"Actor: Hugo Block"

• Phantom/Die Finanzen Des Großherzogs | DVD | (19/10/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Two Films by F.W. Murnau. After filming the landmark Nosferatu the silent cinema's master innovator F. W. Murnau demonstrated the reach of his genre versatility with a pair of films that explored the dimensions of the psychodrama and the adventure-programmer. All the Murnau characteristics are present: a vibrant naturalism exquisite imagery passages of dreamlike revery and an atmosphere redolent with romantic longing. In Phantom an aspiring poet on the verge of what he takes for a big break experiences a chance encounter with a beautiful woman in the street - and falls headlong into love and fantasy. With debts piling up and his promised literary celebrity failing to materialise the poet descends into obsession deception and ultimately a criminal act in this delirious film that stands as an early precursor of Hitchcock's Vertigo. Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs sees Murnau exploiting the Mediterranean clime to film the tale of a rakish duke whose lifestyle has dried up his noble coffers. When word arrives about the existence of valuable sulphur deposits on his tiny duchy of Abacco a comic adventure of high-seas intrigue animal impersonators and the Crown Princess of Russia unreels at a sprightly pace. Max Schreck (the mythic actor behind the makeup of Nosferatu's Count Orlok two years earlier) appears in a supporting role in what might be Murnau's nimblest effort.