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A head's up: Metropolis restoration 2010 on TCMHD tonight!

It'll also be on regular TCM, obviously, for those of us who haven't switched to HD.

It comes on in about 45 minutes, here. I'm looking forward to it!
 
You know you're a geek when you think Robert Osbourne is cool.


It'll also be on regular TCM, obviously, for those of us who haven't switched to HD.

But it won't be as good! ;)

This opening is as iconic as the one to Star Wars.

It's been a long time since I've seen this, are those stylized title cards a new touch (because they are pretty cool)?
 
It's been a long time since I've seen this, are those stylized title cards a new touch (because they are pretty cool)?

If you mean the animated ones like "MOLOCH!", I'm pretty sure those are from the original. They have the look of the same kind of animation used on the visual effects in the film; they're definitely not digital like the English-language intertitles.


It was cool to see the whole movie (nearly) at last, though some of the restored footage could've easily been left out, like extra reaction shots and such. The bulk of it was significant new material, though, and it's good to see the story almost totally complete (except for the bit with the priest and the pivotal Fredersen/Rotwang fight).
 
Wonderful..just wonderful, some of the restored scenes added a lot to the plot holes that have been obvious to me on every single viewing..Fritz Lang's other film "M" is going to be shown later on tonight... I'm DVRin' that puppy...


But lets not create too much fuss..otherwise some Hollywood hack-artist will do a remake...
 
Interesting watching this I think this film is better for the lack of a talkie soundtrack.

I only caught the end but the restoration feature afterwards suggested that the Argentina film while not only more complete (if in bad shape) has different takes than the other prints. Hopefully they'll put them both on the DVD/Blu release.

It's been a long time since I've seen this, are those stylized title cards a new touch (because they are pretty cool)?

If you mean the animated ones like "MOLOCH!", I'm pretty sure those are from the original. They have the look of the same kind of animation used on the visual effects in the film; they're definitely not digital like the English-language intertitles.

I was thinking of the one with the down in the depths that descended and the one that looked like a rising pyramid/tower afterward. I was wondering if the original cards were done like that even if they've been upgraded. I found an old print on webarchive and it looks like they were not.
 
Goddammitsomuch!!!!! I forgot about this till I got home from work....late!!! The good news is there's a crapload of silent movies playing this month, as well as something about the birth of Hollywood.

Off the top of my head, the one's I've set to record:
Poor Little Rich Girl - Mary Pickford
The Hoodlum - Mary Pickford (Don't recall ever hearing about this one)
Show People - Marion Davies
The Mark Of Zorro - Douglas Fairbanks
Birth Of A Nation - Lillian Gish
Flesh And The Devil - Garbo and Gilbert
The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - Rudolph Valentino


A brief list of the others I can name off the top of my head (these I already own):

The Pilgrim - Charlie Chaplin
The Kid - Charlie Chaplin
The Immigrant - Charlie Chaplin
It - Clara Bow
Pandora's Box - Louise Brooks
Steamboat Bill, Jr - Buster Keaton
Safety Last - Harold Lloyd (with the famous hanging from the clock scene)
Sunrise - George O'Brien

And there's still a few more I can't recall. This is a great month for fans of silent films!
 
The thing that bugs me is that they did what's usually done with silent movies and ran it at the wrong frame rate. Cameras and projectors had a lower frame rate at the time, so when films from that time are played back at more modern, higher frame rates, they get that jerky, sped-up effect. If the goal was to reconstruct the original experience as closely as possible, they should've run it at the proper frame rate (and had the score performed at the appropriate tempo). Of course, that would've made it run even longer, but I wouldn't have minded; I found that I didn't get bored and it seemed to go by rather quickly.

I was disappointed that the documentary was only about the restoration. I wasn't willing to stay up so late for that, especially on the day the clocks fell back and it would've kept me up an hour later relative to what I'm used to. I was hoping for a documentary about the making of the film itself, particularly the special effects. There was some masterful work there, remarkable for the era and holding up pretty well even today.
 
I didn't notice the speed thing so much last night but I did notice it when I first watched the Kino DVD some time back. Just as an experiment I tried slowing playback using an old print and VLC player (free BTW) and watched a couple of scenes like Maria's dance and her incitement of the workers and it is, well, interesting, it adds some and takes away some.
 
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