“Symphony of Horror” – 13 Fun Facts About 100 Years of “Nosferatu”

It has been a full century (!) since “Nosferatu – a symphony of horror” was first shown to the public. While this silent film may not be as terrifying by today’s standards as it was to audiences in 1922, its rugged, expressionistic aesthetic remains one of the most iconic films in cinema history and is entrenched in the collective memory of film fans around the world.

Reason enough to discuss a few exciting tidbits about this masterpiece!

Film producer Albin Grau has always claimed that the idea for “Nosferatu” arose during his military service in World War I, when he met a Serbian peasant who claimed to be the son of a vampire. But it was undoubtedly Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” (1897) that inspired the screenplay. For whatever reason, Grau’s film production company, Prana-Film, was unwilling or unable to secure the necessary rights for the filming. Somewhat naively, it was believed that legal action could be avoided by changing the plot of “Dracula” on a few key points: The setting was shifted from Victorian London to early 19th-century Germany. From the English port city Whitby became the fictional German city Wisborg. from Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter. count Dracula became count Orloc. However, the film’s title is inspired by a term that appears twice in the novel: Stoker mistakenly thought that “Nosferatu” in Romanian meant “vampire”.

Shortly after the Berlin premiere of “Nosferatu” in 1922, Florence Stoker – the novelist’s widow – received an anonymous package containing one of the film’s promotional posters, which featured the words “Freely edited after Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula'”. advertised. Florence contacted the British Incorporated Society of Authors, who hired a German lawyer to take action against Pranic Film. Initially, the intention was to sue the company for copyright infringement. However, a series of bad business decisions by Grau (not least the film’s relentlessly expensive marketing campaign, see below) had the studio out of business shortly after its release. Thus, it became clear that there was no money to be made with “Nosferatu”, and therefore the legal goal was to destroy all copies of the film. In 1925, a German court agreed with the plaintiff and ordered that all copies be burned in Germany. But over the years, surviving specimens have made their way to the United States, France and the United Kingdom, where they have sometimes been displayed in public.

The novel “Dracula”, although well-reviewed, never made the author a rich man. Although the book sold about 30,000 copies a year for the next three decades after publication, the majority of the profits went directly to Stoker’s publishers. The writer’s long-term debts and ill health led him into financial difficulties until his death in 1912. As a result, Florence Stoker tried to find a suitable deal for the film rights. This took some time – it was not until 1931 that the first official film adaptation appeared, starring ‘Dracula’ by Universal Studios director Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi.

Almost a year before “Nosferatu”, the movie “Dracula halála” (“Dracula’s Death”), shot in Hungary and directed by Karoly Latjay, was released with Austrian Paul Askonas in the title role. He was, to put it mildly, a terribly Loosely adapted, it told the story of a young woman who experiences a terrible nightmare after meeting the villain of the same name. Oddly enough, in this version, Dracula is more of a mad musician than an eccentric aristocrat. No copies of the silent film have survived today because, unlike Nosferatu, Florence Stoker’s lawsuit was successful here. Without some of the promotional photos and newspaper reports that were found, film historians might not know it ever existed.

To direct «Nosferatu», Prana-Film chose FW Murnau, a filmmaker known for his expressionistic style. He was assisted by Albin Grau, who served as the film’s artistic producer and designer. In this capacity, Grau designed everything from the sets to the costumes to Orlok’s makeup. His common thread was “The Golem”, a classic horror story by Gustav Meyrink, based on the Jewish fable. Originally published as a serial in 1914, the story was published in novel form the following year. This second edition featured 18 illustrations created by Hugo Steiner-Prag, which seem to have had a major influence on Grau’s concept art and the storyboards for Nosferatu.

Allow me, Max Schreck:

Son of Gustav Ferdinand Schreck and Auguste Wilhelmine Pauline Schreck from Berlin and so no: that is not a pseudonym.

Surprisingly little is known about the life of the theater and film actor. According to his biographer Stefan Eickhoff, Max Schreck was regarded by his colleagues as “loyal and conscientious” and a “loner with a weird sense of humor and a knack for the grotesque”. Although Schreck has appeared in more than 40 films, his iconic portrayal of Count Orlok in “Nosferatu” is best known today. It is said that during filming, Schreck stayed in his role and kept his distance from the rest of the ensemble.

In one scene, Orlok’s coffin closes itself after the lid comes off the floor. This was made possible by an early form of stop-motion animation. By showing a quick succession of still images as the lid moved closer and closer to its final resting place, Murnau was able to fool the viewer into thinking the inanimate object was flying around on its own. The same technique was also used in the scene where Orlok uses his magic to open a ship’s hatch.

The concept of vampires going up in flames when exposed to direct sunlight dates back to this film. In the novel, Count Dracula walks outside in broad daylight. According to the book, the sun’s rays can easily weaken a vampire, but Stoker never suggests that they could kill him. However, in order to reach a visually immersive climax, Grau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen decided to make the sunlight deadly for poor Count Orlok, who disappears in a cloud of smoke when lured into a well-lit room. Thus a primal cliché of the horror film genre was born.

In the end, Prana-Film spent more money on advertising than on film production itself. Grau launched an ambitious marketing campaign that featured newspaper ads, expressionist posters, and an unstoppable barrage of press coverage. After months of hype, the film premiered on March 4, 1922, in the chic Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Garden. The performance itself was preceded by a short show consisting of a prologue presented by a speaker and a big dance number. After the end of Murnau’s film, a pompous costume ball took place and guests were encouraged to wear Biedermeier costumes. Many of the reporters who attended the premiere of “Nosferatu” later wrote more about this big, lavish party than about the film itself.

Just a month after the premiere, rumors started circulating that Prana-Film had overextended itself financially. The exorbitant advertising costs, including the lavish premiere party, were given as reasons, as was the wasteful spending behavior of the producer team Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau. In addition, the market leader UFA refused to include the film in the program of its major cinemas, so that “Nosferatu” was only shown in a few smaller, independent cinemas. In August 1922, bankruptcy proceedings were opened against the Prana and the film was seized.

The film was banned in Sweden for “excessive horror”. This ban was not lifted until 1972. In Germany, the film was first shown on television on June 23, 1969 on ARD.

Strange jokes and incoherent jokes are certainly not uncommon in the cult series “SpongeBob SquarePants”. But Count Orlok’s cameo in the Season 2 episode “Graveyard Shift” is particularly bizarre.

Director and actor Werner Herzog describes “Nosferatu” as “the greatest German film of all time”. In 1979, Herzog directed the remake of “Nosferatu – Phantom of the Night”. This film is a self-proclaimed tribute to the 1922 film. However, Herzog used the names from Bram Stoker’s novel. Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula, the Swiss later Hitler actor Bruno Ganz plays Jonathan Harker, the French actress Isabelle Adjani plays his wife Mina Harker.

Another tribute to the original film is 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire. This is a fictionalized account of the events surrounding the film’s production, based on the amusing 1922 urban legend that the lead actor, Max Schreck, also told that he was in the real life was a vampire. Fright is played in this film by Willem Dafoe; John Malkovich plays “Nosferatu” director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Udo Kier plays producer Albin Grau.