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Auction History Result 2a001 METROPOLIS German LC #12 '27 Rudolf Klein-Rogge transforms Brigitte Helm into the robot! Date Sold 10/30/2016 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical German Movie Lobby Card #12 (LC; measures 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" [23 x 30 cm]) (Learn More) Metropolis, the classic 1927 Fritz Lang German silent anti-fascism science fiction (sci-fi) robot fantasy dystopian future thriller ("The screen sensation of the age!"; "The wonder city of the future"; "Adapted by Channing Pollock"; based on the novel by Thea von Harbou; set designs by Edgar Ulmer; about an ultra-depressing world of the future where the rich people live in cities in the clouds, and the poor people toil away endlessly underground; a female populous leader arises and a mad scientist makes an android robot duplicate of her to ruin her work; a brilliant movie, light years ahead of its time, and movie makers are still stealing from it!) starring Brigitte Helm (in a dual role as Maria, the female leader of the workers, and as the android [gynoid] "Maschinenmensch"), Gustav Frohlich (as Freder), Alfred Abel (as Joh Frederson), Rudolf Klein-Rogge (as Rotwang the Inventor), Theodor Loos (as Josaphat), Fritz Rasp (as the Thin Man), Heinrich George, and Margarete Lanner. Note that there is a fascinating story behind this movie being imported to the U.S. in 1927, that we did not learn until 2023, when we noticed the "Adapted by Channing Pollock" on the first U.S. herald we auctioned, and Internet research (NOT on the IMDb) revealed this: Fritz Lang's version of this movie at the premiere was 153 minutes, and Paramount was unwilling to release such a long movie in the U.S. So they hired playwright Channing Pollock to shorten the movie to a more "reasonable" length, around 2 hours. What Pollock did was to essentially drastically change the entire movie, by shortening it to 115 minutes, and changing all of the inter-titles to ones he wrote! Among the changes he made was that the man who made the robot (Rotwang) had made it in the image of the love of his life, named "Hel", who had run off with another man. Pollock did not want to use the name "Hel", because of its similarity to "Hell", but instead of just changing it, he eliminated all references to the robot having a name, or to the reason why Rotwang built it! He made a number of other major changes to the movie. When Fritz Lang heard what had been done, he said "I love films, so I shall never go to America"! The movie was somewhat restored to its original version in 1984, when the Giorgio Moroder score was added, and has since been completely restored to its original version! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. Important Added Info: Note that this is an extremely rare "country of origin" lobby card for this German movie! It has the UFA logo at bottom right, the "Parufamet" logo at lower left, and a faint embossed German "approved" stamp in the top right! Also note that this German lobby card measures 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" [23 x 30 cm]. Also note that original German movie paper of any kind from this classic movie is incredibly rare and ultra expensive (the most expensive movie poster ever sold is the original German three-sheet from this movie!). In 2010 and 2011, a collector consigned a number of these lobby cards to us, and while they had nice images, none had spectacular images, except for a great one showing Klein-Rogge with the robot behind him, which auctioned for $4,005. In November 2011, the same collector consigned the lobby card he had saved for the last, which showed the robot standing in front of the pentagram, and it auctioned for $6,820. Now, five years later, we have been consigned a lobby card that tops all of those! It shows Klein-Rogge standing by Maria as she is transformed into the robot and the pentagram is on the wall behind them (see our image). We suppose there could be a better lobby card than this, but we don't know what it would be! This will surely be the highlight of the new owner's collection! Condition: very good. There are pinholes in the corners and smudges in the borders, with the tiniest of paper loss in the left of the bottom blank border. There is a German "approved" embossed stamp in the top right black background area (which is not any sort of defect, because it is on all of these German lobby cards and it guarantees authenticity). There are a very few faint smudges and scuffs scattered in the lobby card, but certainly nothing that would prevent one from happily displaying it exactly as it is. There was once a tiny piece of tape on the back of each top corner, which was removed, causing slight surface paper loss on the back of each corner, but not affecting the front (see our images). Other than the removal of that tiny tape, this lobby card is completely unrestored and there is not a single piece of tape on either the front or back! Learn More about condition grades 
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