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Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered.

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Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 07-02-2008, 11:00 PM:
 


Did they say how much longer it is from the one that is out there now???????
 

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Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 07-02-2008, 11:35 PM:
 
From one article, I read that the original premiere cut was around 210 minutes? If that's true, then this version probably isn't that version as this one is supposed to be only 20% longer than the most complete one available.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 07-03-2008, 12:05 AM:
 
This is fantastic news.
 

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Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 07-03-2008, 12:08 AM:
 
I do hope it is in good shape. Reminds me of how the original cut of Passion of Joan of Arc was found in good condition in an Oslo asylum's janitor's closet. Masterpieces can crop up in unexpected places.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-03-2008, 01:48 AM:
 
All those guys making a living off of performing live with METROPOLIS (Alloy Orchestra, et al) will have to rework their scores. But yah, it's great news.

For years I was looking for an UNCUT 4tk mag print of CAMELOT -- all that WB had was a version that was drastically (and dreadfully) cut by almost 30+ minutes. All the prints were physically edited. Or so that was the line they would give out every time I tried to book it.

Once I accidently got some old guy in the Burbank office and I explained my frustration and everyone said there was no full length version in mag in their inventory list. All of a sudden, he says, "wait a minute....they use to kept a print in such and such office in a closet under the stairs." He was right. If he was in front of me, I would have kissed him. After three years of trying, we were able to run the full version without the songs sliced up and subplots missing, in 4trk mag and in freakin IBTech! It was such a good feeling finally getting to show it the right wat way. Kit Parker got that print. I have no idea where it got to once KP got out of 35mm distribution for WB classics. For all I know, they may have done a restoration with digital sound, but I wouldn't bet money on it.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-03-2008, 04:55 AM:
 
Quote from Martin Koerber (who has carried out two full-scale restorations from previously surviving material) on the AMIA list:

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The critical edition of Metropolis on DVD, which Enno Patalas derived from the 2001 restoration in order to create a "full" version of Metropolis, has even more information about the missing scenes, and has the option to fill the missing scenes with not only black leader, but information from the script and other sources. When ran in synch with the material found in Buenos Aires, it is amazing to see how everything falls into place now.

The critical edition can be found here.

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Martin is currently in the middle of a restoration of Pandora's Box - I wonder if he'll suddenly drop everything and get going on integrating the new footage into the preservation master of Metropolis?

Incidentally, for those of you who have some German, the critical edition DVD is well worth a look. It uses DVD menu coding options to allow the user to configure the footage to play in order to reconstruct the various versions as they were believed to be the most complete over in the past (for example, footage which was reinstated in the 2001 restoration is contained in chapters which one play option is configured to skip over if you want to see the film as it existed in an earlier version).

Still, this all goes to show that it's never too late to give up hope - the lost footage from Greed and The Magnificent Ambersons may yet show up!
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-03-2008, 05:14 AM:
 
Giorgio Moroder must be drooling.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-03-2008, 07:53 AM:
 
Excellent news! Let's hope that we get to see it soon.
 

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Posted by Robert Crabtree (Member # 4795) on 07-07-2008, 10:16 PM:
 
Deja News...

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Gosh, I always love it when Silent films are found nearly 100 years after they were released, but Metropolis missing scenes?This is said to be 85% of the assumed lost forever footage. They have already spent years looking for this stuff and viola. Im still waiting for the 9hr version of Greed to surface (good luck with that)

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