Where to watch Metropolis (1927)
Metropolis is available to stream in US on fuboTV, Hoopla, Kanopy, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Fawesome and Tubi TV. It can also be rented or bought from AppleTV and Amazon.
In a futuristic city divided between wealthy rulers above ground and exhausted workers below, a privileged young man encounters the harsh reality sustaining his world. After meeting a compassionate prophet who foresees a mediator, he becomes drawn into the growing conflict between the two classes.
Cast: Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Fritz Rasp, Erwin Biswanger, Heinrich George, Fritz Alberti, Grete Berger, Olly Boeheim, Heinrich Gotho
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Trivia & production notes
- Thea von Harbou wrote the novel Metropolis specifically to adapt it into a film, then collaborated with her husband Fritz Lang on the screenplay.
- The original screenplay included an ending where Freder flew to the stars, which was later repurposed as the plot for Lang's film Woman in the Moon.
- Brigitte Helm made her feature film debut in Metropolis after Lang discovered her on the set of Die Nibelungen and gave her a screen test.
- Gustav Fröhlich was initially hired as an extra on Metropolis before Thea von Harbou recommended him to Lang for the lead role.
- Filming of the flooded workers' city scene required Brigitte Helm and 500 children from Berlin's poorest districts to work in a pool of water that Fritz Lang deliberately kept cold for 14 days.
- Fritz Lang insisted on using real fire to burn the false Maria at the stake, which caused Brigitte Helm's dress to catch fire during filming.
- Helm fainted during the android transformation scene because she was clamped in a wooden apparatus for so long that she couldn't breathe properly.
- Principal photography lasted 17 months with 310 shooting days and 60 shooting nights, finally wrapping on October 30, 1926.
- The film's budget ballooned from 1.5 million Reichsmarks to 5.3 million Reichsmarks by the time shooting finished, more than three times the original estimate.
- Producer Erich Pommer was fired during production of Metropolis.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Metropolis (1927 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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