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Auction History Result 4y0265 METROPOLIS 8x10.25 still 1927 Fritz Lang, best image of Alfred Abel, Klein-Rogge & the robot! Date Sold 8/29/2023 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical 8" x 10 1/4" [20 x 26 cm] Movie Still (Learn More) Metropolis, the classic 1927 Fritz Lang German silent anti-fascism science fiction (sci-fi) robot fantasy dystopian future thriller ("The screen sensation of the age!"; "The wonder city of the future"; "Adapted by Channing Pollock"; based on the novel by Thea von Harbou; set designs by Edgar Ulmer; about an ultra-depressing world of the future where the rich people live in cities in the clouds, and the poor people toil away endlessly underground; a female populous leader arises and a mad scientist makes an android robot duplicate of her to ruin her work; a brilliant movie, light years ahead of its time, and movie makers are still stealing from it!) starring Brigitte Helm (in a dual role as Maria, the female leader of the workers, and as the android [gynoid] "Maschinenmensch"), Gustav Frohlich (as Freder), Alfred Abel (as Joh Frederson), Rudolf Klein-Rogge (as Rotwang the Inventor), Theodor Loos (as Josaphat), Fritz Rasp (as the Thin Man), Heinrich George, and Margarete Lanner. Note that there is a fascinating story behind this movie being imported to the U.S. in 1927, that we did not learn until 2023, when we noticed the "Adapted by Channing Pollock" on the first U.S. herald we auctioned, and Internet research (NOT on the IMDb) revealed this: Fritz Lang's version of this movie at the premiere was 153 minutes, and Paramount was unwilling to release such a long movie in the U.S. So they hired playwright Channing Pollock to shorten the movie to a more "reasonable" length, around 2 hours. What Pollock did was to essentially drastically change the entire movie, by shortening it to 115 minutes, and changing all of the inter-titles to ones he wrote! Among the changes he made was that the man who made the robot (Rotwang) had made it in the image of the love of his life, named "Hel", who had run off with another man. Pollock did not want to use the name "Hel", because of its similarity to "Hell", but instead of just changing it, he eliminated all references to the robot having a name, or to the reason why Rotwang built it! He made a number of other major changes to the movie. When Fritz Lang heard what had been done, he said "I love films, so I shall never go to America"! The movie was somewhat restored to its original version in 1984, when the Giorgio Moroder score was added, and has since been completely restored to its original version! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. Important Added Info: Note that we auctioned an example of this still in February 2020 (and while that one did not have the paper loss in three corners that this one has, it had more substantial defects in other ways), and it sold for $1,076! Also note that this still has a partial stamp on the back. The end of it clearly reads "1928", but we don't know what the first part says. So it is certainly possible this still was used in a theater that showed this classic movie in 1928 (or a newspaper that ran a story about it in 1928), but we feel it is surely a first release still that was printed in 1927. Condition: good to very good. The still has paper loss in two blank corners and paper loss in the top right corner that very slightly touches the image background. It has a tiny diagonal crease in the fourth corner. It has a small tear in the right of the top border that just slightly extends into the background area and some faint creases in the top background area, but they are not scattered throughout the still (see our images). Learn More about condition grades 
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