Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 'Almost' complete METROPOLIS now on Blu-Ray

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-24-2010, 06:35 PM:

I have only seen bits and pieces of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS and at one time had a severely condensed version on regular 8mm I bought from Black-hawk Films when I was a very young man and was always fascinated by this remarkable film. I was tempted to buy the various versions of METROPOLIS on DVD many times but I am glad I waited for a complete version of the film to be released because up until 2008, the film was lacking almost a half an hour of footage that was lost when Paramount, the U.S. distributer severely cut the film's running time for it's American showings. Soon after, all of the prints everywhere was cut and all of the the edited footage and negatives were destroyed. Until a 16mm negative made from the complete movie in 2008 on 35mm nitrate film was found in Argentina, METROPOLIS was never seen in it's original 153 minute running time at 24fps again after it's premiere in Berlin on January 19, 1927. Now with the missing parts added to the existing movie, the running time of the current restored MESTROPOLIS is 148 minutes -just about five minutes shy of it;s original 153 minutes. All of the footage that had existed all these years look awesome on the new Blu-Ray disc Kino International just released because they were from the original 35mm negative but the 16mm stuff look pretty bad by it's self but watching them during the actual movie is not bad because some segments are only a few seconds long and others run about minute or two. The full original 1927 musical score composed by Gottfried Huppertz and performed by the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra plays beautifully with the movie in full DTS Master Audio 5.1 sound. Beside the movie, there is a 50 minute documentary of the history of METROPOLIS after it was produced and a interview with the film curator in Argentina where the missing footage was discovered. A 2010 re-release trailer is aso included.

After all these years, I am very glad I finally had the opportunity to see this wonderful film that was a bit ahead of it's time on a fantastic Blu Ray disc.

-Claude

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 01-30-2011, 02:07 AM:

I have the dvd of this movie. I can't believe how bad the picture is.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 01-30-2011, 02:52 AM:

Tom,

Do you have a earlier version of METROPOLIS or the current version on DVD? If it is the current version like the one I have on Blu-Ray, there is no reason it should look that bad on DVD because the BD is gorgeous.

-Claude

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 01-30-2011, 06:14 AM:

I am pretty sure it is the earlier version.

The actually just played the movie at TIFF, so I should of taken the opportunity to go see it.