TCM Movie: #SilentEdition "Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens" (1922)

During the winter of 1916, German soldier Albin Grau served where he had described as "a vermin-extermination commando" remote village in Serbia. He was told during his tenure by an old Serbian farmer about his father who had been buried without sacraments and haunted the village as a vampire. The farmer even showed the 32-year-old soldier his father's 1884 disinterment papers which explained the body was discovered completely preserved except for two front teeth now protruding over the lower lip and how the prefect ordered the corpse to be staked through the heart.

In 1921, the occultist and artist formed the production company Prana Film with Enrico Dieckmann with the intent to produce primarily supernatural-inspired films. Gothic Romanticist Henrik Galeen, already a veteran of the genre with "Der Student von Prag" (1913) and "Der Golem, wie er in die Welt Kam" (1920), was immediately hired to adapt the epistolary novel. But Germany was one of the original signatories to the 1887 Berne Convention, which ensures that "every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever the mode or form of its expression" must be protected. Stoker's widow Florence Balcomb wouldn't allow the film to be made, so Galeen made many name and detail changes. Count Dracula became Count Orlok, Harker became Hutter, and "vampire" was changed to an archaic Romanian word "nosferatu" which Stoker believed the word to mean "not dead" or "undead." The setting had been changed from England to Germany and the Count is killed by sunlight than simply weakened. Grau and Dieckmann also hired F.W. Murnau as director who was also a WW1 veteran.

Shooting started during July 1921 and its first shots were exteriors in Wismar. It was shot entirely on location in Wismar and Lubeck, the Transylvanian scenes shot in northern Slovakia. Oarava Castle and Starhad Castle posed as Orlok's estate. But Grau and Dieckmann couldn't afford the usual two required cameras (one negative serving local use and another for international distribution) and cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one to operate throughout all of "Nosferatu." Murnau followed Galeen's very thorough screenplay and marginalia concerning cinematography, but also rewrote 12 pages and is attributed to the ending and the vampire mythos of being killed by the sun. He even went as far to prepare sketches for ideal shots and even using a metronome to control the actors' paces.

"Nosferatu" premiered March 4th, 1922 at the Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Gardens. Grau and Dieckmann had promoted the screening and the festivities that began and ended the film for months before its premiere. "Das Fest des Nosferatu" started at 8 pm after a speech made by Max Schreck himself. "Next, immediately preceding the screening, was the curtain raiser, a projected, written prologue by Kurt Alexander, based on the premise of the "Prelude in the Theatre" which commonly introduces stagings [...] Over this, the Otto Kermbach Orchestra played the overture to Heinrich Marschner's Romantic opera, "Der Vampyr" (1826). During the screening itself, the orchestra was conducted by Hans Erdmann to his specially composed accompaniment, Fantasich-romantische Suite. Following the screening was a solo performance by Berlin State Opera dancer Elisabeth Grube to The Serenade, another Erdmann composition. Guests had been asked to attend wearing suitable costume for the grand finale of the night, a Biedermeier-themed masquerade ball, which continued until 2am." (Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide, Part 2 - Brenton Film) "Nosferatu's" theatrical premiere was 9 days later at Berlin's Primus-Palast and a single original print was already going overseas for American distribution.

J - S from Berlin's Film-Kurier called "Nosferatu" "a story from the childhood days of earthy poetry and fantasy, something completely unreal and fairytale-like. Things do not all happen as we are accustomed to things; they are simply presented to us as a counterpart of original literary attempts, even though these attempts may have been repeated again and again in a stylistically advanced time. From this results the critical assessment of the work: it was that almost infantile mood world to pour images that we can not experience inwardly, but can only contemplate contemplatively, as if from a higher point of view, from the greatest distance and without any excitement of the heart." RW from the Berlin Stock Exchange was a little harsh. The force and power of the film is not so much in its dramatic action as in the ghostly, the nerves whipping. Because the plot is more epic - without the inner compulsion of a victim [...] And when a pure woman surrenders voluntarily to the vampire and holds him until the first cockcrow, the curse can be solved. Here lies the flaw of the film, the psychological touches only loosely, but not embraces and soul motifs takes too casual. Anyone can be in an unusual movie."

After the successful premiere, Bram Stoker's estate immediately sued "Nosferatu" as a copyright infringement as some of the early drafts and shooting scripts still had the Dracula name attached to it despite all of the changes Galeen made to the final script. Florence Stoker won her court case and all copies were declared to be destroyed and were promptly eradicated save for that single America-bound print.

"Nosferatu" will be shown on TCM on October 24th at 4:45 AM EST/3:45 CST

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