Brigitte Helm

[blackv8]

Battlestar Galactica made a splash over the past few years with Grace Park and Tricia Helfer as gorgeous women who, it turned out, were secretly robots. Here's the original old-school movie that used that idea 80 years before.


from Wikipedia:
Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm
(March 17, 1908, Berlin, Germany – June 11, 1996, Ascona, Switzerland) was a German actress, best remembered for her role as the dual role Maria and her double the Maschinenmensch in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film, Metropolis.

After Metropolis, which was her second film, Helm made over 30 other films, including talking pictures, before retiring in 1936.

In 1935, angered by Nazi control of the German film industry, she moved to Switzerland where she later had 4 children with her second husband Dr. Hugo von Kuenheim, an industrialist. Helm was originally offered the title role in The Bride of Frankenstein, but she turned it down.





Metropolis is a really amazing film, but you have to be prepared for how different it is from today's movie going experience. The camera was undercranked, so everyone moves like monkeys on crack. The technology of movie cameras was still pretty primitive, and images flicker through scratches, film grain and poor focus. The narrative is allegorical or symbolic, and the theme of the film is laid on thickly. The performances are so broad that even young children should be able to understand the intent of each character.




Freder, son of the man who runs the whole city, is up to no good at a resort for the wealthy with a bunch of loose women (I keep trying to find that job at Monster- no success so far!). Maria has brought a bunch of poor workers' children to the resort so they could see "these are your brothers." They are rushed out of the exclusive area, but not before Freder has fallen hard for Maria.



Freder decides to visit the work areas below the city to see how his "brothers" live. His vivid imagination turns a giant machine that blows up into a lurid altar where the workers are being sacrificed to a pagan god.




Meanwhile, up above in his city, Freder's father has heard about a woman who is giving the workers funny ideas. His men don't seem to know what's going on, so he decides to visit Rotwang.



Rotwang is the maddest of mad scientists. He has built a robot to replace his lost wife, who had left him to marry the industrialist and died giving birth to Freder.




Freder has traded places with a worker and been invited to a secret religious ritual for the workers led by... Maria! Freder and Maria embrace and he promises to be the mediator between the city's master (his father) and the workers.



When Maria leaves the underground chapel, she is menaced and kidnapped in the dark by Rotwang.





Rotwang and Freder's father have a plan to have the robot (disguised as Maria) act badly and destroy her reputation with the workers. Of course, the first step is tying a naked, unconscious Maria into a giant metal restraining device. Isn't that the first step of every mad scientist's plans? The robot is transformed into Maria's likeness, albeit a twitchier, leering version.






For some reason, on the way to inciting the workers to riot (Rotwang's double crossing the guy who stole his wife- imagine that!), the robot Maria does an "erotic dance" at the red-light district for all of the wealthy horndogs...



...Then she incites the workers to riot! They are so whipped up that they destroy the city's power machines, forgetting that this will flood their underground quarters, where all of their children are sleeping. D'oh!



Meanwhile, the real Maria has escaped, assessed the situation, collected all of the workers' children and taken them to safety with Freder's help.



Psycho robot Maria is a pretty quick mover; she's back at the red-light district, partying like it's 1999 with a bunch of guys in top-hats (shades of Moulin Rouge!).



The crowd of workers, who realized their actions would have caused their kids to die, are looking for Maria to burn her at the stake. They find her in the club, burn her, and it is revealed to be the robot. Meanwhile, the real Maria and Freder are reunited and serve to facilitate discussions between the workers and Freder's father. The workers are reunited with their children. Rotwang falls to his death after trying to molest Maria, and a new era of understanding begins for mankind (at least in the imaginary world of this movie).

If you like sci-fi films and get the chance sometime, watch it! It's very dated, but a pretty amazing accomplishment all the same. Even with the poor film quality, Brigitte Helm was pretty sexy. And she retired instead of being forced to make stupid Nazi approved films. The images from this film have had a strong influence on sci-fi movies even today (C-3PO from Star Wars was based on the design of this robot, for one thing)

[george anson]

[zwaik]

Metropolis

[marlon]

[DaveHam]

I had luck and saw Metopolis live with an Orchester this summer, it is a fascinating movie...
Here some pictures not from Metropolis...

[DaveHam]

Two postcards and a still fom the movie "Die Herrin von Atlantis", "L'Atlantide" and "The Mistress from Atlantis".
The famous Director G.W. Papst did three Versions of this Film in 1932: a german, french and english Version with different actors, Brigitte Helm was in all Versions because she was talented with languages.

[DaveHam]

More Postcards from her...

[DaveHam]

Some more,

[DaveHam]

[bourschwa]

Ave !

"Gold", 1934




"Spione am Werk", 1933