Restored Metropolis to Screen in San Francisco

Fritz Lang's seminal 1927 film Metropolis has been restored using footage located in an archive in Argentina. This new footage adds about 20 minutes to the film.

The restored film was screened in Los Angeles last weekend during the TCM - Turner Classic Movies Film Festival. All reports have been fabulous on what the footage added to the film.

Happy news for the Northern California film geeks, Metropolis will be screened at the 15th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival. As with the TCM screening, the Alloy Orchestra will play the film live. Oh, and I'm not trying to be snooty, the SF Silent Film Festival attracts film mavens from around the world. Everyone is welcome! I'm just super lucky, I live here.

The trailer for the restored film can be seen here. KINO will be releasing this film on DVD and on Blu-Ray.

Gold in Them Thar Hills! - Photoplay and Vintage Film/Media Magazine Digitation Project

David Pierce (of The Silent Film Bookshelf) reported recently on Nitrateville the following exciting news:

I've been working on a project to digitize trade and fan magazines, and the first batch, from the collection of the Pacific Film Archive, is now on-line.

There are eight volumes (four years) of Photoplay, and one volume each of Motion Picture Classic (1920) and Moving Picture World (April-June 1913). Thanks to Nancy Goldman of the Pacific Film Archive for working with me on this group of materials. As always with the Internet Archive, you can download high-quality PDFs, embed their viewer on your webpage, and download the original full-quality scans. (the July-December 1925 volume of Photoplay is still in work; I can send the PDF to anyone who can't wait).

I have grant funding to do much more (it costs about 10c per page) and am working with several other libraries and archives to coordinate scanning of material from their collections. Leonard Maltin has given the effort a nice launch on his blog: and the project brochure is on-line here. If any Nitrateville readers have bound volumes that they would be willing to allow the project to scan (and be willing to cover shipping or transport to an Internet Archive scanning center) then let me know through PM. I hope to do another batch of materials in the next few months. Enjoy these volumes and let all of us know what you find! David Pierce

To say this is exciting news and an absolute GOLD MINE for cinema researchers, well that's a mighty large understatement. I'm thrilled and am hopefull that other libraries still holding the bound volumes of Moving Picture World and other trade magazines and studio house organs of the era will come forth and allow scanning. Thank you to David for the hard work and getting this fabulous project started.