Considering the money and effort that went into the city model, I was surprised to find the rest of the production values quite low…the ground-level city sets, especially, were sparse almost to the point of Monogram. Maybe they blew all their dough on the miniatures.

http://www.archive.org/details/Metropolis1927.mpg

As you can see, the intricate New York City
of the future is absent.

In the all too brief YouTube clip from ‘Just Imangine!’
you DO see the city!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD5YWJbni6E

Best Regards

Jörg

I’d never seen that opening scene one before.

Effects look pretty good.

Beautiful damn city.

There are a handful of scenes on YouTube, by the way (the first one has shots of the cityscape):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zD5.....re=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4W9.....re=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WL7.....re=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QE3.....re=related

And, while I was tempted, none of those links have Rick Astley in them (though you will wish they did).

Let’s just say that I, for one, am glad the sci-fi musical comedy never managed to take off as a genre.

It’s so hard to find info or pics from Just Imagine.

Damn shame, too, as it looks beautiful and seems to have had decent production values.

Architectural styles are different, as is the ‘feel’ of the cities.

Recognize this rocketship?: http://photos.shebloggedbynigh....._19049.jpg

http://www.shebloggedbynight.c.....-1930.html

Eliyahu:
The US military probably needed the blimp hangar back as WWII neared.
If it had to be destroyed, it should have been rigged with pyrotechnics
and filmed with high speed cameras.
ATOMIC BOMBS DESTROY 1999 NEW YORK CITY!

[ http://www.skyscraper.org/Pics/nymodern/07w.jpg ]

The design comes from 1922 and had been worked on as a plan of New York since the 1916 zoning law went into effect, when Metropolis was only a glimmer in Thea Von Harbous eye.
It was a working piece between three men over the course of nearly a decade; Raymond Hood, Harvey Wiley Corbett, and Hugh Ferriss.

However the design of a multi-tiered street system fell out of favour due to manpower, and the Great Depressions money constraints [even though we could use it here in Manhattan today]. It still was the most futuristic thing of its time.

Ferriss’s dramatic charcoal renderings of a city of vast multi-block megastructures, set at intervals in separate zones of Science, Art, and Business, were widely published in the late twenties and, more than any other source, defined the image of the possible urban future in American popular culture.

His influences can be seen in the drawings by the Mexican-born architect Francisco Mujica of “A Hundred-Story City in the Neo-American Style” and in the spectacular movie set for the 1930 Fox film “Just Imagine,” an early “talkie” billed as “the first science fiction musical.”

Your poster may have the word ‘metropolis’ on it, but to be sure, it is not the same as the film “Metropolis”. That word was being bandied about constantly then [also, if I may add, pics or it didn't happen]. All of “Metropolis’” sets had been designed with very narrow canyons between buildings to maximize the effect of viewing tall buildings and were mostly four times the height of a human being. “Metropolis” also had no sets like the above ones used for “Just Imagine” and likewise in reverse.

The “Just Imagine” set was designed with the New York Zoning Law 1916 in effect. “Just Imagine needed a large, less narrow, miniature to achieve it’s flying shots. “Metropolis” has no fly-over shots over the city and “Just Imagine” absolutely did have them. Any miniature from “Metropolis” would have been counter to what was needed for filming “Just Imagine”.

The Zoning Law meant buildings have to have a certain set back from the street depending on height, which most achieved by the stepping at the heights of the buildings to maximize the usable space and to allow for sunlight. Hugh Ferris was a master at this and inspired many of the great architectural wonders of modern and past Manhattan.

That said: I do love this set.

Ich wurde Berlinert.

I personally think the article is right, but I would love to see the poster you’re referring to.

http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm

http://davidszondy.com/future/city/skyscraper.htm

http://davidszondy.com/future/.....necity.htm

This is Fritz Lang’s Metropolis set (have a poster of that set/effect on the wall) - and he lived in Germany until 1933 if I remember correctly. Seeing how Metropolis was made in 1927 this has nothing to do with Hollywood.