The Metropolis Overview

by Master Michael William Kaluta

[Editor's Note: This essay originally appeared as a two-part post
on Compuserve, an online service of the late twentieth century.
It remains the definitive synopsis for Macintosh flight sim enthusiasts.]

Part I

The Book/Movie is about a far flung modern city, as seen from 1926, in which the social structure has really polarized: the Veddy Rich living a life of sport and hanky-panky, supported by hordes of Workers who work at gigantic, dangerous machines underground, their homes even further underground. Joh Frederson, The Master of Metropolis, through no feeling for the Worker's plight, has requested Rotvang, old friend and inventor par none, to cobble together a Machine Man to work the machines... the humans break and have to be housed and fed, and can only work 10-hour shifts.

Rotvang, in a quirky, personal gesture, makes not a Machine Man, but a Machine woman, whom he calls Futura, or sometimes, Parody.

Things begin to become complex about here... it is good to know that Rotvang and Joh Frederson were rivals for a certain Beauty's affection. Her name was Hel, perfection incarnate, and she went with Joh Frederson, not because she loved him more, but because his personal power imprisoned her. She died in childbirth, giving Joh Frederson his only son, Freder, who comes across a lot better in the book, Silent Film Acting of sensitive young men being what it was.

While Rotvang is showing off Futura to a cooly astounded Joh Frederson, Frederson's son, Freder, at play, dallying with an amusing young thing, is shocked into Social Consciousness by the somewhat unlikely arrival of Maria, a worker's daughter, shepherding a moiling gaggle of worker's urchins into the exclusive Club of the Sons. Her beauty, both inner and outer, gaffs the young Freder (the son of Frederson...) and she becomes the ideé fixe of the remaining book/film. Not even knowing there are hordes of workers under Metropolis struggling to keep the lights and elevators running, our young hero actually goes to the underground Machine Rooms in search of Maria...

{Lacunae Alert: There is another subplot, carefully cut from the movie, as is the subplot about the mother (Hel), leaving only a couple of dangling ends... Freder stops one of his dad's employees, recently dismissed, from killing himself... the guy is named Josephat, and though he disappears from the film just after Freder pulls the gun away from his head, only to re-appear every once in a while at awkward places where the editor just couldn't separate him from the other shots, in the book he becomes a staunch ally of Freder and helps him attain his heart's desire, and also figures in a pretty cool flying scene left out of the movie altogether}

...underground... where he finds huge machines operated by almost faceless men, almost machines themselves, so tied to the operations are they. This is one place the Film equals the Book: the Machine Rooms are incredible!!! Freder tries to ask about Maria but just serves to break the steely concentration of the worker at the Pater Noster Machine, who collapses. Book and Movie differ, but not to any detriment to either... in the Film, the machine is a giant clockface, the arms of which have to be set to various flashing bulbs set around its perimeter, in the book, the machine is a little humped-over thing with only two moving parts, about the size of a 5 year old boy... but what the writer (Thea von Harbou: Mrs. Fritz Lang) does with that little machine!!! Suffice to say Freder, in his newly won place of proto-Mediator, will take over the machine, and suffer at the hands, however remote, of his father, the Master of Metropolis...

Did I mention this is a German Film/Book?

{Lacunae Alert II: What Happens to the Worker, #11811 (in the film)? We see him exchange clothes with Freder, throw his arms up in the pure delight of Silk, and move off, stage right, only to disappear from the story... Well, this is a big part of the book, and was filmed, but cut 'for time' back in the '30's... and being slowly pieced back together... if you see the Georgio Moroder version of Metropolis, you will see his still picture attempt to fill out this segment, an attempt that almost forgives him the Pop Song Soundtrack. Quickly, if you can believe it: The Worker 11811, Georgi to his mom, takes Freder's clothes and money and is caught up in the swirl of a World-He-Never-Knew-Existed. The book is very hypnotic during this sequence, and I'd love to quote the 4-6 pages of his seduction by Metropolis, but I won't. He ends up in an amusement palace, a place where the habitues take an empathy drug sort of like how Ecstasy is described, and focus on the feelings of one of their number, who kind of trips them through the pleasant secrets of his or her mind: However::: Georgi 11811 has never had a pleasant thought outside of getting away from his machine, and as luck would have it, the whole place goes ApeSh!t as they tune in to and can not get away from Georgi's memories of a life consisting of 10 hour shifts in front of the Pater Noster Machine, having his brain sucked out. Woof!}

Freder is having the same problem, though more intimately, since his sensitive, though manly, hands are blistering on the lever as he prays to the machine. Finally the shift whistle blows and Freder stumbles along with the rest of the ranked mob down into the further depths... However: tonight (or today: it is always Twilight under Metropolis) the workers take a secret way into the Age Old catacombs to meet with the one person all their hopes of a better world are pinned on: Maria, the gal with the Urchins, and Freder's Heart's Desire. At The Same Time, Joh Frederson shows Rotvang a map his foreman brought him from some dead worker, and Rotvang takes Frederson down into the catacombs where they watch the Worker/Maria confab from a secluded place... Shock::: Maria is the spitting image of Hel, their lost love and Freder's mom... Before he even knows what he's saying, Joh Frederson tells Rotvang to put Maria's face on the robot. With the Robot Maria, Frederson will control the workers, as if they need much more control...

We last saw Freder, the son of The Master of Metropolis (Joh Fredersen) exhausted, deep in the catacombs under the Towers of Metropolis, enchanted, along with thousands of real workers with the game plan for the future that Maria, daughter of a worker and angelic presence, and Freder's Heart's Desire, was laying out to calm the troops. Year after Year these faceless workers toiled their 10 hour shifts at the bone and soul-crushing machines that powered the Wonderful Upper City, and they were getting a bit salty with the situation, indeed. Maria calms them, once again, with a couple of Bible Stories, adapted to their limited world view... the one main theme: the building of the Tower Of Babel... the upshot of this story is, the planners built the tower to be close to god, the workers built the tower because they were told to... when the Planners said Babel, it meant Joy of Accomplishment, when the workers said Babel it meant Bone and Soul-crushing work... in the end, because there was no one to mediate between the planners and the workers to remind each what side the bread was buttered on, the Tower of Babel was destroyed and no one had any fun...

So, Maria predicts a Mediator... "The Mediator between the Hands (that build) and the Mind (that Designs) must be the Heart. Freder, in the crowd, is transfixed, beating his chest... he's figured out who this Mediator has to be... he hangs out as the workers file home for their gruel... and Maria sees him, and knows him and they embrace and he promises to be The Mediator... (Recall, Maria is the spitting image of Hel, Freder's Mom who died when giving him life. Freder has never seen his mom, so he's out of the loop as far as the Freudian Thing goes... but...)

Rotvang and Joh Fredersen are behind a cavern wall, watching this entire interlude... they both know Maria looks exactly like Hel... Hel, the woman they were both in love with... Joh Fredersen tells Rotvang to put Maria's face on the Robot... there is no good reason for this, but it'll end up being a cool thing...

Fredersen exits, leaving the capture of Maria up to Rotvang... Eventually Freder leaves, too, promising to meet Maria in the Cathedral later... ooops: It ain't gonna happen... At this point the Book does a bit that is so far better than the movie... the book stays with Maria as she starts to head home alone through the dark catacombs, and she starts to hear creepy things, and the narrator evokes the creatures Maria's mind envisions... in the film, Rotvang uses a lantern/flashlight and a few tossed stones to scare the poor child into running up into his old house, thus trapping her.

In the House of Rotvang Maria gets the chest thumping routine from Rotvang, who is slowly cataloging all her movements and the essences of her personality, but he can't get her to smile... eventually he gives up on that and goes ahead with the transformation... and here is where the movie outdoes the book... (but, before this happens, Freder goes to the Cathedral and doesn't find Maria... he walks the streets a bit, and happens to pass Rotvang's Strange House... he sees Maria through a window as Rotvang is dragging her to the Transformation room... this is how the film shows it... Freder pounds on the door, the door opens, as do other doors as he goes further and further into the Strange House, every open door slamming behind him. Eventually he is trapped inside he knows not where and falls to the floor exhausted.... meanwhile...) The Transformation of Futura/Parody into Maria. The book lets this scene happen Off Page... the movie takes us right into Rotvang's Lab where Maria is laid out nude in a glass tube with bands of steel set strategically around her form... no matter.. it is quite sexy! Seated above her is Futura, the Robot.. Rotvang twiddles dials and glares at gauges... things zap and bubble and go Phweeeeee.... and these neat arcs of energy finger the steel bands over Maria, while cool rings of softer energy appear around the robot.. as the arcs of electricity play up and down the steel bands, the rings of energy move up and down the robot's body... closer on the Robot glistening in the play of energy.. suddenly a heart starts beating in it's metal chest (the only thing the book has over the movie robot is the book robot is transparent...something they almost bring off in this movie scene) The rings continue to move up and down the Robot's body and we see the circulatory system come into being as skin begins to form over the metal shell... in no time at all the face transforms into Maria's face, eyes closed...as the machinery shuts down, the Maria/Robotrix opens her eyes and smiles a very weird, crooked smile. Rotvang should have waited a bit longer....

The next Movie Scene is both a laugh riot and a neat sexy scene... it is when Rotvang introduces Maria/Futura to the Sons of Metropolis as his daughter... I won't describe the scene except to say the effect is to inflame the hearts of all the boys... duels are fought and lives are thrown away for the love of this intoxicating beauty... in the book we don't see any of this, it is told to Freder when he returns to the Cathedral still looking for Maria. An old pal of his is there, trying to find redemption for his unendurable lust, brought on by this amazing woman...

In the Film Freder is let out of Rotvang's house by the doors just sort of popping open... he scoots out into Metropolis and runs to his dad's office, bursts in to find Maria on his dad's lap, laughing, one eye half closed, totally strange and Very un-Maria-looking... Brigid Helm, the actress playing Maria, received kudos in her day for the opposing portrayals of Virgin and Whore as Maria and as the Maria Robot... Freder swoons in a terrific montage of eyeballs and swirling sh!t and in his delirium has a vision of Death stepping out of its niche in the Cathedral and walking toward the viewer swinging its scythe.. this nightmare is a thin version of the dream he has in the book... woo... but the result is the same... Freder is confined to his rooms, high, high up in the towers of Metropolis while the Robot, as Maria, is sent into the depths to incite the workers to revolt...

By this time the book and the movie are on two different tracks... the film being so chopped up there are characters germane to the plot that flicker in and out of scenes and one loses the thread of events, unless one reads the subtitles... or has read the book. In the book Freder's friend Josephat, the Office Worker he helped after his dad fired same, rescues Freder from his confinement... during all that time the workers have gone on a Spree....

In The Film we see The Robot Maria down with the workers, telling them to rage against the machines... in the movie Freder is there also, as is the forgotten Georgi 11811, the worker Freder rescued from the Machine... Freder tries to tell the workers This Is Not Maria (even though he's got no Idea who it might be... she jes' don't seem right...) and the Robot Maria calls him out, revealing him to the now heated up workers as the Son of the Master of Metropolis... they beat the living crap out of him. (Meanwhile, in the book, Freder is still dreaming about Death destroying Metropolis, up in his palatial apartments).

Film: The workers storm out of the depths, attacking fences and railway cars and whatever they can vent their frustration on.

Book: The workers do exactly the same, but it is told in depth, as words are so much easier to type than Entire Cities are to build and destroy.

Film: the workers attack the Heart of Metropolis... a huge dynamo that is powered by underwater rivers... Grot, the foreman of this machine, calls Fredersen in his High Tower and tells him the workers are at his door.. here there's a diversion between what Fritz Lang had in the film and Georgio Moroder had in his version... in the Moroder Version, he has Fredersen tell Grot to Stop Them, in the Fritz Lang original, and the book, he tells Grot to let them in... hard to explain, but it has something to do with the need to destroy what you love...again, a Freudian Motivation.... (BTW: I am leaving out the references to Fredersen's Mom, not to be confused with Hel, his dead Wife... the Mom is in the book, never mentioned in the film. No need to mention her here, either...) All it took to change the movie was a different subtitle (I did mention this is a silent film???)

Somehow in the film Maria gets out of Rotvang's house... if you read the book, you find out: Joh Fredersen, for reasons he doesn't impart to us, goes to Rotvang's house at about this moment, when all hell is breaking loose, and finds Rotvang doing his weepy act to Maria... Rotvang's smitten by her beauty and her aloofness and recants what he's done, just in time for Fredersen to bop him on the head... Maria escapes into the destruction of the city. In the book and the Movie Joh Fredersen disappears for a while here...

Book: After a swell scene in which Josephat is tempted beyond his strength by Fredersen's man Slim to betray Freder, which leads to the little neat airplane scene, Freder gets sprung from his apartments by a freshly returned Josephat and they have a Nightmare ride through the destruction of the city. Meanwhile Maria has made her way down into the Workers City way beneath Metropolis.... Upstairs, the workers have destroyed the Heart Machine, not realizing that the river that powers it was rerouted from the caverns their underground city is built in.... here they are way up at Ground Level, dancing in rings around the destroyed machine, forgetting they've left something very important down down down deep under Metropolis...

Their Children...

The Book and Movie depart at this point, but both do wonderful things....

In the film, the real Maria is down in the Worker's City as we see thin cracks appear in the flooring between the stark buildings... water seeps up and begins to pool and run across the plazas like a living thing... then we begin to see little feet splashing through the still shallow water... lots of little feet... kids running down stairs as the water cascades down the stairs behind them. Maria finds the center square and sets in motion a giant gong that calls all the children to her, and they come from everywhere ... a sea of children... and Freder too, called by the gong. Together they herd the kids out of the underground city up to the Club of the Sons seen in the beginning of the movie...

Book: Maria is alone in the Worker's City and calls all the kids to her and, like the film, they come, thousands of them...the elevators that are used to go up to the machines have all been destroyed.. Maria finds the Old Old stairs and, carrying a kid and leading the others she climbs the stairs, urging the children on before and behind her as the water follows. The writer then does a Very Creepy Thing.... at the top of the steps Maria finds that the subway trains the Workers destroyed in their delight of freedom and anger are laying on top of the doorway.... she and the children are trapped. She settles the children and tells them a story, a cut little kids' story while the writer personifies the water and has it whisper to Maria, whispers as a demon lover.... and as it rises one by one the children stop crying....

Damn!

Well, Freder arrives before everybody is drowned, on the other side of the door and gets the Foreman and some others to raise the door and rescue the children, taking them to the exclusive Club of the Sons where he first saw the Workers' Kids and Maria... But: the majority of the workers still have no Idea this is going on.... they are still in a frenzy of destruction, pouring through the streets of Metropolis with the Robot Maria egging them on...

Meanwhile, Rotvang comes out of his blackout and sees a world gone mad, and thinks he's dead.... and goes looking for Hel, knowing she'll be waiting for him On The Other Side... remember, she loved Rotvang, but was overpowered by Fredersen's ooomph... So.... Rotvang goes out into the city....

Meanwhile:

Film: As Happy as they can be, the Workers are brought down by Grot, the foreman of the Heart of Metropolis Machine destroyed a few chapters earlier, giving out that they've just drowned their children... it takes a bit of doing to get their attention, but the info really sends the workers over the edge... someone says "Hey.. who told you to destroy the city?" "Maria," they all shout... somehow, at this point, they see Maria, the real one, heading for the Cathedral... how she got there, I just don't know.... as it turns out, they run after her, she bolts and luckily another mob of workers, just down from the Pleasure Quarter with the Robot Maria on their shoulders, cut in between the Real Maria and the Mob set on her destruction... this mob grabs the Robot Maria, who is having a blast, and, calling her "witch", put her up on a pile of inflammable stuff and set fire to it... the Robot Maria laughs and taunts and delights in the flames and the crowd stand amazed when the flesh burns off, revealing the Robot.

Meanwhile, Rotvang has gone to the Cathedral, a place in which Hel had found solace when she was alive and about the only building still standing, and finds: Maria!!! Maria, who looks Just Like Hel. Rotvang goes after her, wondering why she's not leaping into his arms.. Maria runs, Freder shows up, somehow, and Rotvang and Freder have a Big Fight... there are several differences between the fight in the book and film, but the upshot is, Rotvang in the film is thrown off the roof by Freder, but it looks like he just gives up... because: in the book, Rotvang finally realizes he isn't dead, that this isn't Hel he's scaring the heck out of and this is the son of his old rival he's almost killed, Hel's son... so, he lets go!!!! and falls to his death...

Although it's handled differently in the book and movie, Joh Fredersen has the fright of his life when he thinks Rotvang is going to kill his son, his hair turns white and he thanks God when Rotvang leaves this plane of existence. Everyone Backs Off and Freder and Maria come out of the Cathedral... this is the end of the movie... Maria takes the hand of Grot, the Worker Foreman, and puts it into Freder's hand, then takes Joh Fredersen's hand and puts it into Freder's other hand and helps Freder bring the two men's hands together in a handshake, fulfilling the prophecy: The Mediator between the Hands and the Brain must be the Heart... taa daa....

There's a number of other characters and neat scenes in the book, and it's just possible a lot of them were filmed... there's big hope in the Metropolis Film Fan World that prints from the ex-eastern bloc countries will reveal more footage, unseen since 1926....

I thank you!