First use of the Schufftan process special effect in a movie

The process devised by Eugen Schüfftan (Germany) in 1923 was first used in the movie version of Wagner’s Die Nibelungen (Germany, 1924) directed by Fritz Lang (Austria). It was most famously used in Lang’s Metropolis (Germany, 1927). Models were made of gargantuan cityscapes and a mirror mounted at the best angle in front of the camera to reflect the miniatures. Parts of the surface were scraped off to correspond to areas where real actors and scenery would be filmed in front of the camera, lit to look like a seamless whole with the models. Alfred Hitchcock employed the technique in his silent Blackmail (UK, 1929) for a chase sequence in and over the British Museum in London, UK, where the light was too low to shoot for real. There is some suggestion that other filmmakers had experimented with similar ideas, but Schüfftan was the first to use it successfully. The special effect was so advanced it was still being used as late as 2003, in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Zealand; USA; UK).

Note umlaut spelling of Schüfftan