Fritz Lang Le maudit page

Fritz Lang Le maudit page 78. Made in pen and ink, watercolor and acrylic.

Fritz Lang is perhaps my favorite movie director of all time. His reputation is mainly based on a string of spectacular movies in the German Weimar Republic: Dr. Mabuse (1922), Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927), M (1931), Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933), among others. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he went into exile and made quite a lot of good-to-great movies, often on shoestring budgets, in Hollywood.

This page, from Eric Liberge and Arnaud Delalande´ s graphic biography of his Weimar period, shows the triumphant gala premiere of Metropolis in Berlin´ s UFA-Palast, 10 January 1927. The impressive UFA-Palast building (totally destroyed during the war) is realistically drawn at this occasion - Lang demanded a sober front without banners and such at the opening. In the last panel we see a letdown: Lang´ s wife Thea von Harbou reading H.G. Wells´ scathing review of Metropolis, and Lang replying (correctly) that the version showed in England and the US was a truncated one which destroyed the movie.

Thea von Harbou was not only wife, she contributed strongly to Lang´ s success as his main scriptwriter. She wrote the script for Metropolis and nearly all the other Weimar movies Lang made.
They parted ways and divorced in 1933. Lang went into exile. He later told that he was offered the job as head of movie production in the new Nazi Germany, but declined. In spite of being admired by both Hitler and Goebbels, he was staunchly anti-Nazi. His wife was not. Thea von Harbou became infatuated with Nazism and chose to stay in Nazi Germany.
And of course Superman´ s hometown was called Metropolis after Lang´ s futuristic city.