Sweet Fancy Moses

Metropolis (1927):  Fritz Lang’s silent sci-fi may be best known for its wondrous female robot, Eve, but it’s the set design that really takes your breath away. It features a cloud-scraping contemporary Tower of Babel, an industrial workers’ production hell-hole, and super-modern, master-of-the-universe-style offices – all revealing its creators’ in-depth knowledge of the very latest European architectural developments. Whether they’re interpreting Art Deco, Bauhaus Modern or Expressionism, all the buildings shown are terrifying. The overall effect is curiously Gothic, shadowy, elongated, chiaroscuro. And scary.