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Can We Find the May 1972 Janus Films Version?
Oh, I did the naughty:
I looked through the IMDb comments in the vain hopes of learning something about the Janus edition.
Why did I even try?
Nothing. Nobody so much as mentioned it.
Nonetheless, there were some interesting comments:
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John O has some info about the rights to the various versions,
but he was mistaken about the East German restoration containing any scenes concerning the deceased Hel. It most definitely did not.
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TedEBear caught the 1977 PBS broadcast.
He says it was touted as the 50th anniversary showing, but there was not a syllable about that when I saw it at about the same time.
Different markets, different stations, different publicity.
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nycritc also saw it on PBS in 1977, at age seven, but his memory is apparently dim.
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brucemcoxford wrote a pointless snark.
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picchil mentioned that the Italian RAI TRE
broadcast the movie with accompaniment by Philip Glass.
That’s a composer who bores me witless, but I am nonetheless most curious to locate this edition.
Oh. Here it is
(Nordwestdeutscher edition of 1963, 25fps, cropped through a sound aperture, as usual).
Well, I’ve heard worse. That’s the least-insulting thing I can think to say.
Ma aspetta un momento. Mi sbagliavo.
Il signor Glass non ha lavorato a questo film. Nient’ affatto.
Someone named Bruno Moretti at RAI Tre licensed a bunch of Glass tunes and mixed them together to match the visuals.
That happened in 1988,
and I presume the broadcast was sometime in that year, I think in December.
It seems to have been shown also on Spanish
See https://vimeo.com/432833128 for something even worse.
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samualmorse1 found the movie boring,
but doesn’t realize that he explained why it was boring: a bad piano score (Stuart Oderman’s?).
Yes, a bad piano score would make this movie unendurable.
He also states that “acting was a relatively new profession in 1927.”
Not the first time I’ve heard such a statement.
When I hear things like that, I realize that I do not belong in human society.
Pollywogs are far more aware of world history.
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There is no mention in the various versions of the BBC Metropolis which was issued on TV 1975–78 on PBS in USA.
I was fortunate to own a vcr at that time to record it. 126 min. —
it is superior to the kino versions in many ways —
for one they used a German original 35mm print.
BBC added synchronized sound effects and by use of videotape were able to slow the film down to a normal speed.
Making it a much different and better movie.
The Complete version is way too fast and makes it look ridiculous in some scenes.
BTW the Murnau folks censored their version which is borne out by a comparison with the BBC version.
The German version uses the best takes.
Australian Metropolis — this tinted print was the basis of the Moroder version.
It is special in that it uses the writing of Channing Pollock who was hired by Paraufamet
to create a profitable English language version —
All Pollock ended up doing was to make a complicated movie incomprehensible by dumb editing choices.
Left alone Metropolis by Fritz Lang was a 3 hour movie and if projected properly the complete version would be 3 hours.
For some unknown reason they need to cram this epic picture into 150 min.
there is much more info than I could write here. m234link@gmail.com
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No idea why Ted says that the latest restoration is censored.
I don’t see the evidence.
Maybe he caught a little something I didn’t?
The “unknown reason” is simply that Lang and Huppertz wanted the film run about that fast.
Hey, it’s their movie, so they can make those decisions.
Many, many silent films were undercranked and the filmmakers really did want them speeded up tremendously.
To those of us who grew up on talkies, speeded motion can look rather distressing at first,
but once you get used to it, you can understand it and you’ll even agree with it.
Whatever speeds the filmmakers wanted, just run the films that way.
From the beginnings through 1920, slower speeds were used.
Beginning in the early 1920’s, with high-intensity carbon-arc lamphouses and larger screens,
the speed needed to be increased else there would be a blinding strobe.
Beginning right around December 1921/January 1922, 24fps was the usual speed for showing silent films.
A few were shown a bit faster.
A few needed to be slowed down somewhat, but not slower than about 21fps.
As for the German takes as opposed to the US takes,
I don’t see that the one is superior to the other.
The latest restoration utilized the US edition wherever possible,
simply because that’s the only camera negative that still exists, and hence provides the best clarity.
The German negative and the export negative are goners.
I doubt anyone will ever locate them.
The German neg was probably destroyed during WWII,
when absolutely nobody could have imagined that anyone would want to see the movie again.
The export neg was cut to 8,537' and was probably still around as recently as 1948.
No idea what may have become of it.
Maybe it just rotted?
The 35mm Janus Films print that I saw in 1977?
I saw it on screen.
I popped up to the booth a few times and I saw the reels on the bench and running through the machines.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see that print,
and it is so frustrating to realize that perhaps no such print exists anymore.