Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

zetes 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.

st-shot Town clerk Lorenz Lubota is a retiring bookish fellow about to settle into a contented hum drum existence when he is bowled over by a carriage on his way to work . Only stunned by the accident he becomes obsessed with the striking beauty of the driver turning the rest of his world upside down. Lorenz then foolishly pursues the woman with an ungovernable monomania that creates havoc in both his personal and professional life. Exploited by a slick grifter he betrays a benefactress and when his clumsy attempt to win the hand of his obsession falters he is exploited by a mother-daughter team and the spiral picks up speed.Made the same year as Nosferatu director FW Murnau taps down the phantasmagoria considerably in this slow go that reveals much of its outcome early, making it more of a cautionary tale than an intense suspense. Incurable romantic Lorenz moves through the film trance like most of the way and such unabated gullibility wears Phantom down.Their are a handful of lush tinted classic Murnau compositions that inform and a touch of misogyny that allows his female characters some lurid depth but for this cinema giant it is a sub par effort.

hasosch If I remember correctly, it was Peter Greenaway who wrote a few years ago that in the near future one will be able to make films about how somebody thinks and not only about what somebody does. When this time will be here, one should remember F.W. Murnau's "Phantom" (1922) which does exactly what Greenaways was speaking about. Lorenz Lubota is a little scribe, likes books and would like to be a poet. One day, on his way to work, he is hit by a carriage. In this moment, he sees Veronika, the daughter of a rich merchant, and chases from now on her picture like a phantom. It fills up his whole thinking and feeling. He even goes to her parents' house in order to ask for her hand. After he is thrown out, he stops working, neglects his belongings and sinks deeper and deeper in despair. I cannot remember whether anyone else in the "silent" time has made more appropriate use of tinting in order to show the inside of a person than Murnau did. By chance, Lorenz meets Melitta who looks like a twin of Veronika. However, she cheats on him and demands money which he does not have. So he steals it and even lies to his aunt, whom he tells that he needs the money for having his poesies printed as books. Not long after, his aunts finds out about the truth and threatens to turn him in to the police. So, one night, Lorenz and one of his new colleagues break into the house of the aunt. When they are caught by her, the colleague kills her. Lorenz goes to prison as an accessory. When he is released, the daughter of his former boss waits for him, telling him that she always loved him. Besides the unrealistic and rather fairy-tale-like end, this movie shows many motives that Murnau would use in the subsequent year when he shot "Nosferatu". One could say that in "Phantom", he filmed the imaginary world, whereas in "Nosferatu", he projected this imaginary world as a substrate of abyss-less gore into the outside world. However, one could also say that Lorenz, at the end, is rightfully awarded by a loving wife because he belonged to the very few people who really believed in a phantom and even gave up his whole existence for it. And simply the fact that a phantom can exist in our real brain proves its reality, isn't that so?

whpratt1 Enjoyed this silent film from 1922 with great German directors and plenty of talented people. This story starts out with a family consisting of two brothers, sister and a mother who are not very well off and the sister hates her life and gets in a fight with her mother and she turns to the streets and the fast lane in life. Lorenz Lubota, (Alfred Abel) is one of the brothers who loves to read books and is also a poet and works as a clerk for the city. One day Lorenz was walking in the street and a blonde girl is driving a chariot and runs him down, the girl checks to see that he is okay but Lorenz immediately falls in love with this girl. After this event in Lorenz's life he completely goes crazy and his life changes for the worst and he gets involved with money that does not belong to him. Grete Berger gives a great supporting role as a pawnbroker, Schwabe. Enjoy