new thread
Last night I went to the Paramount Theater (http://www.austintheatrealliance.org/html/ptpamain.htm) to view a new print of Metropolis (1927). Unfortunately, I noted the time wrong as 9:15 rather than the 9:50 it was actually scheduled, so there was a line of people waiting to get in when I arrived.
The temperature was in the 90s, so it was very hot even though the sun had already disappeared behind other buildings downtown.
In front of me in line was a steadily growing group of people of all shapes and sizes. I'll restrict my descriptions to hair, which ranged from completely bald to butt-length. The variety seemed to be equal in both sexes.
To the left of me was a man with male pattern baldness who had a small pony tail about 7 inches long. To my right was the bald man. Between them was a man with thick, brown wavy hair that draped naturally about 3/4 of the way down his back. To the right of the bald guy was a man with longish bangs in the front and very fine, blonde, straight hair down to his butt. One of the women in the group had hair about an inch long. Another had mid-back length hair, and another had waist-length hair.
After about 10 minutes, I noticed that another woman with a longish bob pulled her hair up to expose her neck and was leaning against the limestone wall to keep her hair up. Meanwhile, most of the longhaired people were holding thair hair up off their necks. I began to braid my own. The woman with the mid-back length hair, and they guy with blonde hair to his butt just left their hair hanging loose.
The guy with the wavy brown hair began twisting his hair. I thought he was going to make a bun as one of the women had done. Instead, he twisted and twisted until it started doubling on itself. Then, when you would normally wrap it to make a bun, he instead tied a simple knot.
Another guy walked by with waist-length dreadlocks.
The whole thing was kind of interesting to watch. Nobody made any comment on anybody's hair even though about half the people were doing something with their own to combat the heat.
Then we were let into the building. Ahh! Cool air conditioning.
...Wow..Victor...that was quite a wonderful WORD-PICTURE!!!
[felt like I was actually there!]
..And while I've had the pleasure of experiencing 'Metropolis'...
...I enjoyed your 'production' more...
....Thanks for bringing it on here!
Bear in mind that this is a totally new release of Metropolis. The production team went all over the world finding bits and pieces of the film that had been lost. Additionally, there are original scenes that were not in the original, believe it or not! All in all, they attempted to make the experience as close as possible to the debut release in Berlin, which was much different than the movie as released in the US and other countries.
Original release version was 153 minutes. Premiere cut was 210 minutes. Widespread version in the US and other countries was only about 80 minutes (shorter not just because content was cut but also because the 16 fps movie was frequently projected at 26 fps). This restored version is 147 minutes. The sound was also remastered and added as a sound track.
....NOW I MUST see THIS new release!!!
...I would LOVE to read the reaction of the Beliners to
the Original release....I mean, they MUST have been WOWed!!!