Absolutely among the greatest films of all time, Fritz Lang's Metropolis is now showing on crisp new prints in select theaters across the country. Thanks to the reconstruction work of the Munich Film Archive, this definitive and best surviving cut of the 1927 German expressionist classic is near perfect. Although a small amount of footage has been lost forever, this masterpiece may now be seen as it was nearly 75 years ago. A timeless work whose power remains undiminished, it is, at a minimum a cautionary science fiction tale of class struggle, love, anguish, hope, and human redemption.

Set one hundred years in the future, in 2026 AD, the fictional city of Metropolis is populated by a privileged class who live in luxury in spectacular, towering buildings reaching to the sky. Their lives of leisure are made possible by the hard and bitter labor of a massive community of workers who toil below the surface in the dark and impoverished underground. The people in these lower depths have been reduced to machine-like automatons whose needs are irrelevant to the task of fueling the machine.

The story unfolds through a young man, Freder Fredersen, one of the privileged. He lives in ease and comfort in the sunlight above. His father, the ultimate power in Metropolis, has concealed from him the existence of the underground city. With cold intellect, Johhan Fredersen rules with his head and finds no justification for allowing sentiment to hinder the efficiency of his contrived world. By chance young Freder meets Maria, and becomes drawn into the lives and struggle of the underground masses. The gentle, strong and charismatic Maria is the leader of the revolt of the workers. Brigitte Helm in the dual role of noble Maria and the robot/ love goddess Futura infuses both roles with a phenomenal energy rarely seen since. The central issues of wealth without work, man versus machine, and man's inhumanity to man have only gained in magnitude, making the film more topical than ever. The breathtaking black and white set designs and cinematography are the finest of German Expressionist cinema and unequaled to this day. Over 37,000 actors were used in the film, unimaginable today.

A key piece of the reconstruction was reuniting the film with the original orchestral score of Gottfried Huppertz. Music is the voice of silent film, and adds immeasurably to the force of the visuals. The magnificent architectural designs in Metropolis were inspired by Lang's visit to America a few years before. The images of the skyscrapers of New York were the perfect visual counterpoint to the wretchedness of the dark world below, belching steam and smoke. The science fiction of German expressionism is exquisitely fascinating and in Metropolis Lang reveals himself its' master visionary. His collaboration with co-writer and second wife Thea von Harbou ended when Lang left Germany to escape the growing Nazi presence. In addition to numerous German films, he later made many fine films (Scarlet Street, Rancho Notorious, The Big Heat) in Hollywood. Metropolis is an absolute must see.

Alfred Abel: Johhan (Joh) Fredersen	Gustav Fröhlich: Freder Fredersen
Brigitte Helm: Maria/Futura	Rudolf Klein-Rogge: C.A. Rotwang
Directed by: Fritz Lang