In sixteenth-century Prague, a rabbi creates a monster out of clay to help his people fight against the emperor’s expulsion of the Jews from the ghetto. Considered the most visually striking of the various film versions of the ancient Jewish legend (Wegener alone made three films on the subject), The Golem is remarkable for its dramatic sets by Hans Poelzig and for its use of chiaroscuro, which eerily captures the mystery and remoteness of the Middle Ages. Wegener’s lumbering gait was imitated by Boris Karloff years later in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931).