“METROPOLIS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 386, 21 June 1928, Page 17

“METROPOLIS”

FANTASTIC AND UNUSUAL Of “Metropolis,” Laurence Reid, in the “Motion Picture News,” — “As different from the usual run of films as ‘The Last Laugh’ and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,’ is this weird, fantistic and exceptionally interesting product of Ufa —which flies the TJ.F.A. banner. The picture is difficult to define. In calling it a sort of dream play one cannot go far wrong. It projects an uncanny idea which appeals to the imagination. The parties involved in making it—these include the players—permit us to peer into the future and see the outcome of it all when man has electrified industry and brought forth the triumph of mechanical power. “The central plot concerns the rebellion of a youth to subscribe to his father's idea that the latter’s workers are hopeless plodders chained to menial tasks. It also builds a romance seen in the infatuation of the boy for a girl evangelist. The heroine also experiences some unhappy moments when she is employed by an electricaJ genius as the model for a mechanical girl- “ These points mentioned above provide the skeleton of the plot. But the real interest of the film is found in its camera effects which are truly unique. These present a wealth of graphic shots having to do with electrical and mechanical apparatus. It is certainly rich in photographic appeal.”