"Aemaet" -- the Golem opens its eyes
Paul Wegener not only co-directed but plays the Golem himself, under makeup and a heavy clay-textured suit designed by Expressionist architect Hans Poelzig. The film is a prequel to two earlier Golem films Wegener had already made and lost, and it's the one that survives complete. Its blocky, jagged medieval-ghetto sets and the Golem's own lumbering, silent menace fed directly into Hollywood horror a decade later -- Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster owes a visible debt to Wegener's performance and silhouette.