RetroClips

The village beneath Mephisto's wings is a miniature model, not a full-size set -- art director Robert Herlth's team built it from reeds and rushes standing in for pine trees, glass wool for clouds, and real turf glued onto plaster, with the buildings' proportions deliberately warped to read as vast, crooked distance under the demon's shadow. Emil Jannings plays Mephisto here, a few years before he'd move to Hollywood and become the first person to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for two other films. Murnau himself considered the picture troubled -- he reshot the ending after a poor test screening -- but this looming apparition over the model village became one of the most reproduced single images of the silent era.