Anti-Masonry | Metropolis

Metropolis (1927)
Produced by Fritz Lang
Screenplay by Thea von Harbou (1888-1954)
The pentagram appears four times, once as a large shadowed emblem behind the sitting robot, next as a relief sigil on the door into Rotwang’s house, as chalk-drawn marks on doors inside the house, and the “…New Tower of Babel whose top floor was envisaged as a pentacle shaped aerodrome.” [Enno Patalas in The Metropolis Case.] Illustration taken from working sketches for the movie; the images in the movie are cropped differently and the pentagram shape is less obvious. There may be significance to a large Roman numeral “V” above a door to the workers’ level and emblazened on the side of a building. The following quotes from the novel suggest an underlying antisemitism.

“Set into the black wood of the door stood, copper-red, mysterious, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.”
“It is said that that a magician, who came from the East (and in the track of whom the plague wandered) had built the house in seven nights.” [p. 47.]

“…these latchless doors, which were sealed with Solomon’s seal.” [p. 48.]”Set in all the doors stood, copper-red, mysterious, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.” [p. 48.]
“The seal of Solomon, glowing copper-red, blinked at him.” [p. 51.]

Metropolis, Thea von Harbou. New York : Ace Books, Inc., 1963. [first English edition, 1927.]First ed.: Berlin : August Scherl Verlag G.m.b.H., 1926. 273 pp. ; 19 cm. First appeared in the magazine Illustriertes Blatt, Frankfurt.

ADDITIONAL PENTAGRAMS | FILM INDEX