A number of German media outlets have reported that the skull of FW Murnau, one of the major figures of early cinema, has been stolen from a cemetery in Stahnsdorf, Germany.
Murnau is best known as director of the iconic vampire film and unauthorised Dracula adaptation Nosferatu. However he also made a number of other influential classics of early cinema, including Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans and Der Letze Mann (The Last Man).
Spiegel Online and Variety report that the perpetrators are believed to have opened up Murnau's coffin, although the graves of his two brothers were not affected.
It is also reported that some wax residue was found near the grave, and that an occult connection is not being ruled out.
Murnau died in 1931 in California following a car crash - only a week before the opening of his final film Tabu.
