In the year 2026

Metropolis

(1927)

Ages since I'd seen any version of this, so long that I'd mostly forgotten it, so I may not be the best source for testimony re the recently discovered 25 minutes, but I can certainly testify that Herr Lang knew what to do with a camera. The imagery is alternately sentimental, creepy, and inspiring, but uniformly fantastic, literally and figuratively. The special effects are also amazing, except for the times when they're comically primitive, which only serves to show how good they are most of the time. A regrettably sappy final reel is easily ignorable.

The female lead, in a dual role as the impossibly pure (but sexy) Maria (yeah, right, like the Blessed Virgin: subtlety was not one of the things Lang was going for) and the vampish (and even sexier) avatar of the robot, is the Swiss-born Brigitte Helm, 21 in her film debut. Her career lasted only 8 years, but they were eventful years, including the acclaimed L'Argent, which I believe I have on my DVR, and 3 versions--German, French, and English--of an Atlantis film directed by G. W. Pabst. Here she handles the extremes of Una/Duessa beautifully, and the dance she performs (I'll let you guess in which guise) at a nightclub that turns her male audience into animals is just the sort of thing Will Hays had in his filthy little mind.