Phantom (1922)

This is a typical silent tale of greed and stupidity. The principle character, with whom we are supposed to empathize, has his head firmly planted in the clouds. He gets run over and fall in love with the woman who hit him. He becomes obsessed with an image and goes on to do a series of idiotic things. He assumes that what is said to him is the truth. An innocent gets some sympathy, but when the fog lifts, he can't expect a lot of sympathy. The film is nicely crafted and works fine, but I just couldn't get over the rashness of the guy.

Minor Murnau, but pretty good. He made this one right after Nosferatu. Alfred Abel (of Metropolis) stars as a man who lives along with his sister (Aud Egede Nissen) with their mother (Frida Richard). Abel falls for beautiful rich girl Lya De Putti, and then later with a gold digger who looks exactly like her (also played by De Putti). A bookstore owner convinces Abel that he is a great poet, and he borrows a bunch of money from his rich aunt, who thinks he'll soon be rich, to impress De Putti and help out his sister's criminal boyfriend. The story and acting are pretty good. The cinematic experiments are not as daring as they are in Nosferatu, but there are several impressive special effects peppered throughout the picture.

In Germany, the honest city clerk and aspirant poet Lorenz Lubota (Alfred Abel) lives a poor but decent life with his mother (Frieda Richard), his ambitious sister Melanie (Aud Egede Nissen) and his younger brother Hugo Lubota (H.H. v. Twardowski). Lorenz shows his poems to the father of his sweetheart Marie Starke (Lil Dagover), who is the local bookbinder, and the man wrongly believes that Lorenz is a promising poet. The bookbinder promises to show his poems to a prominent professor for evaluation, but the man concludes that they are worthless. Meanwhile Melanie leaves her home to become a prostitute in a cabaret.When the distracted Lorenz is going to work, a woman named Veronika Harlan (Lya de Putti) that is driving a horse-drawn chariot runs over him and he follows Veronika and immediately has a crush on her. Lorenz pays a visit to his wealthy and wary aunt and pawnbroker Schwabe (Grete Berger) to borrow some money to buy an appropriate suit since he believes that he will become a successful writer and make lots of money with the royalties of his poems. However he is followed by a swindler (Anton Edthofer) that dates Schwabe and they spend the borrowed money in a cabaret where Lorenz meets Melanie. The swindler stays with Melanie and convinces Lorenz to borrow a large amount from Schwabe. The naive Lorenz gives part of the money to the swindler and uses the rest to buy clothes to Veronika to seduce her. When Schwabe discovers that Lorenz is a liar and his poems will not be published, she gives a three days schedule for him to pay his debts; otherwise she will call the police. But the swindler suggests a scheme to Lorenz."Phantom" is a moralist tale of corruption of human character and redemption by F.W. Murnau. The story is divided in six acts and has flaws and lack of explanation for many situations, but since the film was reconstructed and restored in 2003 by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv of Berlin, parts of the original work might be missing. The dramatic plot has many parallel stories entwined through the lead character Lorenz.I saw this film in a Brazilian DVD with a nice soundtrack and in accordance with the Wikipedia, the first screening of "Phantom" in Brazil was on 30 October 2008, on the 120th anniversary of F.W. Murnau. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Fantasma" ("Phantom")

The story of a man Lorenz Lubota (played by Alfred Abel) who chases a woman Pfandleiherin Schwabe (Grete Berger) who keeps escaping him and is, virtually, like a phantom. This drama is not as potent as Murnau's other attempts at heart wrenching dramatic cinema (such as TABU and SUNRISE). Much like SUNRISE this film suffers from a running time that could, easily, be cut in half. There are not as many interesting elements in this story as, say, THE HAUNTED CASTLE or FAUST. But still it is worth a look for any of Murnau's dedicated fans. It includes Murnau's usually study of human suffering and torment, and his supernatural imagery (a ghostly horse carriage, and a leaning city- much like Weine's CAL