On the surface, Metropolis, the eponymous city from the 1927 Fritz Lang (1890-1976) film, is a technocratic utopia that would have warmed the cockles of Hugo Gernsback's gadget-mad heart.  Look at it: Skyscrapers the size of small cities soar into the heavens, sky bridges crisscross the the bottomless concrete canyons, and parks with stadiums the size for the Circus Maximus adorn the rooftops for the pleasures of the sons of the ruling elite.

But it isn't all just good times and giant towers above.  Every city, no matter how impressive the city centre, still needs someone to keep the lights on, stock the shelves, unclog the drains, and take care of all the industrial and infrastructure stuff.  That's why if you go up to town and turn your back on the glittering towers you'll probably be facing an abattoir or a sewage farm.  Metropolis has the same problem, but unlike the bowels of most cities, those of Metropolis are hidden neatly deep below ground where miserable workers in horrid German expressionist flats tend the gigantic, though pointless, machines that keep the city going. 

Being a worker in Metropolis is no barrel of pickled herring.  For one thing, the commute sucks, what with having to shuffle in unison with head hung low with everyone else and then going up and down in lifts that are crammed so tightly that farting is a major hazard.  Then there's the job itself, which involves frantically manipulating the controls of  giant machines that were designed by engineers who never heard of servo mechanisms.  Nor, if the accident rate is anything to go by, did they ever get wind of little things like automatic stops, safety cut outs, or OSHA regulations.

Then you can add in the fact that worker/management relations border on the abysmal,-- no redundancy schemes, a boss who seems rather happy to drown the worker's living quarters as an incentive scheme, and related problems due to mad scientists creating berserk androids that incite riots and egg on the upper classes to homicidal fits of sexual jealousy.

Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang was said to have found the inspiration for Metropolis on first seeing the New York skyline.  From what I've heard about how he treated his actors, I can guess where he got the inspiration for his workers from.

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