Last week it was the head clamp from A Clockwork Orange, for this week's Movie Gadget Friday Josie Fraser reaches back to the silent era with the False Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis:
German director Fritz Lang and writer Thea von Harbou collaborated to produce the silent classic Metropolis
(1927), which remains a benchmark movie in science fiction and has influenced generations of film makers.
Metropolis depicts a dark and urban future (it's set in 2027) where the idle rich frolic in a city of delights
maintained by slave labour.
At first it seems as in Rotwang has successfully solved his interpersonal problems with technology, and he names his
creation Maschine Mann. It's a Functional rather than glamorous name, but at least the guy is honest enough not to
panic about his sexual identity when he's planning on having an intimate relationship with some wires and tin
plate.
False Maria is sexy, seductive and only a tiny bit squinty. Unfortunately she also turns out
to be as evil as the original Maria is evangelical, and enjoys a brief but meteoric career - by night working a go-go
dancer in Metropolis?s red light district, and by day, as an agent provocateur and would-be mass-murderer of working
class children.
