comment #1

p.Vice says ...

It always amazes me how stuff like this can lay around unnoticed for so long.

comment #2

The Bandsaw Vigilante says ...

It was found floating at sea near Patagonia in the same barrel containing the lost MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS footage.

Just give 'em a couple of years to suddenly "discover" the latter...

comment #3

Mgmax says ...

An Argentinian poster at NitrateVille says they basically tried to tell the Murnau Foundation that they had it several times and always got blown off...

comment #4

The Hoyk says ...

Paramount initially released METROPOLIS in the U.S., as part of the Parufamet alliance they had with UFA and MGM, but the most recent restoration was released by Kino.

I'm hoping that the question of the proper fps will be resolved with this upcoming restoration. Glenn Erickson claims that the movie should be run at 20 or 18 fps and the current edition still runs too fast and herky-jerky, which I pretty much agree with, but others say that it's proper at 24 fps.

comment #5

Carl LaFong says ...

Hoyk has a good point about projection speed; the current 124 min. Kino/Murnau print is all sped up and looks pretty silly. I first saw it at the California Film Institute a few years back and was struck by the almost comical speedy-running about that typifies the stereotype of silent film.

The film reportedly premiered at 210 min, and if this unearthed copy really is a complete print, the additional discovered half-hour of footage projected at Hoyk's 18-20fps might very well run that long.

In any event, I hope that Kino/Murnau folks take this into account when the inevitable re-mastering is performed.

Now, if we can only find the missing nineteen minutes from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY! It played in New York briefly before Kubrick lopped stuff out...

comment #6

Bob Violence says ...

The film reportedly premiered at 210 min

This is very unlikely. The 210-minute running time comes from running the premiere version (4,189 meters, per the censor's record) at 20fps, which appears to be the natural speed for Metropolis. But there's no evidence it was ever projected this way -- Huppertz's score for the premiere is marked for 25-27fps (if you think the film looks comical at 24fps, imagine it 3fps faster) and the only contemporary review of the premiere that's come down to us gives a running time of around 2 1/2 hours. At 4,189 meters (the length of the premiere version per the German censor's records), that works out to somewhere between 25 and 27fps, just as the score says.

And while it's an oft-cited article of faith that silent movies were usually projected at their natural speed (which for Metropolis would be about 20fps) and the accelerated look is a result of inaccurate sound-era revivals, the fact of the matter is that films were routinely "overcranked" for projection even during the sound era, and that by the mid-twenties 24fps had become a de facto projection standard, even as cameramen continued to crank at much slower speeds. There are even instances (related by Kevin Brownlow) of audiences complaining when films were projected at something close to their natural speed. The motivations for this were predictable -- exhibitors and distributors who wanted to cram more showings into a day -- and no doubt some filmmakers were less-than-pleased with the arrangement. But Huppertz worked very closely with Lang, and in the regrettable absence of any firm evidence as to what Lang's preferences were, Koerber, Palatas and the rest of the restoration team went with Huppertz's recommendation, unnatural as it may look.

comment #7

Carl LaFong says ...

B.V., I guess it is just a fortunate coincidence that the Huppertz timing happens to coincide with the televised speed. It will be interesting to hear what was cut from the longer Huppertz score, too, with the longer release, whether it be 150 or 210 min. Either way, it'll be exciting to see the complete story.

By the way, I got the 210 min. figure from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29#cite_note-10 (admittedly not always reliable) and still hope to one day see the film exhibited in a more natural speed.

And I didn't mean to bad-mouth the Kino/Murnau restoration - it's an amazing looking print and after years of seeing the hacked up version, it was a treat to be able to understand the whole story (missing portions filled in with title cards) at long last.

comment #8

lazespud says ...

Apparently the footage is a copy of the original print (which is lost), and looks pretty terrible. The prints of some of the shots that I've seen look awful; and awful in a way that won't be easy to clean up because it looks like an 8mm copy of a 35 mm film. I suspect whatever final film we see from this, the additional footage will be screamingly easy to pick out.

I had been infatuated by Metropolis since the 80s and that bizarre colored release with the rock sountrack. I always wanted to see the film and they played it about 5 years ago in the grand Paramount Theater in Seattle with a live organ accompaniment. Man, it just bored me to death, I'm embarrassed to say. The sets and the robot were awesome, but the other two hours just killed me. It's not like I'm a rube that wouldn't like any films from the era; I love the cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and Faust, but Metropolis kind of sucked.

comment #9

Glenn Kenny says ...

The Kino DVD, like the Eureka!/Masters of Cinema one, is from the most recent Murnau House restoration, but as DVD Beaver noted, the transfer was not pre-converted to NTSC, so exhibits noticeable "ghosting" and "combing" artifacts. Demonstrating that there's still more than one reason (that primary reason being more available titles) to invest in a multi-region player.

I don't agree with Lazespud's assessment of the film, but I understand it—as a narrative, "Metropolis" has tons of issues. It can't really decide whether it's fascist or not, for one thing. For me, the incoherence is part of the fascination, but I can see if you're not keyed into it how it wouldn't be.

Given the state of the discovered materials I imagine it's gonna be some time before they're successfully integrated into another restoration. But I eagerly await more wonderment and incoherence!

comment #10

Bob Violence says ...

Kino claims the new footage will be on the Blu-ray they're putting out next year, although that sounds extremely suspect to me -- the frames we've seen so far range from poor to downright awful, and I can't imagine Kino or anyone else would want to release this without first putting it through a thorough (and lengthy) restoration effort.

comment #11

MPNeeb says ...

Now if we could only find London after Midnight...