 First edition cover | |
| Author | Thea von Harbou |
|---|---|
| Language | German |
| Publisher | Illustriertes Blatt August Scherl |
Publication date | 1925 |
| Publication place | Germany |
Published in English | 1927 |
| Pages | 273 |
Metropolis is a 1925 science fiction novel by the German writer Thea von Harbou. The novel was a treatment for Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis , on which von Harbou and Lang collaborated in 1924.
The story is set in a technologically advanced city, which is sustained by the existence of an exploited class of labourers who live underground, far away from the gleaming surface world. Freder, the son and heir of Joh Fredersen, one of the city's founders, falls in love with Maria, a girl from the underground. Their romance takes place against the growing threat of civil war between the labourers and the armies of the founders, and the question of whether a lasting peace can be found.
The novel was serialised in the magazine Illustriertes Blatt in 1925, accompanied by screenshots from the upcoming film adaptation. [1] It was published in book form in 1926 by August Scherl. [2] An English translation was published in 1927. [3]
Michael Joseph of The Bookman wrote about the novel: "It is a remarkable piece of work, skilfully reproducing the atmosphere one has come to associate with the most ambitious German film productions. Suggestive in many respects of the dramatic work of Karel Capek and of the earlier fantastic romances of H. G. Wells, in treatment it is an interesting example of expressionist literature. [...] Metropolis is one of the most powerful novels I have read and one which may capture a large public both in America and England if it does not prove too bewildering to the plain reader." [4]
The book was written with the intention of being adapted for film by Harbou's husband, the director Fritz Lang. Harbou collaborated with Lang on the script for the film, also titled Metropolis . Shooting began before the novel was published. The film omits certain parts of the book, especially references to the occult (of which a small hint exists in the film). Other parts of the story in the book disappeared from the film after drastic cuts made by the studio and distributors after the film's initial release. Some of these cuts have been rediscovered, while others remain lost. Also missing from the film are explications of the moral motivations for certain actions of the main characters. [1]
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name. It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studio for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 at a cost of more than five million Reichsmarks, or the equivalent of about €21 million.
Thea Gabriele von Harbou was a German screenwriter, novelist, film director, and actress. She is remembered as the screenwriter of the science fiction film classic Metropolis (1927) and for the 1925 novel on which it was based. von Harbou collaborated as a screenwriter with film director Fritz Lang, her husband, during the period of transition from silent to sound films.
Woman in the Moon is a German science fiction silent film that premiered 15 October 1929 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo cinema in Berlin to an audience of 2,000. It is often considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films. It was directed by Fritz Lang, and written by his wife Thea von Harbou, based on her 1928 novel The Rocket to the Moon. It was released in the US as By Rocket to the Moon and in the UK as Girl in the Moon. The basics of rocket travel were presented to a mass audience for the first time by this film, including the use of a multi-stage rocket. The film was shot between October 1928 and June 1929 at the UFA studios in Neubabelsberg near Berlin.
A metropolis is a large city.
C. A. Rotwang is a fictional character in Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction film Metropolis, as well as screenwriter Thea von Harbou's original novel Metropolis. In the film, Rotwang was played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge.
The Maschinenmensch is a fictional robot featured in Thea von Harbou's novel Metropolis and Fritz Lang's film adaption of the novel. In the film, she is played by German actress Brigitte Helm both as a robot and in human guise. She was created by the scientist Rotwang in dedication to his deceased lover, Hel, though in the novel they have no correlation. Maschinenmensch was one of the first fictional robots ever depicted in cinema, and as a result popularized the concept worldwide.
The Rocket to the Moon is a 1928 science fiction novel by the German writer Thea von Harbou. Its German title is Die Frau im Mond, which means "The Woman in the Moon". It is about a fictitious Moon mission. The book was translated into English by Baroness von Hutten and published in 1930 as The Girl in the Moon. It was republished in 1977 as The Rocket to the Moon.
Gustav Friedrich Fröhlich was a German actor and film director. He landed secondary roles in a number of films and plays before landing his breakthrough role of Freder Fredersen in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. He remained a popular film star in Germany until the 1950s.
Spione is a 1928 German silent espionage thriller directed by Fritz Lang and co-written with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who also wrote a novel of the same name, published a year later. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film and the first for his own production company; Fritz Lang-Film GmbH. As in Lang's Mabuse films, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a master criminal aiming for world domination.
Friedrich Rudolf Klein, better known as Rudolf Klein-Rogge, was a German film actor, best known for playing sinister figures in films in the 1920s and 1930s as well as being a mainstay in director Fritz Lang's Weimar-era films. He is probably best known in popular culture, particularly to English-speaking audiences, for playing the archetypal mad scientist role of C. A. Rotwang in Lang's Metropolis and as the criminal genius Doctor Mabuse. Klein-Rogge also appeared in several important French films in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Erich Pommer was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European film industries in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Gottfried Huppertz was a German composer who is perhaps most known for his scores to German expressionist silent films such as the science fiction epic Metropolis (1927). He collaborated with director Fritz Lang on multiple occasions.
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was an English crime and mystery novelist, playwright and screenwriter. His father, brother and sister also developed successful careers in the literary world. His "Ben" novels were reissued in 2015 and 2016.
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, author and professor. He is the former President of the Writers Guild of America, West, professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, alumnus of Telluride Association Summer Program and an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs.
The year 1926 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.
The year 1927 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.
Ayi Ganpat Tendulkar (1904–1975) was an Indian screenwriter, journalist and actor. He is especially known as the husband of Thea von Harbou, the writer of the science fiction film classic Metropolis.
Austin James Small was an English writer of thriller, detective, science fiction, adventure, romance, and western novels and short stories. Most of Small's titles appeared in Britain under the pen name Seamark, while his American publisher preferred using the name Austin J. Small. Several film plots were based on his stories.