Jack Lemmon

1. "Nosferatu" (1922)

F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" might have crawled out of an abandoned root cellar after centuries curled in the dark: bat ears bracket a white, skull-like face narrowing down to a mouth with two long ratlike teeth. Humped, its etiolated body seems boneless, while... more hideously extended claws adorn its snakelike fingers. No charming lover here, only a repulsive Otherness (Max Schreck) that spreads plague wherever its unclean shadow falls. Schreck's prey, a good woman yoked happily to a great sexless puppy of a husband, saves the day by keeping Nosferatu up past his bedtime -- until the sun dissolves him in light. Is this grotesque weed what female libido looked like to sexual puritans? (Everett Collection)

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Kathleen Murphy currently reviews films for Seattle's Queen Anne News and writes essays on film for Steadycam magazine. A frequent speaker on film, Murphy has contributed numerous essays to magazines (Film Comment, the Village Voice, Film West, Newsweek-Japan), books ("Best American Movie Writing of 1998," "Women and Cinema," "The Myth of the West") and Web sites (Amazon.com, Cinemania.com, Reel.com). Once upon a time, in another life, she wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Harrison Ford, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and Diana Ross.