WERNER GRAUL (1905-1984) METROPOLIS. 1926. 273/8x185/8 inches. Eckert, Berlin. Condition B+: vertical and horizontal folds; minor abrasions in image; minor restoration in margins. Paper. By the time Fritz Lang came to visit America in 1924, UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Germany's largest and most powerful movie production and distribution company) had already announced that they would film Thea von Harbou's novel Metropolis . However it wasn't until Lang encountered New York City that his mental vision of the movie began to take shape. The movie took sixteen months to film, had a cast of over 37,000 and cost more than two million dollars to produce. The story, an elaborate science fiction morality tale which takes place in a megalithic city, reads like a bad opera libretto, but the movie has achieved a cult status of extraordinary proportions; German Expressionist film making at its very best. Posters for the movie are extremely scarce and almost impossible to come by. We know of at least four posters produced for the German market alone: two gems by Schulz-Neumann and Graul and two less striking, one by Robert Schmidt the other anonymous. Graul, who was designing posters for several Berlin movie houses (including Phoebus and Berliner Capitols) is best known for this image of the film's central character Maria, here depicted as a robot in an hypnotic image of stylized realism. This image appears on a large (7 feet high) poster advertising this film, and is a well documented icon, but it has never before been seen in this format nor bearing this text! The world premiere of Metropolis was on January 10, 1927 was held at Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo. The very next day the film moved to the Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorf, where it ran from January 11, 1927 to May 13, 1927. This poster advertises the four month run at the Pavillon. It was then inexplicably withdrawn from the theatre and edited. The shortened version was back in theatres across Germany on August 25, 1927. John Warren in his Movie Poster Price Guide states that "German one-sheets [for the film] are not known to exist" (p. 259), nor is this poster a standard size for one-sheets of the era. Given that the times of the show are included on the poster, we conclude that it was hanging at the theatre box office. UFA, p. 68 (var), Edwards, p. 35 (var).
WERNER GRAUL (1905-1984) METROPOLIS. 1926. 273/8x185/8 inches. Eckert, Berlin. Condition B+: vertical and horizontal folds; minor abrasions in image; minor restoration in margins. Paper. By the time Fritz Lang came to visit America in 1924, UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Germany's largest and most powerful movie production and distribution company) had already announced that they would film Thea von Harbou's novel Metropolis . However it wasn't until Lang encountered New York City that his mental vision of the movie began to take shape. The movie took sixteen months to film, had a cast of over 37,000 and cost more than two million dollars to produce. The story, an elaborate science fiction morality tale which takes place in a megalithic city, reads like a bad opera libretto, but the movie has achieved a cult status of extraordinary proportions; German Expressionist film making at its very best. Posters for the movie are extremely scarce and almost impossible to come by. We know of at least four posters produced for the German market alone: two gems by Schulz-Neumann and Graul and two less striking, one by Robert Schmidt the other anonymous. Graul, who was designing posters for several Berlin movie houses (including Phoebus and Berliner Capitols) is best known for this image of the film's central character Maria, here depicted as a robot in an hypnotic image of stylized realism. This image appears on a large (7 feet high) poster advertising this film, and is a well documented icon, but it has never before been seen in this format nor bearing this text! The world premiere of Metropolis was on January 10, 1927 was held at Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo. The very next day the film moved to the Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorf, where it ran from January 11, 1927 to May 13, 1927. This poster advertises the four month run at the Pavillon. It was then inexplicably withdrawn from the theatre and edited. The shortened version was back in theatres across Germany on August 25, 1927. John Warren in his Movie Poster Price Guide states that "German one-sheets [for the film] are not known to exist" (p. 259), nor is this poster a standard size for one-sheets of the era. Given that the times of the show are included on the poster, we conclude that it was hanging at the theatre box office. UFA, p. 68 (var), Edwards, p. 35 (var).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
