Metropolis + Woman In The Window

Silent To Sound Series #1: Fritz Lang

Co-Presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco

We kick off the “Silent To Sound” series with Fritz Lang, who directed some of the greatest German epics of the silent era, before transitioning and leaving a legacy punctuated by several works that all but defined multiple genres for the decades that followed. Dr. Mabuse and The Gambler (1919) gave us an evil genius long before Goldfinger: Die Nie Nibelungen (1924) is one of cinema’s greatest fantasies; and of course Metropolis (1927), still the definitive science fiction vision of a dystopian future.

We follow Metropolis:The Complete Version with Lang’s noirish The Woman in the Window (1944). Once on the forefront of defining a new genre, Lang leads us into a darkness that he would continue to
explore throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Introduced by Rob Byrne.

Metropolis: The Complete Version

Incorporating more than 25 minutes of newly discovered footage, this 2010 restoration of METROPOLIS is the definitive edition of Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece. Backed by a new recording of Gottfried Huppertz’s 1927 score (presented here in 5.1 Stereo Surround), the film’s dazzling visual design and special effects are more striking than ever. And the integration of scenes and subplots long considered lost endows METROPOLIS with even greater tension and emotional resonance, as it dramatizes the conflict between wealthy über-capitalists and rebellious subterranean laborers—orchestrated by a diabolical scientist capable of destroying them both.

Directed by Fritz Lang. Screenplay by Thea von Harbou. Photographed by Karl Freund & Günther Rittau Production design: Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, Karl Vollbrecht. Cast: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gustav Froelich, Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm. 1927. Restoration: 2010. Germany. DCP. 1.33:1. 148 min.

The Woman in the Window

An intellectual college professor is mesmerized by the painting of a beautiful woman in a gallery window. When he, by chance, meets the subject of the alluring painting, he becomes trapped in a murder plot and witnesses his own investigation. He must now protect the temptress… Based on the novel “Once Off Guard” by J.H. Wallis.

Director: Fritz Lang. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett &. Raymond Massey. 1944. USA. DCP. 95 min.

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