A German court ruled in July 1925 that every print of the silent film Nosferatu must be destroyed. The reason was copyright. Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence, had sued the film’s makers for lifting the story of Dracula.
The order failed. Prints survived, and the film is now a classic of German Expressionist cinema.
How a Dracula film got made without Dracula
Director F.W. Murnau founded the company Prana-Film in 1921 to make horror films for the export market. He wanted to adapt Dracula, but Stoker’s estate refused him the rights.
Murnau went ahead anyway and changed the details. Count Dracula became Count Orlok, Jonathan Harker became Hutter, and the vampire stalked Bremen instead of London. The BFI adds that Czechoslovakia stood in for Transylvania.
What the court decided
Britannica says Florence Stoker sued Prana-Film for copyright infringement two months after the March 1922 premiere. Prana’s appeals were rejected, and the company went bankrupt.
The BBC says Murnau’s heavy spending on publicity had already ruined Prana-Film by the time the case reached court. Stoker’s widow carried on regardless, even though there was no money to collect.
The court’s July 1925 ruling ordered that all prints and negatives be destroyed. The Guardian dates the destruction agreement a year earlier, to 1924, so sources differ on the timeline.
Why you can still watch it
A small number of prints reached other countries, and that is why the film was not lost. Florence Stoker stopped a London premiere in 1925, but she could not stop the American release in 1929.
Nosferatu made Murnau money, but it was not seen as a masterpiece until long after his death.
The film also shaped what came after. Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre pays homage to Murnau’s version. The Guardian calls the 1922 film the Dracula adaptation that matters most to cinema, in large part because it could be described as a ripoff.
