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Retro SciFi of the Week…

Metropolis (1927)

This film fell into the public domain in the US in 1953 when its copyright lapsed. More than 50 years later the US Supreme Court declared that it was back under copyright (retroactive to 1996), which of course is illegal to do in the US. Notwithstanding the court’s impotent proclamations, the film will indisputably be in the public domain at the end of this year. You will likely be hearing more about it at that time. It may remain under copyright in other parts of the world because Fritz Lang lived so long.

A decade after this film came out, Hitler exploited the sentiments expressed by the workers depicted in this film to implement socialism in Germany and take away the freedom of those very workers (and nearly everybody else’s freedom too).

A while ago I did a #TruthBeTold that referenced this film but I don’t think anybody understood it at that time (or only partial understood).

(Socialism and Nazism are just about the worst ideas ever and inevitably lead to the loss of liberty and justice.)