A seminal artifact of German silent cinema, this real photographic postcard belongs to the Ross Verlag series numbered 71/1 through at least 71/12, issued to promote Fritz Lang's 1927 UFA production *Metropolis*. The image reproduces the film's spectacular underground flood sequence, with Maria calling the children out of the buildings to bring them to safety from the rising floodwaters. The postcards were produced by Ross Verlag, a German postcard publishing company established by photographer Heinrich Ross in Berlin in 1919, with photography credited to Parufamet and UFA.

Dozens of fleeing figures, men, women, and children, wade and splash through knee-deep water filling a massive brutalist set, their tunics and dark garments clinging as they surge in all directions. At center, a female figure in a flowing gown stands elevated on a stone monument before a large circular disc, arms raised, a mallet in hand. Stairways and towering windowpunched concrete facades fill the background, smoke or steam erupting dramatically behind the disc above the figure. The lower left bears the oval Parufamet stamp, and the UFA diamond logo appears lower right with the series number 71/7 and the credit "Regie: Fritz Lang," with the title "Metropolis" printed along the bottom border in bold serif type.

It took 14 days to film the flood scene, and Lang hired 500 children from the poorest areas of Berlin, keeping them and Brigitte Helm in water he ordered kept cold. Though *Metropolis* was initially a box office disappointment, it has since been recognized as a masterpiece of world cinema and was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2001.

The reverse is unused, divided for correspondence and address, with a printed stamp box at upper right. A penciled notation reading "$125" appears at the upper right corner of the reverse.