10 January: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis

This date in 1927 saw the World Premiere of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in Berlin. 10 things you might not know about the film.

1. Metropolis is a German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang. It was adapted from a novel by Thea von Harbou, written in 1925. Thea von Harbou, as it happened, was Fritz Lang’s wife and she wrote it specifically so that her husband could make a film of it. The novel was serialised in a magazine, illustrated by photos from the set during filming. The book was released to coincide with the movie's premiere.

2. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 and cost over five million Reichsmarks, equivalent to about $1.2 million; that's about $16 million in today’s money, about a tenth of the cost of a sci-fi epic today.

3. The film is set in a futuristic urban dystopia (in 2026 to be exact) and concerns Freder, the wealthy son of the city master, and Maria, a saintly figure to the workers, who try to bring the workers together.

4. Maria is played by an 18 year old actress called Brigitte Helm, who got the part after her mother sent a photo of her to Fritz Lang. Lang gave Brigitte a screen test, which she later described: "Someone gave me a letter to read, and while doing this, the lights were switched on, and the cameraman turned the handle. The great moment had come. I was being filmed! Then an actor approached me unexpectedly, and in a loud thrilling voice insulted me. Afterwards I heard that this incident was necessary, as Mr. Lang wanted to test my expression."

5. The studio claimed that the film used 36,000 extras, while Lang himself denied that there were any more than about 500 and that it looked like more because he knew how to “use a crowd.” The truth is somewhere in between. Some crowds looked bigger because the film was exposed up to 30 times. However, 500 extras were used in one scene showing the flooded city. 500 children from Berlin's poorer districts were brought in and had to stand in cold water for the 14 days it took to shoot the scene to Lang’s satisfaction. Although he made sure the kids were well fed and cared for, standing in cold water for that amount of time wasn’t good for their health.

6. There were 1,000 extras in the Tower of Babel scene. Lang wanted 4,000 but they had to be bald, and only a thousand were willing to shave their Hair off.

7. It wasn’t only the extras who suffered discomfort. Brigitte Helm didn’t have a stunt double and so had to wear the robot costume herself. It cut and bruised her and restricted her air intake so that she fainted at least once on set. The actor playing Freder could barely stand up after many retakes of the scene where he collapses at Maria’s feet.

8. Thea von Harbou was a supporter of the Nazi party and the film and novel were greatly admired by Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. They saw the dystopia as a kind of social blueprint (where have we heard that before?) Lang, however, was Jewish. Goebbels told Lang he could be made an honorary Aryan, saying "Mr. Lang, we decide who is Jewish and who is not." Lang wasn’t having any of that, and left for Paris, and later America, very soon afterwards.

9. The film shown at the premier was 153 minutes long, which was rather longer than cinemas of the time liked. Had it been a runaway box office success it might have remained that way. However, it wasn’t. The critical reception was similar to that of many modern sci-fi epics: the movie was amazing visually but had a weak story. In order to sell the film abroad, the studio had it cut, first to about 115 minutes long, and then even more in 1936, to just 91 minutes. The original was lost for 80 years, but even when a copy surfaced in 2008, some of the footage was damaged beyond repair, so even that only ran for 148 minutes. The only people who have ever seen the full, original, complete version were the Berliners who saw it in the first few months of 1927.

10. Even so, it was a highly influential film which has influenced the science fiction genre ever since. Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster named their city after it, and C3P0 in Star Wars was based on the robot in this film. The wild-haired "mad scientist" seen in many such films first appeared in this one. Even music videos have been influenced by it, with artists such as Madonna, Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga using some of its designs.