Metropolis

After watching the new extended cut of the silent, historically top-ranked classic Metropolis, I wondered how this film was received when it was released in 1927. Was it relegated to the art-house circuit, as it is now, or was it the Transformers of its time? Its special effects, (then and in some cases still), likely entertained to the degree of the latter: Blade Runneresque Art Deco cityscapes, sprawling at the beginning, collapsing by the end; a Dali-like fever-dream sequence; hundreds of extras, running in panic or marching solemnly but always en masse. On the other hand, the lack of a soundtrack results in some comically exaggerated acting and the social commentary about the “heart” mediating the “head” (upper management) and the “hands” (the proletariat) is propaganda. But there’s something for everyone here, including a scantily-clad-lady sequence of the sort the Hays Code would effectively stamp out only a few years later.