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Early 1927, Paramount’s Regrettable Ideas





Looks like a trade flyer or a magazine ad.
Either this was unsigned or the artist’s name was purged.



A window card.
The microprint at the bottom reads:
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, U. S. A.
MORGAN LITHO. CO. CLEVELAND, U. S. A. No. 40953
THIS POSTER LEASED FROM PARAMOUNT FAMOUS LASKY CORPORATION.
Either this was unsigned or the artist’s name was purged.


My best guess, based on reading between the lines, is that Paramount funded the production of Metropolis in full. Metropolis had been produced as a prestige item, with a specially commissioned original orchestral score, and opened not to a queue of movie fans, but to a tuxedo-and-gown gathering of illustrious VIP’s with reserved tickets. In return for funding the production, Paramount won the right of first refusal on US distribution. The reason that Paramount had funded Metropolis was not mere investment. Paramount, together with the other major Hollywood studios, was in the process of taking over and crushing the German film industry, which had gotten a bit too competitive for comfort. In December 1926, the American representative for Ufa, one Frederick Wynne-Jones, screened Metropolis for the Paramount bigwigs, and said bigwigs decided immediately not to issue the film as a deluxe specialty item, but instead to lessen its impact but chopping it down to a little less than two hours. That way, Paramount would get a return on its $190,500(?) investment, quite likely even a healthy profit, while at the same time it would ensure that Metropolis not garner any major attention, and would not draw audiences away from Hollywood movies. Before it was shown to the public, even worse things happened.

The “American film-folk” were “alarmed” by the depiction of the revolt of the masses? If so, it’s pretty darned odd that the revolt by the masses was one of the few things that the “American film-folk” did not eliminate or tone down in any way. Nonetheless, we cannot discount the claim of an initial alarm. If the “American film-folk” were initially alarmed, that may have been what prompted them to alter the film somehow, anyhow, just to alter it for the sake of altering it, just to shorten it so that it would no longer be a specialty item. I suspect that there were several non-overlapping reasons and rationalizations and excuses to shorten the film drastically.


What’s this about Metropolis showing at the Cohan Theatre? Was that the original plan? If so, it was put on hold for some reason or another, which gave the Paramount/Publix execs a little more time to monkey about.



As soon as the Paramount executives watched the film in December 1926, they hired playwright Channing Pollock to mop up the mess for a March 1927 release. Why? One reason, certainly, was to reduce the film’s impact. On top of that, there was the usual reason, probably. The same reason that censors chop things away, the same reason the copy-editors fill every typescript page with red marks top to bottom, even when they make no changes at all to the text. They needed to justify their salaries. They were paid to do something, and the only something they could do was slash films to ribbons. That’s all. I doubt there was a thought about making improvements or enhancing sales. Slashing away at films inevitably slashes away at sales, too.

Few foreign films were released in the US in the 1920’s. What few did arrive were mostly distributed by almost-unknown companies such as Red Seal Pictures, Artclass Pictures, Atlas Film Company, Film Arts Guild, Eastern Film Company, Moviegraphs, and Fifth Avenue Playhouse Group. Only a handful of small independent cinemas had contracts with those distributors, and so those films were barely shown at all, and barely advertised. The major Hollywood distributors — Universal, First National, Metro/MGM, Goldwyn, Fox, and Paramount — issued only about a hundred imports in the 1920’s. Click here for a fairly comprehensive list. As far as I know — and please prove me wrong if you know better — in the 1920’s it was standard Hollywood practice to alter imported films. Not always, of course. Goldwyn’s 1921 release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was not altered, except that the titles were reset in plain fashion. MGM, uncharacteristically, was gracious enough to charge the filmmaker himself, Murnau, to alter Faust for its 1926 US release. Often, though, Hollywood studios and Hollywood distributors did not want US audiences to witness foreign films until they had been ruined. Some ruined films retained some quality, but they were never good enough to compete against cookie-cutter Hollywood claptrap. One good film, The Phantom Carriage, was extremely altered, and even the plot was changed, for its US release as The Stroke of Midnight, and yet, to my surprise, it remained an exceptional film. Not all imports were so lucky. From 1918, the year the war ended, until the end of the 1920’s, I was aware of only 17 such imports. Harold Aherne, posting on NitrateVille in response to my query, showed that there were considerably more than 17. In fact, there were 100 more:


US Distributor Approx US première Title Production Co. Original Première Country Alteration
World 06 May 1918 Masks and Faces Ideal 02 Mar 1917 UK
First National 02 Aug 1918 Italy’s Flaming Front
(possibly assembled for US only)
Italo-North American Commercial Union Aug 1918 Italy
Pathé 01 Dec 1918 Infatuation
(Bouclette)
23 Dec 1918 France
Pathé 26 Jan 1919 A Vagabond of France
(Le Chemineau)
Pathé-Frères 23 Feb 1917 France
World 16 Mar 1919 The Better Ole Jury 01 Apr 1918 UK
Triangle 04 May 1919 A Place in the Sun Butcher’s 01 Jun 1916 UK
Triangle 15 Jun 1919 Lady Windermere’s Fan Ideal 28 May 1916 UK
Triangle 29 Jun 1919 Dombey and Son Ideal 01 Oct 1917 UK
Paramount 29 Jun 1919 The Rose of Granada
(La rosa di Granata)
Tiber-Film 01 Nov 1916 Italy
First National 15 Jul 1919 Choosing a Wife
(The Elder Miss Blossom)
Sun 01 Sep 1918 UK
Triangle 03 Aug 1919 The Lyons Mail Ideal 21 Dec 1916 UK
Triangle 24 Aug 1919 Her Greatest Performance Ideal 25 Aug 1916 UK
Pathé 06 Jun 1920 The Little Café
(Le Petit Café)
Pathé-Frères 19 Dec 1919 France
First National 13 Dec 1920 Passion
(Madame DuBarry)
Ufa 18 Sep 1919 Germany Abridged
Pathé 09 Jan 1921 Behold the Man
(La Passion)
Pathé-Frères 28 Mar 1905 France
Pathé 06 Mar 1921 Bars of Iron Stoll 01 Nov 1920 UK
Goldwyn 03 Apr 1921 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari)
Decla-Bioscop 26 Feb 1920 Germany Titles reset
Paramount 13 Apr 1921 Deception
(Anna Boleyn)
Ufa 03 Dec 1920 Germany
First National 08 May 1921 Gypsy Blood
(Carmen)
Ufa 20 Dec 1918 Germany Re-edited
Paramount 19 Jun 1921 The Golem
(Der Golem)
Ufa 29 Oct 1920 Germany Abridged
United Artists 07 Aug 1921 Carnival Alliance Film 01 Mar 1921 UK
Pathé 02 Oct 1921 The Orderly
(L’Ordonnance)
Ermolieff Films 18 Feb 1921 France
United Artists 09 Oct 1921 J’accuse Pathé Frères 25 Apr 1919 France
Goldwyn 09 Oct 1921 Theodora
(Teodora)
Ambrosio 02 Apr 1905 Italy
First National 10 Oct 1921 One Arabian Night
(Sumurun)
Pagu 01 Sep 1920 Germany
First National 14 Nov 1921 Alf’s Button Hepworth Pictures 01 May 1920 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 20 Nov 1921 Possession
(Phroso)
Établissements Louis Aubert 13 Jan 1922 France
First National 04 Dec 1921 All for a Woman
(Danton)
Ufa 04 May 1921 Germany
Paramount 25 Dec 1921 The Last Payment
(Das Karussell des Lebens)
Ufa 01 Mar 1919 Germany
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 05 Feb 1922 Why Men Forget
(Demos)
Ideal 01 Apr 1921 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 12 Feb 1922 The Bigamist Stoll 01 Aug 1921 UK
Paramount 21 Feb 1922 The Loves of Pharaoh
(Das Weib des Pharao)
Europäische Film 21 Feb 1922 Germany Abridged
Paramount 26 Feb 1922 The Red Peacock
(Arme Violetta)
Ufa 25 Dec 1920 Germany
Paramount 05 Mar 1922 The Mistress of the World
(Die Herrin der Welt)
Ufa 1919-1920 Germany Cut from 52 reels to 20
Pathé 19 Mar 1922 Lady Godiva Horos-Film 14 Apr 1921 Germany
Pathé 26 Mar 1922 The Isle of Zorda
(Mathias Sandorf)
Union-éclair 15 Jul 1921 France
Paramount 16 Apr 1922 The Devil’s Pawn
(Der gelbe Schein)
Ufa 22 Nov 1918 Germany
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 16 Apr 1922 Queen of the Turf
(Silks and Saddles)
Commonwealth Pictures 04 Apr 1905 Australia
Metro 24 Apr 1922 Missing Husbands
(L’Atlantide)
Thalman 30 Sep 1921 France
Paramount 07 May 1922 The Wife Trap
(Die Schuld der Lavinia Morland)
May-Film 12 Nov 1920 Germany
Metro 04 Jun 1922 The Stroke of Midnight
(Körkarlen [The Phantom Carriage])
AB Svenska Biografteaterns 01 Jan 1921 Sweden Entirely re-edited
Selznick 20 Jun 1922 A Woman of No Importance Ideal 01 Jul 1921 UK
Paramount 25 Jun 1922 The Eyes of the Mummy
(Die Augen der Mumie Ma)
Ufa 03 Oct 1918 Germany
Paramount 09 Jul 1922 The Greatest Truth
(Veritas vincit)
Ufa 04 Apr 1919 Germany
Pathé 16 Jul 1922 The Woman Who Came Back
(Sonia)
Ideal 01 Sep 1921 UK
United Artists 27 Aug 1922 The Glorious Adventure Stoll 01 Jan 1922 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 01 Oct 1922 The Hound of the Baskervilles Stoll 01 Aug 1921 UK
Paramount 01 Oct 1922 Above All Law
(Das indische Grabmal)
Europäische Film 22 Oct 1921 Germany
Pathé 08 Oct 1922 One Night in Paris
(Le Mauvais Garçon)
Pathé Consortium 09 Feb 1923 France
Pathé 05 Nov 1922 The Man and the Moment Walturdaw 01 Jul 1918 UK
Pathé 24 Dec 1922 A Bill of Divorcement Ideal 01 Aug 1922 UK
Pathé 11 Feb 1923 The Pauper Millionaire Ideal 01 Jun 1922 UK
Goldwyn 04 Mar 1923 Mad Love
(Sappho)
Ufa 09 Sep 1921 Germany
Pathé 27 May 1923 The Fortune of Christina McNab Gaumont-British 01 Apr 1921 UK
United Artists 02 Jun 1923 Paddy-the-Next-Best-Thing Graham-Wilcox 01 Jan 1923 UK
Selznick 02 Jun 1923 The Monkey’s Paw Artistic Pictures 01 Feb 1923 UK
Selznick 23 Jun 1923 The Queen of Sin
(Sodom und Gomorrha)
Ufa 13 Oct 1922 Austria
Paramount 24 Jun 1923 Peter the Great
(Peter der Große)
Europäische Film 02 Nov 1922 Germany
Pathé 12 Aug 1923 Harbor Lights
(The Harbour Lights)
Ideal 01 Feb 1923 UK
Fox 16 Sep 1923 Monna Vanna Emelka 21 Dec 1922 Germany
Pathé 23 Sep 1923 David Copperfield UFA 05 Dec 1922 Denmark
Pathé 07 Oct 1923 Foolish Parents
(The Grass Child)
Ideal 01 Dec 1922 UK
Fox 30 Dec 1923 This Freedom Ideal 31 Mar 1923 UK
Selznick 12 Jan 1924 Woman to Woman Woolf & Freedman 01 Nov 1923 UK
Fox 03 Feb 1924 The Blizzard
(Gunnar Hedes Saga)
Svenska Bios Filmbyra 01 Jan 1923 Sweden
United Artists 15 Feb 1924 A Woman’s Secret
(Southern Love
)
Graham-Wilcox 01 Jan 1924 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 21 Apr 1924 The Beloved Vagabond Astra-National opened 22 Oct 1923 in London UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 26 May 1924 The Danger Line
(La Bataille)
Établissements Louis Aubert 28 Dec 1923 France
Selznick 01 Jun 1924 White Shadows
(The White Shadow)
Woolf & Freedman tradeshow Feb 1924 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 02 Jun 1924 Napoleon and Josephine
(A Royal Divorce)
01 Jan 1923 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 09 Jun 1924 There’s Millions in It
(Out to Win)
Ideal 01 Aug 1923 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 16 Jun 1924 Swords and the Woman
(I Will Repay)
Ideal 01 Oct 1923 UK
Paramount 22 Jun 1924 Montmartre
(Die Flamme)
Pagu 11 Sep 1923 Germany
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 23 Jun 1924 Neglected Women
(The Great Well)
Ideal 01 Mar 1924 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 24 Aug 1924 Messalina Guazzoni Film 05 Apr 1905 Italy
Universal 05 Jan 1925 The Last Laugh
(Der letzte Mann)
UFA 23 Dec 1924 Germany Re-edited by director
MGM 05 Jan 1925 Chu-Chin-Chow Graham-Wilcox 01 Aug 1923 UK
First National 15 Feb 1925 Quo Vadis? Unione Cinematografica Italiana 15 Feb 1925 Italy
United Artists 01 Mar 1926 The Only Way Herbert Wilcox/First National 01 Aug 1925 UK
Paramount 24 May 1926 The Secret Spring
(Koenigsmark)
Films Radia 01 Nov 1923 France
Paramount 27 Jun 1926 Variety
(Varieté)
Ufa 16 Nov 1925 Germany Cut by half
MGM 12 Sep 1926 The Waltz Dream
(Ein Walzertraum)
Decla-Bioscop 18 Dec 1925 Germany
Paramount 13 Sep 1926 Nell Gwynn British National/First National opened 01 Mar 1926 in London UK
MGM 06 Dec 1926 Faust Ufa 14 Oct 1926 Germany Re-edited by director
Universal 02 Jan 1927 Michel Strogoff Ciné France 30 Jun 1926 France
Paramount 19 Feb 1927 London British National/Paramount tradeshow 25 Jan 1927 UK
Paramount 13 Mar 1927 Metropolis Ufa 10 Jan 1927 Germany Cut from 16 reels to 8
Fox 03 Apr 1927 Madame Wants No Children
(Madame wünscht keine Kinder)
Deutsche Vereins-Film 14 Dec 1926 Germany
Paramount 14 May 1927 Tiptoes British National/Paramount tradeshow 18 May 1928 UK
Mutual / Robertson-Cole / FBO 25 Jun 1927 Moon of Israel
(Der Sklavenkönigin)
UFA 24 Oct 1924 Austria
Paramount 13 Aug 1927 Madame Pompadour British National/Paramount tradeshow 24 Apr 1928 UK
Universal 30 Oct 1927 Les Misérables Pathé Consortium Nov 1925-Jan 1926 France
Pathé 20 Nov 1927 Discord
(Hans engelska fru)
Svenska Biografteaterns Filmbyrå 17 Jan 1927 Sweden, Germany
Paramount 26 Nov 1927 The Last Waltz
(Der letzte Walzer)
Ufa 19 Aug 1927 Germany
Pathé 18 Dec 1927 The Golden Clown
(Klovnen)
Fotorama 30 Oct 1926 Denmark
Paramount 28 Jan 1928 Peaks of Destiny
(Der Berg des Schicksals)
Alpenfilm AG 10 May 1924 Germany
Paramount 31 Mar 1928 Adventure Mad
(Die drei Kuckucksuhren)
Ufa 25 May 1926 Germany
MGM 19 May 1928 Skirts
(A Little Bit of Fluff)
Wardour 22 May 1928 UK
MGM 02 Jun 1928 Mademoiselle from Armentieres Gaumont 13 Sep 1926 GB
First National 29 Jul 1928 The Strange Case of Captain Ramper
(Ramper der Tiermensch)
Defina GmbH 31 Oct 1927 Germany
Paramount 22 Sep 1928 The Model from Montmartre
(La Femme nue)
Pathé-Natan 10 Dec 1926 France
MGM 27 Oct 1928 Napoleon
(Napoléon vu par Abel Gance)
Gaumont 07 Apr 1927 France 3+ hours deleted
Pathé 28 Oct 1928 Forbidden Love
(The Queen Was in the Parlour)
Woolf & Freedman 29 Apr 1927 UK
Paramount 03 Nov 1928 Huntingtower Welsh-Pearson/Paramount 24 Feb 1928 GB
First National Pictures 04 Nov 1928 Theresa Raquin
(Thérèse Raquin)
Defina 22 Feb 1928 Germany
First National 25 Nov 1928 The Ware Case Film Manufacturing Co./First National 27 Apr 1928 UK
Universal 02 Dec 1928 The Hero of the Circus
(Maciste nella gabbia dei leoni)
Cinès-Pittaluga 10 Feb 1926 Italy
MGM 08 Dec 1928 Spies
(Spione)
Ufa 22 Mar 1928 Germany Cut by half
Paramount 12 Jan 1929 Behind the German Lines
(possibly assembled for US only)
Ufa Germany
First National 13 Jan 1929 Dancing Vienna
(Das tanzende Wien)
Defina 01 Oct 1927 Austria
MGM 16 Feb 1929 The Loves of Casanova
(Casanova)
Pathé 13 Sep 1927 France
Paramount 16 Feb 1929 The Homecoming
(Heimkehr)
Ufa 29 Aug 1928 Germany
Paramount 16 Mar 1929 Looping the Loop
(Die Todesschleife)
Ufa 15 Sep 1928 Germany
United Artists 01 Jun 1929 The Three Passions St. George’s/UA opened 04 Feb 1929 in London UK
Paramount 03 Aug 1929 Hungarian Rhapsody
(Ungarische Rhapsodie)
Ufa 05 Nov 1928 Germany
Paramount 24 Aug 1929 The Soul of France
(La Grande épeuve)
Les Éetablissements Jacques Haïk 26 Apr 1928 France
United Artists 12 Oct 1929 Vénus Films Mercanton/UA opened 22 Apr 1929 in London France


Of course, you know that I’m lying. I confess. What I wrote above is a lie, but not exactly. A few other foreign films reached these shores without Hollywood-imposed alterations. That happened only because foreign distributors booked them here directly. The Fritz Lang/Thea Von Harbou epic, Die Nibelungen, was shown in the US probably without alterations, except that the second half was not shown at all. Only the first half, “Siegfried,” was shown here. “Kriemhild’s Revenge” was dropped from the program, which made for a lopsided viewing experience that left audiences hanging. To get it shown in the United States, Ufa had to rent the cinemas itself: The Century and then the Rialto in Manhattan, the Capitol in San Francisco, and Philharmonic Auditorium (aka Clune’s) in Los Ángeles. No Hollywood distributor wanted anything to do with it. I suppose the same happened with a few other films as well.


Played through Saturday, 19 September 1925, a four-week booking.


One week, through 26 December 1925.


Played two weeks through Sunday, 29 November 1925.


Played six days through Saturday, 28 November 1925.

Well, it turns out that “Kriemhild’s Revenge” did arrive in the US after all, a couple of years later, sometimes together with “Siegfried” and sometimes divorced from him. Once again, this was booked directly by Ufa. It got only a few bookings:.





The two movies also popped up at the Lyric in Baltimore and at the Little in DC in the spring and summer of 1928 and then at St. George’s Playhouse in Brooklyn in November, at the Little in Philadelphia in December, at the Little in Buffalo in September 1929, at the Filmarte in Los Ángeles in December 1929, at the Little in Detroit in January 1930, at the Little in Rochester in October 1930, at Scripps College in Claremont in February 1931, and at the Stanford Assembly Hall in Palo Alto that same month. And that might have been it.

The Soviet Union bypassed Hollywood distribution by having its own distributor, Amkino, release a few select Soviet pictures here, but that resulted in only a few bookings, probably all at small off-the-beaten-path movie houses. Shown here were the same editions shown in the USSR. No Hollywood distributor would touch them. As far as I know, these were the only Soviet silents shown here, and they got nearly no publicity:

US première NYC Title
12 Dec 1926 Armored Cruiser Potemkin
11 Mar 1928 The Wings of a Serf
17 Jun 1928 The Stationmaster
28 Jul 1928 The Bear’s Wedding
13 Oct 1928 Three Friends and an Invention
02 Nov 1928 October
17 Nov 1928 Mechanics of the Brain
15 Dec 1928 Yellow Pass
01 Feb 1929 Two Days
11 Feb 1929 The White Eagle
19 Feb 1929 Feat in the Ice
15 Apr 1929 Prisoners of the Sea
12 May 1929 Man with a Movie Camera
07 Jul 1929 The Red Olympiad
20 Jul 1929 In Old Siberia
10 Aug 1929 The Power of Evil
18 Aug 1929 Her Way
07 Sep 1929 Seeds of Freedom
16 Sep 1929 Moscow in October
26 Oct 1929 Scandal
09 Nov 1929 Arsenal
30 Nov 1929 The New Babylon
02 Dec 1929 Caucasian Love
04 Jan 1930 Man from the Restaurant
16 Jan 1930 Demon of the Steppes
25 Jan 1930 Fragment of an Empire
02 May 1930 The General Line
24 May 1930 Turksib
06 Jun 1930 Cain and Artem
29 Jun 1930 Children of the New Day
25 Jul 1930 Law of the Siberian Taiga
06 Sep 1930 Storm over Asia
17 Oct 1930 Earth
28 Nov 1930 The Break-Up
01 Dec 1930 Igdenbu
03 Jan 1931 The Living Corpse
17 Jan 1931 Father Frost
21 Mar 1931 Transport of Fire
03 Apr 1931 Cities and Years
24 Jul 1931 A Jew at War
18 Mar 1932 And Quiet Flows the Don
19 Jun 1931 Black Sea Mutiny
05 May 1932 The Earth Is Thirsty
24 Aug 1932 Clown George
21 Oct 1932 The Last Insult
18 Nov 1932 False Uniforms
10 Feb 1933 Jimmie Higgins (permitted only in private clubs)
12 Feb 1933 Life Is Beautiful
04 Apr 1933 Rivals
05 Sep 1933 An Hour with Chekhov
29 Oct 1933 Three Thieves
18 Feb 1934 Motele the Weaver
29 May 1934 Mother
Canceled? Judas


The advantage of having a foreign company release foreign films in the US: The films can be shown in the US. The disadvantage of having a foreign company release foreign films in the US: The films can only barely be shown. Since the above films did not have Hollywood sponsorship, they had probably fewer than five brief bookings each. Why the Kremlin insisted that Amkino continue its activities in the US, I have no clue — unless it was a convenient cover to collect intel?

So, while Hollywood was flooding foreign markets with its own films, it was not permitting foreign films to get more than the smallest exposure in the US. The German studios were constantly trying to break through that impasse, to no avail.

Now we run into a contradiction. The idea that Paramount insisted upon shorter movies is ludicrous. Paramount at the same time was releasing Wings, which was the same length as Metropolis. United Artists’ The Thief of Bagdad was the same length. MGM’s Ben-Hur and The Big Parade were the same length. The list goes on. So the idea about movies needing to be reduced to standard length holds no water. Yet Paramount reduced the movie to standard length. Ufa, spending Paramount’s money, had produced a specialty item. Paramount amputated the specialty away and left merely a crippled item. Then Paramount’s parent company, Publix, decided it wanted a standard programmer instead, suitable for a continuous-show (grindhouse) policy. So, though Paramount and Publix were perfectly okay with specialty items running two and a half hours, some bureaucrats decided, effectively, “Yeah, that’s a great idea — for us, not for foreign competition.”

Here’s a similar thought. Paramount had paid (in full?) for the production of Metropolis and definitely wanted a return on its (probably) $190,500 investment. On the other hand, Hollywood was busy making its own massive epics, such as Wings and The Thief of Bagdad and Ben-Hur and The Big Parade, mentioned above, all of them pretty dumb but visually stunning. Metropolis would easily have given the Hollywood epics a run for their money. In terms of plot, it was just as silly as its American counterparts, but it was made with enough panache and bravado and sincerity to rise above the level of its Hollywood rivals. Hollywood’s goal in usurping European bosses was to ensure the primacy of Hollywood product in the marketplace. So, Paramount was endeavoring to achieve two contradictory goals: Get a return on its Metropolis investment by booking it heavily, but ensure that it draws no attention or sales away from Hollywood product. So, by means of massive cuts and overspeeding (105'/min. = 28fps), and putting it on double bills with Hoot Gibson westerns and vaudeville acts, Paramount converted a monumental and overpowering epic into a dinky little 75-minute quickie to pass the time. They crippled it enough to nullify its artistic impact but not enough to nullify its market value. This, I suppose, more than anything else, was the goal. When you try to crack a case, look at what the parties did, look at what they went far out of their way to do, look at what they consistently went far out of their way to do, look at the consistent results of their activity, and you have likely reasoned out the motive. So, I think this is the explanation.

Below is a press release that began to circulate about the time the movie first opened in early March 1927. I cannot find the original printing, and some newspapers abridged it. Below is probably the complete press release, reprinted several months later.



Pollock was not the editor. He watched the movie six times, on a small screen, in dead silence, with only a stenographer by his side and a push button by which he could tell the projectionist to pause the film. He took some notes and spent a few days telling Julian Johnson, Edgar Adams, and their editing crew what to do. Then he went back home with a much fatter wallet. Remember, what we have above is a press release, and it is a bad idea to believe a press release. We do not know if Channing made the statements attributed to him, but I suppose he said something to their effect. Even if it was a staff publicist who invented his quotations, we can nonetheless see from the press release above that Channing didn’t understand the movie at all. That is even more clear when we watch his abridgment. He tried “to make it interesting to the ordinary intelligence.” Say what? I do not know what “ordinary intelligence” means. Intelligence is a nebulous concept, and nearly everybody I have ever met is extraordinarily intelligent in a few areas, extraordinarily unintelligent in a few other areas, and generally bumbles through life. That’s what I do, bumble, nothing better. I would not know how to cater to “ordinary intelligence,” and I certainly would not know how to pander to it. No play, no movie, no book, no musical composition, no recipe, no landscape has universal appeal. We are each of us the product of our upbringing, our environment, our society, as well as of our own innate and in many ways immutable individual thought patterns. What speaks to one of us will leave many or most others cold and baffled. Again, that’s just the nature of the beast. It is impossible to retool Metropolis to give it broader appeal. Its appeal could certainly be narrowed, though, narrowed by slashing. What was Channing attempting to do? Was he trying to simplify a movie that, at its surface level, was already quite simple-minded? It was a hit in Berlin and ran to packed houses for four months. It had been shown in several other European countries, too, and I suppose it did well, though I do not have any data, unfortunately. Was the Berlin run, by itself, not sufficient indication of popular appeal? Was Channing trying to hammer the film into his own idealistic framework? My guess is that we would be wrong to search about for higher goals. Channing was simply drooling at the massive paycheck and he would do anything at all to earn it. Would he have been happy if another writer were to treat his own plays in a similar fashion? Did he care? By changing the characters’ names and by rewriting the titles, he attempted to Americanize a distinctly German work. Americanizing a foreign work is invariably awkward and ruinous, unless it’s done as a joke.

Broad Appeal. Let us ponder Broad Appeal for a moment. Let us perform a thought experiment. You are all familiar with Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony, yes? Suppose Victor Records had decided to issue this symphony, but that its executives were worried about Broad Appeal. So they ordered their staff to cut the symphony down to two and a half minutes and to have it performed as a foxtrot with lyrics by Will Marion Cook. Satisfied with their result, the executives then had the only copies of the full score tossed into the incinerator. Would that give it Broad Appeal?

No artist knows if his piece works until it is tested with an audience. Fritz was notorious as an obnoxious madman, a persona he maintained only at the studio, yet the artist in him remained receptive to suggestions, always. If changes were needed, he would have been open to listening, pondering, pitching in. He would always agree with an intelligent criticism, and he would uncomplainingly make adjustments. If Channing had good ideas for altering the film, Fritz would have listened attentively and the two could have, would have reached an agreement. It is apparent that Channing never reached out to Fritz. Perhaps he was told not to. Since he agreed to alter someone else’s work without involving the original creator, well, my respect for him takes a nosedive. That is an offense I simply cannot abide.


This new main title was created by a staffer at Paramount Pictures for the US release. This appears on a YouTube video, and so it was either taken from Reg Hartt’s 16mm print or it was taken from another print of the US edition. I wish I knew which. If there’s a print other than Reg’s, we must locate it!


So, following Channing’s ideas, the editing crew shortened the movie drastically, changed the characters’ names, changed the plot, rewrote the titles, and rearranged the scenes. The elimination of the rivalry over Hel, the elimination of Georgy’s adventures in the limo, the elimination of Der Schmale’s visit to Josaphat’s flat, the elimination of the monk, the elimination of Der Schmale’s transformation into the monk, the elimination of the fight between Joh and Rotwang, the elimination of the lynch mob mistaking the real Maria for the imposter, denuded the story of its coherence and discarded more than half of its entertainment value. At Channing’s suggestion, the editing crew also added a prologue, an embarrassingly bad and corny prologue:

NO SOUND
This is how his prologue appeared in Australia and therefore in the export edition.
It was probably identical in the Paramount/US edition, but I can’t be certain of that.


That painfully awful prologue colors everything that follows and thereby distorts the audience’s perception of the film. It is clear, more than obvious, that Channing Pollock entirely misunderstood the movie. He was blind to the allegory. He misunderstood the plot. He misunderstood the symbolism. He did not understand that the movie was a deliberately ludicrous satire. He misunderstood the comedy as drama. He misunderstood everything, everything, everything. Metropolis is not a difficult story. When viewed without knowledge of its didactic agitprop socio-political purpose, it comes across as a ridiculously stupid story. Yet Channing Pollock had difficulty following even a simplistic story. His attempt to streamline the movie managed only to twist it and cripple it. I’ve not seen Channing Pollock’s plays, but if he wasn’t even intelligent enough to understand something so childishly simple as Metropolis, I can only wonder about his gifts as a playwright. I suppose his plays are unendurably bad. I could be wrong about that. Life is full of surprises.

Randolph Bartlett? Who the heck is Randolph Bartlett? This Randolph Bartlett reminds me of a book publisher and also of a movie producer under whom I unfortunately labored, who did their utmost to ruin everything they touched, because were convinced that they were smarter than the authors and that they were rescuing hopeless disasters. This Randolph Bartlett complains about how the German films in their original forms were “extremely naïve,” but yet the Hollywood revisions made them far more naïve, not less.

By the time the editing crew completed incorporating Channing Pollock’s suggested changes into the film, the result was about 3,170m, or about 10,400' assembled onto 12 reels. The common claim, then and now, is that this 10,400' edition roadshowed at the Rialto in Manhattan. At the preferred projection rate of 97.5'/min. (26fps), it would have lasted 107 minutes. Yet that is not what happened. Not at all. The claim is wrong. Wrong. Totally, totally wrong. That is NOT what played at the Rialto.

In truth, the print that premièred at the Rialto was a mere 8,039'. We have no documentation that would explain why. We have no evidence that would explain why. We have no rumors that would purport to explain why. All we know, and we know it for certain, that Channing’s edition was about 10,400' and that the première print was 8,039'. So, we have Step A and we have Step C, but we do not have Step B. Step B would explain why Channing’s version was reduced a further 2,400' or thereabouts. Though we do not know, though we do not have documentation, there is only one possibility: The Publix executives ordered Paramount to trim the film to 8,000' or thereabouts, to fit its standard programming schedules. Any idea that Metropolis was a specialty item for a specialty audience that needed specialty handling was now entirely jettisoned.

A ha! Found it! The evidence! I found it. I wasn’t even looking for it, but I found it! Yay! Let us take a look at a rival press release below. It is the oddest press release I have ever seen, because it makes a confession:



See? Told ya. This entirely unorthodox press release was also published in The Montgomery Advertiser, Monday, 19 September 1927, p. 7. I have not run across it anywhere else. I suppose it was issued when the supervisor was out on vacation and I suppose it was withdrawn as soon as the supervisor returned and read it with horror. Note what it says: Metropoliswas originally imported by Paramount for ‘two-a-day’ road showing, but Publix Theaters made arrangements to exhibit it at popular prices.” The copywriter who typed that up and shot it out over the wire service was out of a job a few days later. A press agent should realize that nothing should be mentioned about any changes, but that if, for some reason, there is a compelling legal need to make a mention about changes, then the statement should simply be that Paramount and/or Pollock adapted it from the German original, reducing it from 16 reels to 9. That is all. Nothing more. This press release, on the other hand, revealed a bit about boardroom politics. Terminable offense. But I’m glad. I feel vindicated. Hoorah.

On the “Classic Horror Forum” chat group, we discover that Steve Joyce (“Barbenfouillis”), in a post from 16 March 2023, recently ordered copies of items from the Forest J Ackerman archive, and these include this fascinating quote from the local NYC censor board:

March 7 1927 Letter to Famous Players Lasky: Gentlemen, Your picture “METROPOLIS” has been reviewed. The following eliminations have been ordered: Reel 8: Eliminate view of body dance where the motions of dancer’s body are brought from slow tempo to distasteful, exaggerated rhythm, in sensual, suggestive movements. (This will eliminate at least 8 of the 17 views shown.) The reason for the above eliminations is that they are “indecent”. Please make the eliminations ordered and return print for rescreening.... from James Wingate, Director [on another page identified as director of The Motion Picture Division, Education Department, 220 West 42nd Street, New York City.] ~ a fellow named Glendon Allvine made the changes and re-submitted them within days.

That was not in Reel 8, by the way. It was at the end of Reel 6, and definitely not in Reel 8. Except that it was in Reel 8. Paramount mistakenly sent the censor board a leftover print of the 12-reel Channing Pollock edition rather than the 9-reel release edition. Why did Paramount send out a 9-reel release edition to the Rialto but a 12-reel pre-release edition to the local censor board? Because the editing department and the shipping department and the publicity department were three different departments, and they probably ate in different corners of the commissary. That’s why. Simple as that. It is clear that the 8 shots (probably about 12 or 15 feet, or eight seconds) were deleted not in just this one print, but in all US/Canadian prints. The order was made on 7 March, and the eliminations were made that day, and the deleted footage was sent to the censor board that very day, which was TWO DAYS AFTER the film opened. The audiences who saw the film those first few days saw a few extra seconds. By 8 March, that footage was physically chopped out. This topic comes up again 27 years later, as we shall see.

The print that opened at the Rialto was 8,039 feet mounted onto nine reels, soon reduced to about 8,025' more or less, supplied with James C. Bradford’s music cues, which probably no accompanist bothered much with. Cinema musicians preferred to assemble their own cues, and many piano and organ soloists just played the films cold.

Now, Rod Sauer is one of those people who just makes me want to wither into nothingness. He is what I wish I had been, but I wasn’t, I didn’t, I couldn’t, and so I just witness his work with a mixture of frustration, envy, and awe. My life simply took that wrong left toin in Albuquoique. He authored a lovely article, “Silence Gets Sound,” in which wrote he:

What is a musical cue sheet? It was not uncommon for films to be tightly scheduled. A film might finish its run at one theater, then be shipped to another theater and open the very next night. That made it very difficult for a theater’s music department to prepare a score ahead of time. So for most films, a cue sheet was sent ahead of the film. It would contain a list of scenes in the film, with a small sample of music suggested by the cue sheet compiler as appropriate for that scene. The theater’s music director would compile a score, perhaps using some of the suggestions (if the theater had them in its library), and making substitutions of similar music for other scenes.

Cue sheets were not prepared by the movie producers, but by people working for music publishing companies. Often you can catch the cue sheet compiler pushing his own compositions, or other pieces recently published by his publishing house.

Here are Bradford’s cues, and I found some of these pieces loaded to YouTube and other websites. So, here we go:

Isaac Snoek (1870–1943), Ouverture dramatique (op. 135), pour orchestre, avec piano conducteur
Paris: J. Yves K., éditeur, 1926
Printed score available online
This was played over the credits added by Paramount.
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), Histoire romanesque
Written score available online
This was played over Channing Pollock’s introduction, and it continues over the original main title.
Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Flying Dutchman overture
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), Queen of Spades
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), Flight of the Bumble Bee
Carl Böhm (1844–1920), Cavatina
Minnie T. Wright (1874–1929), Love-Song
It is thanks to “Six Minutes with Satch: Laughin’ Louie / Tomorrow Night,” The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong, 13 April 2020, that we learn where we can hear a recording of an excerpt from this piece. It was used for the Van Beuren/RKO 30 September 1932 reissue of Easy Street, which was reissued in turn in the Charlie Chaplin Festival of 1938. So, using Handbrake, I pulled the excerpt.
Camille Saint Saëns (1835–1921), Le déluge, prélude
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), Angosciosamente
Written score available online
William Axt (1888–1959), The Toilers
sheet music
I don’t know where the “Suddenly” title appeared. It is not in the Harry Davidson print. My guess is that it comes just before the explosion, or perhaps just before the transformation into Moloch.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), Queen of Spades
Alexander Ilyinsky (1859–1920), Orgies of the Spirits
Hans Sommer (1904–2000), Temptation
Not available online
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), Chimene
Not available online
C. Fietter (1884–1946), Wotan
Printed score available online
Edward Kilenyi (1884–1968), Agitato pathétique
Not available online
Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Flying Dutchman overture
Alexander Ilyinsky (1859–1920), Gnomes, 3rd movement of Noure et Anitra, opus 13
full score
“Within easy reach” is a title that does not appear in any print I have seen. I suppose it introduced Rotwang’s house.
C. Fietter (1884–1946), Wotan
Printed score available online “There is one thing more” is a title that does not appear in any print I have seen. I assume it belonged to this scene with Rotwang and Masterman.
Gaston Borch (1871–1926), Enigma
“Flash-back” was used differently in the 1920’s; it meant “cut back to.”
C. Fietter (1884–1946), Wotan
Printed score available online
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), Queen of Spades
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), Coeur meurtri (Arr. Hans Ourdine) [S. Chapelier, Paris, France], 1925)
Printed score available online
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), Queen of Spades
Simeon B. Marsh (1798–1875), Jesus, Lover of My Soul (Martyn)
The title “The forgotten Christ” does not appear in any print I have seen.
Bertram Srawley (1883–1955), Prélude futuristique
Not available online
Félix Fourdrain (1880–1923), Dans la montagne (Paris: Choudens, éditeur, 1928)
Not available online
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847), Cast Thy Burden upon the Lord
C. Fietter (1884–1946), Wotan
Printed score available online
Louis Bourgeois (1510–1559), Old Hundredth
This is an excellent example of how poorly proofread these cue sheets were, how slipshod was their production. Masterman and Rotwang do not disappear. Masterman walks off, but Rotwang stays behind.
Minnie T. Wright (1874–1929), Love-Song
Karl Neinass, Spirit of the Night
sheet music
Alexander Ilyinsky (1859–1920), Gnomes, 3rd movement of Noure et Anitra, opus 13
full score
“Rotwang lost no time” is a title I have not seen in any print.
Ernest Weiller (1863–1944), Eternal Poëme
Not available online
“That night” is a title I do not recall seeing in any print. It had to have introduced this scene.
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859–1935), In the Village, Caucasian Sketches, Suite No. 1
It is now definitive that this scene was included in the première print shown at the Rialto in Manhattan in March 1927. It would be deleted in early August, and it is omitted from the Harry Davidson print.
Irénée Bergé (1867–1926), Tragic Scene
Printed score available online
In the Australian release, the order of the scenes was 38, 36, 37.
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), Le Seigneur de Kermor
Someone who called him/herself silentmoviefan used this piece in some scenes from The Eagle.
I do not recalled ever having seen the title, “But Rotwang did not reckon.”
In the Australian release, the order of the scenes was 38, 36, 37.
Minnie T. Wright (1874–1929), Love-Song
In the Australian release, the order of the scenes was 38, 36, 37.
Theodor Robert Leuschner (1878–1959), In the Midst of the Typhoon
Not available online
James C. Bradford (1885–1941), Sinister Presto
sheet music
James C. Bradford (1885–1941), Chanson Algerian
sheet music
Herbert Edgar Haines, Storm or fire music
Printed score available online
Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852–1928), La foret perfide
Not available online
This is another example of careless proofreading. Masterman is alone in the office. The laborer is on view only through a videophone.
Édouard Patou, Catastrophe
In the Paramount edition, the title was indeed “Smash that girl!” In the export edition, the title was “Do what you can to hold them. Reason with them. Capture that girl!” (Enno Patalas, Metropolis in/aus Trümmern, Berlin: Dieter Bertz Verlag: 2001, p. 136)
Theodor Robert Leuschner (1878–1959), Violent Gale
Not available online
James C. Bradford (1885–1941), Sinister Presto
Published score available online
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), Dans des bouffons
Giuseppe Becce (1877–1973), Battle-Tumult-Blaze
Printed score available online
Olsen (Ольсенъ), Russian March (Русскiй Маршъ)
No clue who this Olsen person was, no clue at all.
Oh. Wait. Found him! Not Olsen, but Ohlsen.
Emil Ohlsen, 27 May 1860 – 1943.
The title, “Efficiency,” does not appear in any print of the film I have seen. This is the only spot where it could possibly fit, though it obviously does not belong. Yup, I was right. Enno Patalas, in Metropolis in/aus Trümmern, p. 155, states that in the American edition there was a title here: “Efficiency triumphant !”
Édouard Patou, The Ambush
This scene was trimmed slightly in early August 1927 to reduce the images of the witch being burned at the stake. The trimming was done for the Australian release as well.
John Stepan Zamecnik (1872–1953), Fury
Printed score available online
Minnie T. Wright (1874–1929), Love-Song
“I thank Thee dear God” does not appear in the Harry Davidson print, though “Thank heaven!” appears in the Eckart Jahnke edition of 1972. The latest restoration does not have, and does not need, any title here.
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), Largo

As far as I know, the US Paramount edition of Metropolis was never issued on home video, and so the closest approximation we can find to it is the Australian print once held by Harry Davidson. It was from the export negative rather than the US negative, but it is still useful as a reference, and most of the frame grabs above are thus from the online Harry Davidson print.

What do we learn from the above cues? We learn that this is a game that cannot fail. These cues, used in countless cue sheets for countless movies, became clichéd by repetition. They followed a predictable formula. For a suspense scene, the compiler would grab one of a few dozen appropriate suspense pieces. For a love scene, the compiler would grab one of a few other dozen appropriate love pieces. And so on and so on and so on. It was music score created by assembly line. Entirely impersonal. Yet it could not go wrong, because most of the music was wonderful, so good that it would work automatically.


The above advertisement, from Vox News, February 1927,
was posted anonymously on Grammophon-Platten.de.


Pay attention to what Fritz said about the power of film. He was right. He was reacting against WWI and its aftermath and the lingering hostilities. He was arguing for internationalism and universal peace. It is a tragedy that his words were not taken seriously and that cinema has continued to be an industry dedicated to banality and pandering to the lowest forms of sensationalism, and that it is used more to divide than to unite. When we ponder his words, we understand better what he was trying to do with Metropolis, a ridiculously overblown story. We learn that there was a message as well, a perfectly valid message.

Here is what Thomas Elsaesser wrote about this recording in his BFI Guide (p. 103, note 58):

...Of the gramophone record (‘sole rights Vox-Company’), which is advertised in the Licht-Bild-Bühne, 15 January 1927, only one copy is known to have survived in a private collection. Its owner apparently refuses to sell it, lend it out, or even play it to visitors, for fear of secret copying. My thanks to Martin Koerber for this information.

That is why I never thought I would be lucky enough to hear this. But it turned out not to have been the only surviving copy, and other collectors are not quite so jealous about their acquisitions. Side A, Fritz’s introduction, was posted by Rodaroda at https://youtu.be/2tOqOjBLIcs. Side B, Gottfried introducing four of his motifs, was posted by JetJagga at https://youtu.be/4JEGOJ1jE6I. The transcript of Fritz’s intro, side by side with an English translation, was posted by Michael Cowan at The Promise of Cinema in September 2015. Oh the wonders of the Internet!!!!! Now, 78’s were almost never really 78. Speeds ranged from about 60 to 100, and that’s why gramophones had speed controls on the turntables. To my untrained ears, these two YouTube videos sound a bit slow. When I turned up the speed by 10%, they sounded fine, except that for a few moments Fritz speeds up too much. I suspect that there was a fault in the original, though for the life of me I can’t figure out how on earth that could have happened. Anyway, I speed-adjusted these recordings and I hope that my 10% guess is pretty much on the mark, and I added subtitles from Michael Cowan’s document. One thing is clear: Fritz and Gottfried both took their work seriously. They were not mere entertainers going through the motions to earn some coin. They were sincere, completely sincere.

For what it’s worth, Fritz recorded his intro several times, and his wording was slightly different in each delivery. This is a rather rare disc. One of these rare discs sold at auction on 7 May 2022 for a mere 4,365€.

Gottfried Huppertz himself introduces the motifs. (At least one expert completely disagrees, arguing that the voice is too calm to belong to the conductor, and that the microphone could not have been placed that close to his mouth. If you have ever sat in on an orchestra rehearsal, you will recognize that’s exactly how conductors talk to their musicians. Though I am not an expert on 1927 recordings, if I were handed the equipment, I am certain that in several minutes I could arrange to have the microphone right next to the conductor’s mouth without compromising the other aspects of the recording. If there were two microphones, and there may or may not have been, remember that faders were available before 1927. In any case, despite the claim, that is most definitely not Fritz Lang’s voice. I am certain that is Gottfried himself speaking.) This tiny little shellac recording reveals to me the obvious, something so obvious that I had never thought about it before. The composer first creates a handful of motifs, just a few minutes’ worth. With that in hand, the hard part of the creation is done. The rest is just elaborations, variations, and bridges.

Ah! Look at this!


Click to play

ALEXPHONE, https://youtu.be/qdkQEIp3mKo, posted on 7 August 2016

Someone called ALEXPHONE also posted Huppertz’s themes, but the label on his copy of the disc is different. It specifies the speed: “Umdr. 80,” an abbreviation for “Umdrehungen pro Minute 80,” or 80rpm. I have never before seen the speed printed onto a label.

Oh my heavens! There’s more!


METROPOLIS : DANSE FANTASTIQUE ET DANSE MACABRE Gottfried HUPPERTZ
Posted by ALEXPHONE at https://youtu.be/t3nuDzn8q9c on 7 August 2016.
When YouTube disappears it, download it.
Another transfer was posted by Martin Arnold 21 February 2021.



Phantastischer Tanz und Totentanz aus Metropolis -
Georg Huppertz Berlin Februar 1927

Posted by Rodaroda at https://youtu.be/CvzICd5K6K8 on 23 February 2014.
Same recording as the one above, but different label is glued onto the disc.
When YouTube disappears it, download it.



METROPOLIS Musique dirigée par son compositeur Gottfried HUPPERTZ
Posted by ALEXPHONE at https://youtu.be/X7PcpcvOdKo on 7 August 2016.
When YouTube disappears it, download it.
Another transfer was posted by Martin Arnold 21 February 2021.


Huppertz composed his score by reading the script, long before shooting commenced. He would be on set and play his cues for the actors and crew as the scenes were being filmed. When the final edit was complete, he polished his score, which had been nearly ready to go for months by that time. I have heard it said that much of Huppertz’s score was adapted from works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Never have I liked the music of the two Richards. Their music is, to me, like fingernails across a chalkboard. Yet when Huppertz adapted their tunes, they became wonderful. Did he choose pieces I have not heard? Or did he soften their abrasive compositions? I do not know. I can’t say. If you know, please let me know. Thanks! There are those who dislike Huppertz’s score, and that’s fine. It’s a big wide wonderful world, and there is no law that forces us to like something not to our taste. (See Arthur Kaptainis, “Organist Thierry Escaich Pulls Out the Stops for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,” Montréal Gazette, 21 January 2016.) Yet even those who dislike his score would have a hard time denying that it is entirely appropriate, first note to last. In my opinion, it’s brilliant, it’s perfection. Bradford, on the other hand, knew maybe two thousand pieces by heart. I assume that when a film arrived in the screening room, he was handed a breakdown of scenes. As he watched a film, probably only once, certainly no more than twice, he simply scribbled down notes about which clichéd pieces would fit which scenes, pulled the conductor’s scores from his library, marked which passages he wanted in the cue sheet, and a typesetter hastily obliged. Then his job was done, and then he moved right on to the next film in queue. He put no love into his work. After all, this was his eight-to-five job, and he probably “scored” a dozen or so movies every week. While this job started out by tapping into creativity, after a short while it became nothing more than routine drudgery, which got to be a drag after a while. In this day-to-day grind, no movie is special; each movie is just-another-movie. I can’t blame him, yet I am compelled to say that his compilation is anything but inspired. It would be nice to record this score for the film, since it is historical, but I would not recommend that it be adopted for general use. Let’s stick with Huppertz’s masterwork.

For reference, 8,039' feet would have been 89 minutes at 24fps but was 82 minutes at 26fps or 76½ minutes at 28fps. Though the intention was to project Channing Pollock’s edition at a hair above 26fps, the shards of surviving evidence suggest that the release edition was normally run at 28fps.


Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss, aka Lyonel Samson Reiso (29 Jan 1894 – 16 Apr 1986).
Rialto, 1481 Broadway, Manhattan, NY.







I wonder if this graphic was based on the poster design used for the Rialto booking.




Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.
Reiss surely designed all the ads that were run in the
New York Times in March/April 1927.


Click on the image to enlarge.

In the article above, Herman G. Scheffauer claims the original 16 reels had been cut down to 9 reels for the US release. He was correct, but he was about to be contradicted. Those who contradicted him have managed to distort the historical record ever since, and they have caused untold amounts of confusion.

It would be most helpful if we could check the curtain times at the Rialto, but alas we cannot, for the Rialto did not have curtain times. The Rialto gave “continuous performances,” like so many cinemas of its day. The term for such a cinema was “grind house.” What would grind at a grind house? The projectors’ gears. There was no pause between the shows. When a program came to a finish, it would simply start up all over again, immediately. A grind house would open its doors at, perhaps, 10 o’clock in the morning, with the show already in progress. Passers-by would buy tickets and walk in mid-show. They would stick around until they recognized a familiar scene, mutter to the spouse or kids, “This is where we came in,” and leave. Then, at about midnight, the few remaining stragglers would be kicked out of the building and the show would stop. The lights never came on, which was a bit of a shame, because the auditoriums were gorgeous, and yet nobody could ever see them. The curtains closed after the feature and after each short subject, but the curtains never stayed closed. As soon as they closed on one film, they opened again for the next, without any pause in between.





Reproduced courtesy of Forrest J Ackerman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.


Reproduced courtesy of Forrest J Ackerman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.
Did you catch the tell-tale clue? The dance is in Reel 8. Yet in the print at the Rialto, the dance was in Reel 6. It was in Channing Pollock’s 10,400' 12-reel that the dance was in Reel 8. Paramount sent the 9-reel edition to the Rialto but sent the 12-reel edition to the NYC censor board.


Click on any image to enlarge.
Click on any caption to see the original source.

Daily News

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Brooklyn Daily Times



Reproduced courtesy of Forrest J Ackerman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.

Note that the length is cited as 10,400', which can be mounted onto no fewer than 11 reels, and which, for this film, had been mounted onto 12 reels. The anonymous critic penned the review, but the credits and capsule summary in the bottom left corner were added by clerical staff, based on press materials supplied by Paramount.

Click on either image to enlarge.
Click on either caption to see the original source.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Olean Evening Times

Held over for second week.

Held over for third week.



Above is a snarky review by Sime himself, or by Self himsime. Sime Silverman, founder of Variety, knew enough not to believe the Ufa/Paramount claims about the massive budget, and he wrote that the film appeared “comparatively cheap for the eyeful results obtained.” Note the running time, 107 minutes, which matches 10,400' at 26fps. It is exciting to have a match! The problem with having a match is that Uncle Sime did not time the film. He wrote the review, and only the review. The credits at the top of his column were the responsibility of clerical staff. Sime viewed this movie sometime between 9 March and 14 March 1927.

Below we have a sensible article from the sensible Martin Dickstein, who sensibly muses upon the senseless Hollywood-exec predilection for abridging:



The above is a follow-up to the review he had published six days earlier, on Monday, 7 March 1927. So, Martin Dickstein saw the movie probably the previous day, Sunday, 6 March 1927, and now he claims that it was a mere nine reels. This J.G. Burgtorf of Brooklyn, who wrote to Dickstein, was beyond correct that the film would have sold more tickets with fewer showtimes if only it had not been tampered with. It needed specialty marketing, though, not movie marketing.

Admittedly, Dickstein mentioned that the print at the Rialto was “approximately nine reels,” and Burgtorf is vaguer still: “nine — or is it seven?” Well, remember, it seems that the film was overspeeded at 28fps, and so it ran a few seconds shy of 77 minutes, which was about the time required to show seven reels at a more normal speed. Remember also that Herman G. Scheffauer wrote in his NYT review that the film had been cut down to nine reels. I think we now have sufficient confirmation that, at its very opening performance at the Rialto, Metropolis was a mere nine reels.

How to Calculate

W.K.L. Dickson determined that an ideal image would be 1" wide by ¾" tall. Dickson further determined that an extra 3/16" would be needed to accommodate sprocket holes on either side, resulting in a total width of 1⅜", which was soon rounded up to the nearest millimeter, 35mm. There are exactly 16 frames to each one foot of film, though film quickly shrinks, and so when you measure a length of film, you will find slightly more than 16 frames to each foot. Film can nonetheless be projected and printed even when shrunken, as sprocket holes are oversized and sprocket teeth are undersized. Though filming and projection speeds varied wildly in the silent days, by 1923 the projection speed was pretty much stabilized at 90'/min., which can also be expressed as 24fps (frames per second). This was also commonly referred to, without perfect accuracy, as “11 minutes per 1,000 feet.” Reels originally held up to about 1,000' of film. Certainly by the mid 1910’s, projectionists commonly doubled up the reels, splicing two reels onto a single 2,000' reel. By 1938, films were generally shipped out on 2,000' reels. Just remember: 16 frames per foot, normal projection speed is 24fps, which is 1½'/sec., which is 90'/min. With that basic information, you are fully equipped to do some simple arithmetic.

So, we have claims, from people who were there, that Metropolis when it opened at the Rialto on 5 March 1927 was 8,039' mounted onto 9 reels, as well as claims, from people who were there, that Metropolis when it opened at the Rialto on 5 March 1927 was 10,400' and ran 107 minutes on screen. I have heard this song before. Had I not heard this song before, I would be utterly baffled. But I have heard this song before. I know what happened. Let me explain, and I am absolutely certain about this: At the behest of the Publix cinema chain, Paramount chopped Channing Pollock’s 10,400' edition down to 8,039' for US release. Publix owned Paramount, you see. As for the export edition, though, parent company Publix had no interest, because Publix did not have cinemas in Europe and Africa and Asia and Australia and so forth. For the export edition, Paramount was satisfied with Channing Pollock’s abridgment. That is why the editing crew cut the export negative pretty much to match Pollock’s original abridgment. That is why the export negative was a bit above 10,700'. So, why then did the British prints, the Australian prints, and the New Zealand prints all differ from one another, even though they were all printed from the same negative? They should have been identical, right? Remember, in the silent days, every release print was printed directly from the edited camera negative. So, we can be certain that the British distributor and the Australian distributor and the New Zealand distributor chopped each print individually.

There was a confusion in Paramount’s NYC press room, and so 10,400' was once plopped into a press packet rather than 8,039'. When the clerical staff at Moving Picture World and Variety needed to add credits and length, they relied on Paramount press materials. If the length was ambiguous or missing altogether, a phone call to Paramount HQ would have solved the matter. The Paramount secretary would have riffled through some papers and pronounced, “10,400 feet and it runs 107 minutes,” unaware that there were two radically different editions on hand. The 10,400' claim for the original US print at the Rialto was a simple clerical error. That’s what happened.


Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.


Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.




Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.


Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.




Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.




Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss.










As you can see from the above weekly reports in Variety — well, the reports that are easily available — Metropolis did quite well at the Rialto. It was not a blockbuster. It did not sell out, not by a long shot (the Rialto was far too large to sell out). But it did quite well, and its business was remarkably consistent from week to week. This movie, even in its butchered, lobotomized form, held a lot of promise. Until it was murdered.

Common practice was for a successful picture to play for a week or two in a deluxe cinema in Manhattan. When the run came to an end, all would go quiet for a week or so, and then the picture popped up again in various cinemas throughout NYC. That did not happen with Metropolis. It ran a jaw-dropping SIX WEEKS and then it was pulled from the market for three months. My first guess, my first incorrect guess, was that it had been withdrawn to clear the way for a shorter edition to be shot out to other cities. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. What the Rialto in Times Square got in March and what the next batch of cinemas got in July and August was identical in every way, about 8,025' mounted onto nine reels. So, why it was withdrawn for three months remains a mystery.




Motion Picture News vol. 35 no.  19, 13 May 1927, p. 1711.
Trade ad for the forthcoming wider release in July 1927.
I strongly suspect that this is the design used for the one-sheet poster, but I can’t be sure of that.
Either this artwork is unsigned or the artist’s name was purged.
My guess: The artist’s signature was probably in the lower left, but was obliterated by that indigo panel.




Insert, 14"×36".

Window card, 14"×22".
Either these were unsigned or the artist’s names were purged.

The yellow/red METROPOLIS banner was pasted onto the insert poster prior to printing. The paste was sloppily applied and it printed right into the image and it is quite visible. I wonder if that banner covered over the artist’s name.

Below we have some ad slicks that I found at Posteritati.com.










Lionel S. Reiss’s ad from 6 March 1927, but with a newer title logo.








This last one was adapted (by whom?) from Lionel S. Reiss’s ads of 2 & 9 March 1927.

Radios are useful:


Which incidental music? Bradford’s selections?

When the planet-sized Metropolitan in downtown LA booked Metropolis, it booked it strictly for a one-week run. Why? If it was held over for five weeks in NYC, why did the Metropolitan book it only for one week?


Click here to enlarge.


Metropolitan, 323 W 6th St, Los Ángeles, CA.

Now, only because I know something about Buffalo cinemas, I decided to check on what had happened in Buffalo. What happened in Buffalo is representative of what happened in other second-tier markets. First, there was some advance publicity, to help movie-goers get used to a foreign-sounding name.


Advance publicity in Booffalo.

Then, a few weeks later, the film opened, but in the context of other names with which local audiences would be familiar. That softened the blow and made the strange a little bit familiar.


Seven-day run.
Shea’s Hippodrome.
Oh the gall! Not that it claims, “Direct From Sensational Run In New York at $2.” What rubbish. Ticket prices at the Rialto were 35¢, 50¢, 75¢, and 99¢. Showbiz. If it ain’t a lie, it ain’t worth puttin’ into the press release.


One week was enough. Now it would hop around to the neighborhood houses, one after another.


Two-day run.
Shea’s Kensington.



Two-day run.
Shea’s North Park.


Let’s now take a look at the third-run nabes where it then popped up:

Commodore 5–6 October 1927
Riverside 26–27 October 1927
Colonial 26–27 October 1927
Kenmore 5 November 1927
Roosevelt 10–12 November 1927
Victoria 16–17 November 1927
Granada 23–25 November 1927
Elmwood 21–23 December 1927

So there you have it. It played a single week in a downtown house as though it were any other standard studio programmer, and then it got knocked over to second- and third-run houses to run for one, two, or three days, just like any other standard studio programmer, and then it vanished, just like any other standard studio programmer. As anybody with even half a brain can recognize, Metropolis is not a standard studio programmer. It is a specialty item that needs a specialized sell aimed at a specialized audience. The average audience expecting an average fluffy boy-gets-girl or boy-gets-gun or boy-gets-horse programmer would absolutely HATE Metropolis, but yet that’s the only audience that the exhibitors had in mind.

What can we divine from this? Simple. Metropolis was not treated as a deluxe item, but only as a standard programmer, an unremarkable movie to kill an hour and a half after a strenuous week at the steel mill, nothing more. How many people, wanting to unwind after a strenuous week at the steel mill, do you suppose were pleased to be confronted with Metropolis? I’ll tell you how many: NONE. They were livid, I’m sure. I mean, how would sports fans feel if they paid tickets at the stadium to see a football game but were instead presented with the corps de ballet performing Giselle? The people who run the movie business know nothing about movies. Metropolis is not a time killer and is not meant to be a time killer. It is a mood piece that, ridiculously dumb as it is, requires some thought and contemplation. The movie people dumped it onto the wrong audience. Metropolis was not seen again in Buffalo until it popped up on International Cable Channel 5 in July 1975 (which version that was, I do not know), and then again on PBS in May 1977.

The only other city whose cinema history is familiar to me is Albuquerque. Did Metropolis perchance play there? To my surprise, it did!


Sunshine, 120 Central Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM.

As far as I know, this was the only booking in New Mexico until the UNM Film Society brought it back for a single 16mm screening in 1952.

So, in second-tier cities, it was just-another-movie, and in Nowheresville, it was barely a blip on the radar. This is not the sort of movie that would have gone over big in Albuquerque. As a matter of fact, this is the sort of movie that would probably have sold zero tickets in Albuquerque. Was it shipped to Albuquerque as the result of a clerical error? No. This was intentional. You see, I decided to check the impossible. Anybody with any sense at all would know, even without checking, that Metropolis was not booked in dinky little Fort Collins, right? So I checked Fort Collins, and there it was! It played two days at the America. Zo, I checked some more, and lo and behold, it seemed to have played routinely in cow towns. Absolutely the wrong audience. This ain’t the sorta flick that works in the boonies. I bet that not more than ten people showed up each day and I bet that they all walked out before the end of the first reel. When people in the boonies see that first scene of slaves with their heads down, marching lifelessly in a dull underground corridor, they’ve seen enough; they’re outta there. They paid to see cowboys shoot ’em up or boy-gets-girl or bank robbers or something, something light, something easy, something to take their minds off their troubles. They don’t want to see a bunch of miserable slaves in a gloomy corridor. That ain’t no fun. Images like that just don’t resonate in the boonies. Such concepts mean nothing in the boonies. They really don’t. Allegory doesn’t work well in the boonies. Moodiness doesn’t work well in the boonies. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. You might wish it did, but it doesn’t.

Some advertisements and press releases stated that Metropolis takes place in 2027. Other advertisements and press releases stated that Metropolis takes place in 2927. Publicists pushed the line that the purpose of the movie is to provide us food for thought as we contemplate what the future will be like a century or a millennium hence. Critics were receptive to that interpretation and repeated it endlessly. As for me, I just want to burst into tears. How could EVERYBODY without exception miss the whole point of the tale?

It would be well-night impossible to trace all of the US/Canadian bookings of Metropolis during its first, second, and third runs. After all, “metropolis” is one of the most common words in newspapers and many ads for this movie did not have any other searchable phrases. Nonetheless, I can discover a little bit, and it is not what I was expecting. Deluxe first-run downtown houses in major markets that gave Metropolis its local première are in BOLD. Others are neighborhood houses or subrun markets or second-run houses. Note that the press book or press sheets that were used in March and April for the première at the Rialto were pretty much jettisoned immediately afterwards. Somebody at the studio concocted new advertising campaigns. Who made that decision? Why? I don’t know. Who designed these new ads, I don’t know. By the way, I have seen the window card and the insert, but I have never seen the one-sheet. Well, it turns out that NOBODY has seen the one-sheet or the three-sheet.

OPENING CITY CINEMA RUN
Sat 05 Mar 1927 Manhattan, NY RIALTO 42 days
Canceled Patchogue, NY Glynne’s Patchogue
Sat 09 Jul 1927 Kansas City, MO
(review) (review)
ROYAL 14 days
Sat 16 Jul 1927 Boston, MA (review) METROPOLITAN (review) 7 days
Sun 17 Jul 1927 Detroit, MI (review) ADAMS 14 days
Sun 17 Jul 1927 Chicago, IL (review) ROOSEVELT 25 days

Sat 23 Jul 1927 Asbury Park, NJ Reade’s Lyric 7 days
Sun 24 Jul 1927 New London, CT Crown 4 days
Sun 24 Jul 1927 Waco, TX Hippodrome 3 days
Mon 25 Jul 1927 Long Branch, NJ Strand 3 days
Tue 26 Jul 1927 Miami Beach, FL COCONUT GROVE 2 days
Tue 26 Jul 1927 Palm Beach, FL Kettler 2 days
Thu 28 Jul 1927 Miami Beach, FL Community 2 days
Sat 30 Jul 1927 San Francisco, CA GRANADA (review) 7 days
Sun 31 Jul 1927 Washington, DC LOEW’S COLUMBIA 7 days
Mon 01 Aug 1927 Montréal, PQ CAPITOL (banned) ——

Continue to Chapter 3, August 1927: Québec