Phantom (1922 German Romantic Fantasy film)

Phantom is a 1922 German romantic fantasy film directed by F. W. Murnau. It is an example of German Expressionist film and has a surreal, dreamlike quality.

Plot
The film is told in an extended flashback. Lorenz Lubota (Alfred Abel), is a clerk in a minor government office, an aspiring poet, and a member of a family headed by a worrisome mother who has a tense relationship with a daughter, Melanie, whom the mother believes works as a prostitute. One day, while Lorenz is walking to work, a woman (Lya De Putti) driving two white horses hits him in the road, knocking him to the ground. Physically, he is unharmed, but from that point forward, the woman in the carriage (named Veronika) consumes his every thought.

His obsession with Veronika costs him his job when he fails to show up for work and threatens his boss for accusing him of stalking her. Believing his poems will be published and anticipating a meeting with a publisher, Lorenz asks his Aunt Schwabe (Grete Berger)—a cutthroat pawnbroker—for money to buy a new suit. Schwabe's assistant, Wigottschinski (Anton Edthofer), encourages Lorenz to celebrate and they reunite with Lorenz's sister, who becomes Wigottschinski's girlfriend.

Cast
Alfred Abel as Lorenz Lubota
Grete Berger as Pfandleiherin Schwabe/Pawnbroker Schwabe
Lil Dagover as Marie Starke
Lya De Putti as Veronika Harlan/Mellitta
Anton Edthofer as Wigottschinski
Aud Egede-Nissen as Melanie Lubota
Olga Engl as Harlans Frau/Harlan's Wife
Karl Etlinger as Buchbinder Starke/Bookbinder Starke
Ilka Grüning as Baronin/Baroness
Adolf Klein as Harlan
Frida Richard as Lubotas Mutter/Lubota's Mother
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski as Hugo Lubot

Reception
Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film three out of a possible four stars, calling the film "[a] poetic psychodrama".

Preservation status
The film was thought to be a lost film for many years, but was restored by German film archivists and re-released in the USA on 12 September 2006.