You can't beat a classic.  Here we see "Chuckles" Rotwang hard at work in his laboratory as he prepares to make his robot into a duplicate of the lovely Maria, who is currently residing in the toothbrush tube. 

If you've never seen Metropolis (1926), you should.  If you've only seen the muddy bargain-basement prints of the film, then you should definitely seek out the restored Kino print and see what generations of cinema buffs have been missing for three quarters of a century.  It is so beautifully done that it makes any of the other prints look like they were shot through coke bottles filled with mud (and in a film this stunningly visual, that should be enough).  And this isn't just a cleaned up print, its an entirely different film, because later distributors hacked Metropolis to bits and even rewrote the story.

Take the case of the robot that the mad scientist Rotwang alters to resemble the rebel leader Maria.  For decades, audiences were lead to believe that Rotwang built his robot as a replacement for the human workers that supported the society of Metropolis.  We're also lead to think that Rotwang is barking mad, given the way that he screams his insane plan at Joh Fredersen, the dictator of Metropolis.  At least, that's what we get from the bastardised story line that was later made from the heavily re-edited prints. 

In fact, Rotwang is as mad as a balloon, but for a different reason.  In the original version, Fredersen stole Rotwang's woman Hel away from him.  Since she'd died years before, Rotwang figured what the heck and embarked on a spot of DIY to build himself a robot replica of the old girl.  Creepy, in a State of the Art Blow-Up Doll sort of way, but at least it's a better explanation of Rotwang's frothing at the mouth in front of Fredersen or why he built a robot with breasts and a wiggly walk; which seems a bit of a bizarre touch if Rotwang was just trying to undercut the labour market.  Maybe it could have been explained away as feature creep, but I doubt it.

You have to love Rotwang.  He not only had a great laboratory where you could see the electricity fly, but he also sported an artificial hand and employed the first in a long line of cinematic hunchbacks. 

The robot, on the other hand... Well, in its machine state it's an incredible piece of art deco, but once it gets a makeover and goes off to impersonate Maria, it goes completely gonzo, which just proves the importance of quality control in any development process.

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