Found at last: The FULL print of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS!

In 1927, Austrian-German filmmaker Fritz Lang released Metropolis, considered by many to be the zenith of the silent movie era. Unfortunately the various versions of Metropolis that we have had for most of the 81 years since have been around 118 minutes long: drastically shortened from the film's original running time of 210 minutes (did those guys think big back then, or what?). For all this time finding a complete, uncut copy of Metropolis has been one of the most prized goals of die-hard movie buffs, and most had given up hope that Lang's original vision might never be seen again.

Tonight, Ain't It Cool News is broadcasting the word far and wide that a complete print of Fritz Lang's Metropolis has been located in Buenos Ares, Argentina!

I've only seen Metropolis once, years ago in college. I'll admit: some of the dialogue is... odd... and maybe even a bit pretentious. But you know what? I don't care. People will be saying the same about the Star Wars movies someday (a series whose look was greatly inspired by Metropolis). Whatever faults it may have with the story and writing, those do nothing to diminish the staggering achievement that Metropolis was in its day. Movies like that and King Kong, filmmakers back then did some amazing stuff with so little. "Ya gotta appreciate a movie in the context of the time that it was made in", has been my argument for a long time now. And in that regard, Metropolis is still one of the biggest achievements in motion picture history.

And now we're getting a whole wazoo-more of it!

Now all we need is to find a full print (or any print at all) of London After Midnight, and for Jerry Lewis to finally complete The Day the Clown Cried, and for Disney to finally release Song of the South on DVD, and for all 108 missing episodes of Doctor Who to be found... and then I'll be happy :-)

Categories: filmmaking, history, metropolis, movies