The Story Behind 1922's "Nosferatu"....

"Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, whose real name was Plumpe, had success in "pirating stories by Robert Lewis Stevenson... Then he turn to the popular work of another English Novelist... Bram Stoker...
Stoker's novel "Dracula" (1897) was evolved into Murnau's "Nosferatu".... He subtitled his film "Eine Symphonie des Grauens" ( "A Symphony of Shudders")....

Murnau changed the character's names : hero Harker became Hutter; his Nina, Ellen; Lucy Westernra became Annie Harding; Renfield  became the deranged real-estate broker Knock.... and Count Dracula was renamed "Graf Orlock".....He changed London to Bremen and set the time period back to 1838.....

All this and Stoker's widow still sued....Mrs. Stoker won her case and All copies of the film were to be destroyed...!!!...or so the order went....

In 1930.... there turned up a "talkie" film entitled "Die Zwolfte Stunde" ( :The Twelfth Hour"), about a vampire named "Furst Wollkoff"... He was "Orlock"...they had added music and effects track to a re-issue of this banned film...!!!

                       Nosferatu is a great classic example of art saved from destruction by "piracy"...!!!

                            

                                          Here is this great classic for your viewing pleasure..,..

Nosferatu used real settings, selected, framed, and lit with care. The inter-play of light and shadow replaced "Caligari's" black paint : in the Horror Film "Expressionism" had found its form....

The fore-runner  Of the Creepy shadowy look of Horror movies in the years to come after....

                   Just thought that you might enjoy a bit of the background of this Horror Classic...