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
The “American
![]() 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. ![]()
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 | |
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 |
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 | |
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 | |
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:
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
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
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
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.
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:
Metropolis “was originally imported by Paramount for
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:
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
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:
Here are Bradford’s cues, and I found some of these pieces loaded to YouTube and other websites.
So, here we go:
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. |
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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):
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!
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
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. ![]() ![]() Charcoal: Lionel S. Reiss. Reiss surely designed all the ads that were run in the New York Times in March/April 1927.
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.
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![]() 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.
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Click on any image to enlarge. Click on any caption to see the original source. |
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![]() Daily News |
![]() Brooklyn Daily Eagle |
![]() Brooklyn Daily Times |
![]() Reproduced courtesy of Forrest J Ackerman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries. |
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Click on either image to enlarge. Click on either caption to see the original source. |
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![]() Brooklyn Daily Eagle |
![]() Olean Evening Times |
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
The above is a
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.
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.
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
![]() 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.
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.
Radios are useful:
When the planet-sized Metropolitan in downtown LA booked Metropolis,
it booked it strictly for
a
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
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.
Let’s now take a look at the
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!
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
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