Joh Fredersen's assistant Josaphat standing in front of the digital readout machine in Joh's office. The display features information coming in from 'Sidney' Australia.

Time

Harry Davidson Print - Intertitles

0.00.00

Adapted by Channing Pollock

0.00.08

Photography: Karl Freund, Günther Rittau

Metropolis
From a Story by Thea von Harbou

0.00.30

Cast
John Masterman ...... Alfred Abel
Eric, his son ..... Gustav Froelich
Rotwang ..... Rudolf Klein-Rogge
Mary ..... Brigette Helm
Joseph ..... Theodor Loos
Number 7 ..... Heinrich George

0.01.02

We live in a world of material achievement

0.01.30

Our generation has seen great strides in Science ... Innovation ... Mechanical Proficiency.

0.01.40

We measure the distance to a star a billion miles away ... but have our aspirations lifted themselves nearer to the stars?

0.02.05

Our inventions turn out millions of luxuries ... all alike ... made by millions of men we are making more and more alike

0.02.30

We have created amazing machines ... and used them to destroy our fellow men.

0.02.50

But what of our hearts and minds?

0.02.55

Where are we going?

0.03.00

Shall we come to a reality like this visioned city of the future?

[Metropolis cityscape introductory graphic]

0.03.10

[Machines at work...]

0.04.15

[Clock and machines]

0.04.30

[Whistle, signifying change of shift]

0.04.45

Shift

[Men walking through tunnels at change of shift, to shaft '219'. Going down shaft]

0.06.30

Down
under the earth
lay the workmen's city

0.07.30

[Workers arrive at bottom, shaft 716; exit on to town square, past gong monument]

0.08.30

As
deep
as the
workmen's
city lay under
ground, so high
above it towered the
Masterman Stadium -
gift of John Masterman
the richest man in Metropolis.

0.08.45

[Masterman Stadium]

0.09.30

But athletics were not the only diversions of gilded youth in Metropolis.

0.09.40

[Gardens of Pleasure]

0.11.00

[Fountain - Freder at play. 0.11.20 Maria and children enter through doors]

0.11.30

Every day, a little party of workmen's children were given an hour alongside the boundaries of their homes ... and, today, their guide had opened an unfamiliar door.

0.11.50

[Maria starring at people in Eternal Gardens]

0.12.20

Maria: "Look, children - these are your brothers - your sisters!"

0.12.35

Maria: "Look"

0.12.40

Maria: "These are your brothers - your sisters"

[Maria starring at Freder. Men moved in to move the group on. Freder walks off with the girls; then stars, clutching his heart]

0.14.05

[Maria and kids leave. Doors close. Freder follows and talks with Majordomo]

0.14.50

Freder: "Who was that?"

0.14.55

Majordomo: "No one who could possibly interest the son of John Masterman - she comes from the workmen's homes."

0.15.15

Eric had often thought of the workmen who toiled in the depths - had wondered how they lived - and why nobody seemed to care.

[Eric thinks, looks around the Gardens ... 0.16.10 follows Maria through doors]

0.16.20

As mysteriously as she appeared so she had vanished - and Eric, in his futile search, came on the threshold of a strange world.

0.17.10

[Freder encounters Moloch machine. Gauges rising. Explosion of Moloch machine 0.19.10 / Transformation of Moloch machine 0.19.35]

0.19.55

In these hungry machines, Eric saw that ancient God into whose fiery mouth the Phoenicians drove their human sacrifices.

[Workers sacrificed to the machine / 0.20.55 Transformation back to machine / 0.21.50 workers carrying off the injured. Freder runs out to street]

0.22.55

Freder: "To my Father"

0.24.30

[Streetscape, city - Joh Fredersen's office]

0.24.30

John Masterman - Brain of Metropolis

[Joh Fredersen is dictating / view of stressed workers in office / Joseph turns machines off and talks to Freder 0.25.15, they hug each other. Joh Fredersen sees this - look of jealousy on his face. Freder talks to his father of the Moloch explosion.]

0.26.55

Joh Fredersen: "Such accidents will occur."

0.27.17

[Joh begins to blame Joseph - moves towards him, stern stare, hands in pockets]

0.27.40

John Fredersen: "Why was my son permitted to go into the machine rooms?"

[Joh pushes Freder away when he pleads for compassion]

0.28.20

Joh: "What do these men matter to you, Eric?"

0.28.30

Freder: "They are my brothers."

0.28.50

Freder: "Their hands built your city"

[Joh dismisses his workers so they will not hear the conversation between him and his son]

0.29.00

Joh: "There are millions of hands, my son. Millions of men. Cogs on a wheel that cannot turn without a driving power."

[Joh tries to convince Freder, but his son pushes him back and will not be stood over]

0.30.25

Joh: "Nobody is important except the brain, and what it creates - Efficiency - which, in turn, has created all the wealth of the world."

0.30.50

Freder: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the World - and lose his Soul?"

0.31.05

Joh: "Isn't that a quotation from some ancient religion?"

0.31.45

Freder: "Throughout history we have seen that Efficiency - without a soul - has led to War - Revolution - Chaos - and Destruction!"

0.32.10

Freder: "For centuries we have been building a civilisation of Gold and Steel! What has it given us? Peace? Understanding? Happiness?"

[Kettelhut images of the city of Metropolis]

0.32.50

Freder: "Has it got us nearer God?"

0.33.00

Joh: "God is Power!"

[View of workers in lifts]

0.33.20

Freder: "God is Love!"

[Joh smiles mockingly at his son / No.7 is announced 0.33.40 / Joh closes curtains to mask view of Metropolis from above]

0.34.05

Joseph: "Number 7"

[Joh sits at desk, hand in jacket ?gun at ready / No.7 moves hesitatingly towards Joh, has difficulty uttering any words]

0.34.45

Number 7: "More of those plans, Mr. Masterman."

[Joh looks sternly at Joseph]

0.35.50

Number 7: "I found them in the pockets of two men who were killed to-day at the 'M' machine."

0.36.20

Joh [to Joseph]: "Twice you have failed me. My son is admitted into the machine rooms, and Number 7 - not you - brings me those plans."

0.36.20

[Joseph sweats as Joh confronts him]

0.37.10

Joh: "The G-Bank will pay you the balance of your salary."

[Freder stoops like the workers as his father sack his assistant; Joseph is shattered and leaves]

0.38.40

Freder: "Is that fair reward - for one who has faithfully served you -?"

[Joh shrugs his shoulders - a look of hatred appears on Freder's face]

0.39.40

[Joseph in stairwell pulls out a gun; Joh calls his man servant Slim in; Freder leaves office and stops Joseph from killing himself on stairwell]

0.40.10

Freder: "Will you help me, Joseph?"

0.40.40

Freder: "I am going to prove to my father that the world is not made for one man - nor for a thousand - but for all Mankind."

[Freder returns to his father]

0.41.40

Freder: "I will not live any longer on the sweat of other men."

0.42.00

Joh [to Slim]: "My son has some strange ideas - see that no harm befalls him."

0.42.50

[Freder goes down to Level V. Smoke, heat. Helps George 11811 at Paternoster machine]

0.44.25

George: "The machine! - There must be somebody at the machine!"

0.44.30

Freder: "There shall be somebody at the machine!"

[Freder takes George's place at machine. George scene at Yoshiwara cut; also scene at Joseph's flat is cut. Cut to view of Rotwang's house]

0.44.55

Dwarfed by the mighty towers of steel and stone, a strange house stood in the heart of Metropolis - a relic of the dim, forgotten, past.

0.45.30

The man who lived there - Rotwang - had worked thirty years to bring true the great dream of John Masterman.

0.45.45

The dream that it might be possible to go a step beyond making machines of men - by making men of machines.

0.46.30

Rotwang's Servant: "John Masterman"

[Rotwang / Freder at machine / George]

0.47.30

[Rotwang and Joh Fredersen confrontation - HEL scene cut]

0.47.40

Rotwang: "My work is done!"

0.47.45

Rotwang: "A machine that can be made to look like a man - or a woman - but never tires - never makes a mistake -!"

0.48.05

Rotwang: "Soon we shall do without men!"

[Rotwang lab / Robot 0.49.00]

0.51.20

Rotwang: "Isn't is worth the loss of a hand?"

0.51.40

Rotwang: "Another day's work, and no one will be able to distinguish our machine from a human being!"

0.51.50

Rotwang: "It lacks but one thing - a soul!"

0.52.05

Joh: "It is better without one."

0.52.15

Rotwang: "We must give it a name."

0.52.30

Joh: "Call it Efficiency."

[Freder at machine; back to Joh in Rotwang's office]

0.52.55

Joh: "Can you decipher these plans, which, every now and then are found in the pockets of my workmen?"

[Freder finds copy of plans]

0.53.55

Worker: "At two - after the change of shift."

0.54.30

[Joh looks at his 12 hr watch - it is 1pm / Freder at machine nears ends of shift]

0.56.00

Freder: "Father! Father! Will ten hours never end!"

[Whilstle; Freder exhausted]

0.56.40

Rotwang: "It's a plan of the ancient Catacombs."

0.57.45

Joh: "I should very much like to find out what my workmen have to do with the Catacombs."

1.00.20

[Maria in catacombs preaching]

1.02.50

Maria: "To-day I am going to tell you / the legend / of the building / of the Tower of Babel..."

[graphic]

1.03.15

Maria: "Let us build a tower that reaches to the stars"

1.03.25

Maria: "And let us write upon the top of the tower, 'Great is the World, and its Creator, and great is Man!"

1.04.05

Maria: "But the minds that conceived the Tower of Babel could not build the Tower of Babel - so they hired hands for wages."

1.04.45

Maria: "The hands that built Babel knew nothing of the dream of which it was born."

1.05.05

Maria: "And the minds that conceived Babel cared nothing for the hands that built it."

[Babel graphic, blood]

1.05.45

Maria: "Although speaking the same language, the people did not understand each other."

1.06.10

Maria: "One's hymn of praise became the other's curse."

1.06.25

[graphic of destroyed tower, with English logo on top]

1.06.40

Maria: "Brain and Hands need a Mediator."

1.06.45

Maria: "The Mediator between Brains and Hands must be the Heart."

1.07.30

Worker: "And where is our mediator, Mary?"

1.08.00

Maria: "Wait for him. He is sure to come."

1.08.30

Worker: "We shall wait ... but not much longer."

[Rotwang and Joh spy on meeting from above]

1.08.50

Joh: "Rotwang, give our machine the face and body of this woman."

1.09.10

Joh: "Keep the girl in your..., while her image preaches my will to the workmen."

1.09.40

Rotwang: "Leave me now, John Masterman. As you command - so shall it be."

[Freder and Maria - she kisses him on cheek]

1.13.40

Maria: "Tomorrow ... in the Cathedral."

[Freder kisses Maria on lips / 1.14.40 Freder departs]

1.15.00

[Rotwang chases Maria in Catacombs; she is terrified]

1.19.45

The next day, while Eric was on his way to the Cathedral for the appointed meeting with Mary -

[Maria in Rotwang's room; Freder walking in the street]

1.21.00

Rotwang: "Now I am ready for you!"

[Maria struggles with Rotwang; 1.22.30 Freder enters Rotwang's house]

1.25.55

Freder: "Mary!"

1.26.35

Freder: "Mary!"

1.26.40

Freder: "MARY!"

1.26.45

[Maria in transformation machine; 1.27.40 laboratory; 1.28.30 Robot transformation process]

1.30.40

Rotwang's machine had achieved its purpose. It had copied Mary's face and form without harm to her - yet even had he willed it - he could not transfer her soul.

[Freder trapped, then freed. He rushes to confront Rotwang]

1.32.15

Freder: "Where is Mary?"

1.32.20

Rotwang: "She has gone to your father."

1.32.45

Rotwang: "She belongs to your father."

1.33.30

Joh: "Preach to them Duty ... Humility ... Obedience to their Masters."

[Freder sees Mary in his father's arms; he freaks out; 1.34.35 in bed]

1.34.50

Doctor: "The crisis is passed. He will soon recover."

[Evil Maria Yoshiwara dance scene and 7 Deadly Sins cut]

1.35.45

[Freder back in apartment; Joseph visits]

1.36.15

Joseph: "I have come to tell you of the strange things that are happening -"

1.36.30

Joseph: "On the day on which you were taken ill - "

[Maria as vamp; throws off garter - fight]

1.37.20

Joseph: " - Men who had once been the best of friends, quarreled and fought for this woman."

[Duel]

1.37.40

Joseph: " - and others - "

[Suicide]

1.38.00

Joseph: "And this woman, in whose wake follows every sin - "

Joseph: " - is Mary!"

1.38.30

Joseph: "To the workers she preaches a new doctrine - rebellion! She bids them destroy the city - its creator - and you!"

1.38.45

Freder: "I will see for myself."

1.39.05

But Mary, unchanged and unharmed by her terrifying experience, was still a prisoner in Rotwang's house.

1.39.35

Rotwang: "This thing that bears your image has been commanded to go among the workers and counsel endurance."

1.40.10

Rotwang: "But she is only a machine - made to obey my will. While my power holds, she will do so."

1.40.35

Rotwang: "But already I feel I have lost that power, and I am fearful of the consequences."

1.40.55

Rotwang: "A machine without a soul has been known to destroy its creator!"

[Evil Maria preaches to workers]

1.42.15

Evil Maria: "You have waited long enough!"

1.42.30

Evil Maria: "Whose labours have built Metropolis?"

1.42.30

Evil Maria: "Whose hands work the machines?"

1.43.05

Evil Maria: "Whose hands work the machines?"

1.43.10

Evil Maria: "Whose sweat oils the machines?"

1.43.15

Evil Maria: "Fools! Fools! Why should you continue to slave!"

1.43.30

Evil Maria: "Destroy the machines!"

1.43.50

Freder: "You are not Mary!"

1.43.55

Freder: "YOU-ARE-NOT-MARY!"

1.44.20

Freder: "Mary preaches peace! ... This woman is not Mary!"

1.44.30

Worker: "This man is John Masterman's son!"

1.44.40

Worker: "Kill him!"

1.45.25

Worker: "We'll show John Masterman who rules Metropolis!"

[Workers attack Freder; George defends him and is stabbed and killed]

1.46.25

George: "It was my duty to my brother."

[Workers storm the lifts]

1.49.10

Not a man - not a woman left behind!

[Children left alone / water and breaking walls/ 1.50.00 people destroying machines/ HM2 1.50.10]

1.50.45

Number 7: "They are destroying everything!"

1.50.55

Number 7: "What shall I do?"

1.51.00

Joh: "Do what you can to hold them. Reason with them. Capture that girl!"

1.51.40

Number 7: "Listen to me - you fools. If you smash this machine, your homes will be flooded!"

1.53.40

The real Mary escapes.

[Maria goes from Rotwang's house to lift 717]

[Destruction of machines / flooding / elevators / flood / gong / Joseph and Freder climb brick walls / flood]

2.00.35

Joseph: "Get them away from here. Make for the air shafts!"

2.00.01

[Joh watches lights of Metropolis / they go off 2.02.32]

2.02.40

Servant: "Just before the reservoir burst, your son was seen descending into the workmen's city."

2.04.25

Joh: "Only one thing matters now; where is my son?"

2.04.30

Servant: "Tomorrow thousands will be asking - Where is my son?"

2.05.10

Freder: "I'll take the children to my father's house. Tell their mothers, Mary - then join me at the cathedral."

2.07.10

Number 7: "Where are your children?"

2.07.30

Number 7: "Your houses are flooded! Where are your children!!"

2.07.50

Number 7: "Who told you to smash the machines?"

2.08.00

Woman: "The witch is to blame!"

2.08.20

Number 7: "Burn the witch!"

2.08.35

Triumphant in her victory over mortal will, the false Mary, in wild abandon, turns from riot to revelry.

2.10.35

Freder: "They must have caught her on her way back to the Cathedral!"

2.13.40

His worst fears now a grim reality, Rotwang realised that if the mob ever found the real Mary, they would destroy him as a betrayer.

2.15.30

[Rotwang tries to capture Mary near Cathedral bell]

2.16.30

Number 7: "That is the thing you have worshipped!"

2.18.15

Number 7: "Where are our children?"

2.18.35

Joseph: "They are saved! They are in his father's house."

2.19.00

Joh: "God save my son!"

2.22.40

Maria: "Brain and Hands want to come together - but they have not the Heart. You - must show them the way."

2.23.10

Maria: "Remember - always - that neither of you can do without the other -"

2.23.25

Maria: "- that Brain and Hands are Partners!"

2.24.00

Mediator between Brain and Hands must be the Heart.

[Graphic]

2.24.15

Metropolis

The End

Time

Harry Davidson Print - Original Tints

0.00.00

Black and white (B/W) - Opening title sequence

0.00.38

Sepia brown

0.00.40

B/W - Opening credits

0.01.11

Yellow-brown - Opening credits and prelude

0.03.36

Sepia - Introductory machine and cityscape sequence

0.04.47

Yellow-brown - Change of shift, workers and their city

0.07.30

B/W - Masterman Stadium

0.09.40

Purple-pink - Gardens of Pleasure

0.11.30

Purple-pink to B/W - entrance of Maria and children

0.17.10

Yellow-brown - Freder in machine rooms, Moloch

0.22.55

B/W to pale sepia - Freder in taxi

0.24.30

Dark yellow-brown - Joh Fredersen's office

0.32.10

B/W - cityscape and skyscraper images

0.32.50

Dark yellow-brown - Joh Fredersen's office

0.40.40

Red-brown

0.41.40

Dark yellow-brown - Joh Fredersen's office

0.42.50

Yellow-brown - Freder at Paternoster machine with Georgie

0.44.45

Dark yellow-brown - Rotwang's house

0.47.30

Brown - Rotwang and Joh Fredersen, Robot sequence

0.56.00

Blue - Steam whistle for change of shift

0.56.40

Brown - Rotwang's study

1.00.20

B/W to pale purple-blue - Maria preaching in catacombs

1.09.40

B/W to pale purple - Freder and Maria in catacombs

1.25.55

Yellow-brown [Rotwang's study]

1.26.35

B/W - Freder and Maria in catacombs

1.26.45

Yellow-brown - Maria in transformation machine

1.30.40

B/W - Freder looking for Maria in city

1.32.15

Yellow-brown - Freder confronts Rotwang; Freder and Josephat

1.36.30

Purple - Evil Maria as Vamp at Yoshiwara's

1.38.00

Yellow-brown - Freder and Josephat

1.39.05

B/W - Maria and Rotwang discussion; evil Maria preaching to workers in catacombs

1.49.10

Yellow-brown - flood sequence and destruction of underground city

2.00.35

B/W and Sepia - saving of children from flood

2.40.00

Sepia - flood

2.10.35

B/W and Yellow-brown - mob scene in streets (B/W), burning of evil Maria, and fight at Cathedral