The Golem

A clay figure made in sixteenth-century Prague to shield the city's Jews from persecution is dug out of the rubble of an old synagogue in the twentieth century. An antique dealer wakes it and puts it to work as a servant, and Paul Wegener (Golem) plays the lumbering creature in this largely lost silent film he co-directed with Henrik Galeen. The golem was built to defend a people, and the dealer uses it to carry his errands.