds his way to Maria, who preachers to the slaves of the machine in a crude church. To Freder , Maria's voice is like "the amen of God," as she retells the story of the Towers of Babel, preaching in a way as to show the workers the difference between them and the management. Wishing to crush any possible rebellion, the Master of Metropolis enlists the help of scientist come black magician Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), one of the screen's most memorable villains, with his artificial hand of dark, glistening material.
He shows Frederson his crowning achievement the coldly beautiful female robot who is one of the finest images in all sci-fi cimema. (Unfortunatly I dont have a picture of this brilliant robot which was well ahead of its time, and the idea was finnaly used again in the epic "Star Wars Trilogy.") Frederson orders Rotwang to transform the robot into the likeness of Maria, so that it can take her place and spread confusion among the workers, destroying their confidence in her. Rotwang kidnaps Maria and takes her to his laboratory where, in a superbly-designed sequence that has yet to be matched in sci-fi horror film, he clothes the metal maiden with a synthetic flesh in the exact image of Maria. Her movements jerky at first, her eyes glaring evil, the robot is a cruel and menacing likeness of Maria, and it is a tribute to the acting skills of Bridgitte Helm that she makes the transition so believable.
The "new" Maria, now wickedly seductive, incites the workers to destroy the dikes and machimes, but in so doing they flood thier own homes. Furious, they turn on the robot, and burn her at the stake, but she only laughs horribly as the flames sear her metal body harmlessly. The real Maria escapes from Rotwang's house, and manages to lead many children to safety as the now maddened workers run through the city in full rebellion, smashing the machines in a spectacular climax of destruction. Rotwang tries to kill Maria on the rooftops, but Freder comes to her rescue, and hurls the mad scientist to his death. Freder manages to calm the workers down and arranges a meeting between them and his father, the Master of Metropolis. Upon seeing the mass destruction that the workers have done he agrees that every one should be treated as equals and the massive cleanup begins. This is without a doubt one of the great classics of all time, pitting good against evil,poor against rich, and brings out the imagination of one mans dream for all to see.
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