Trivia for
Metropolis (1927) More at IMDbPro »

• Film included more than 37,000 extras including 25,000 men, 11,000 women, 1,100 bald men, 750 children, 100 dark-skinned people and 25 Asians.
  
  
• Reportedly one of Adolf Hitler's favorite films.
  
  
• Being one of the most expensive movies of the time, costing around 5,000,000 marks, this film nearly sent UFA (Universum Film) into bankruptcy.
  
  
• The restored version of 2001 is based on a digital restoration at 2K resolution from the best available sources. The image quality far surpasses anything seen since the original release of the film.
  
  
• No optical printing system existed at the time, so to create a matte effect, a large mirror was placed at an angle to reflect a piece of artwork while live footage was projected onto the reverse. To expose the projected footage, the silvering on the back of the mirror had to be scraped off in strategically appropriate places. One mistake would ruin the whole mirror. This was done for each separate shot that had to be composited in this manner. This procedure was developed by Eugen Schüfftan and is known as the "Schufftan Process."
  
  
• This was the first film ever to be registered in the "Memory of the World-Register" of the UNESCO in 2001.
  
  
• When Rotwang shows Fredersen the robot, it is Brigitte Helm, not a stunt performer, inside the robot costume.
  
  
• For decades, all that survived of "Metropolis" were an incomplete original negative and copies of shortened, re-edited release prints; over a quarter of the film was believed lost. However, in July 2008 Germany's 'ZEITmagazin' reported the discovery of a copy of the original, full-length print which had been sent to Argentina in 1928. Examining the reels in Buenos Aires, cinema experts realised that they contained the missing sequences (predominantly those involving the Thin Man who spies on Freder, and worker 11811 in Yoshiwara). Additionally, in October 2008 it was announced that another (hopefully) early copy in the obsolete 9.5mm format had been held in the University of Chile's film library, intentionally mislabelled to avoid destruction during 1973's military coup. It is as yet unknown if this holds any further viewable footage. After almost 80 years, the film is now hoped to be complete.
  
  
• The multiple-exposed sequences were not created in a lab but right during the filming on the set. The film was rewound in the camera and then exposed again right away. This was done up to 30 times.
  
  
• This film took 2 years to shoot.
  
  
• Adjusting for inflation, the budget for Metropolis ran around $200 million (June, 2007).
  
  
• The robot of this film inspired the look for C-3PO in Star Wars (1977).
  
  
• In the novelization, the robot is described as a woman "of glass and metal," and her name is Parody; Maria's features are sculpted onto its face by Rotwang itself, using Maria as a guide.
  
  

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