Thea von Harbou (1888 - 1954) & Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927; 118 mins)

Thea von Harbou (1888 - 1954) had her first novel published in 1905. From 1906 until 1914, Harbou acts on the stages of Dusseldorf, Weimar, Chemnitz and Aachen, and five years later Harbou's career as a screen-writer gets under way. During the preparations for the filming of her novel Das Indische Grabmal she met Fritz Lang, and would provide the scripts for all of his movies between 1920 and 1933. Harbou also wrote scripts for movies by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Carl Theador Dreyer and Arthur von Gerlach. In 1932, she joined the Nazi Party, and two years later she wrote a cinematic adaptation of the play The Assumption of Hannele, which she also directed. After the war, she was detained by the British military government, and sent to do unskilled labor. She died in Berlin in 1954.

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou in their Berlin flat (1923)