David Bowie sees Fritz Lang’s Metropolis

On his 27th birthday, David Bowie visited his friend George Underwood at his home in Hampstead, London.

Bowie was accompanied by Amanda Lear. That afternoon the trio watched a screening of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis at Hampstead’s Everyman Theatre. The cinematography proved influential on Bowie’s designs for the Diamond Dogs stage show.

It was a real big thing for him. He was so paranoid about going out in daylight and being recognised. We saw Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and David was in awe of it. He rented the film and ran it over and over again in his house. And that’s where Diamond Dogs came from, the whole staging and album and everything Bowie got from Metropolis.