Reply #7: It's practically the original movie

[JoDog]

Fritz Lang's original 210-min. film was brutally cut to about 90 min. after it flopped upon its premere in Berlin. I believe it was the distribution company/studio that did it. The film that was eventually shown in the US and most of Europe in 1928 was as result disjointed and made absolutely no sense at times. Huge sections of the plot were changed or removed, as were entire characters.

Whatever copies remained of the original were lost and presumed destroyed by WWII. The missing footage was considered to be one of cinema's holy grails. Several years ago, a restoration took place using the orignal screenplay. The scenes were put back together in what would have been their original order, and new title cards were put in to describe the action in the missing scenes. Until the discovery in Argentina, this was believed to be the closest we would ever get to a complete version.

For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(film)

I can't wait to see it. Hopefully, the Silent Film Society of Chicago will be able to get a license to show it on a big screen as it was meant to be seen. Now if only we could find the original version of "Greed"....