- Post
- #542215
- Topic
- OFFICIAL: Library of Congress had original prints replaced with 1997 SE
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/542215/action/topic#542215
- Time
there is always hope
Nosferatu
Nosferatu
What's interesting is how the world almost lost the chance to see Nosferatu at all. Unfortunately for production company Prana Films, this unlicensed adaptation of Dracula was too thinly veiled, and Florence Stoker, widow of the late Bram Stoker, sued with the help of lawyers from the British Incorporated Society of Authors.
However, Stoker and the BISA weren't the only people pursuing Prana-Films: Prana was a sinking ship running aground on a financial reef. Just as the BISA sued Prana, it went into receivership and all materials and debts were taken over by the Deutsch-Amerikansch Film Union. The BISA then pursued the Film Union and demanded that all copies of Nosferatu be surrendered. In July 1925, the issue was settled and all known copies of Nosferatu were handed over to Stoker, and destroyed.
Or so Stoker thought. In October of that year, the Film Society in England asked her to endorse a classic film festival, and first on the list was the infamous Nosferatu. Stoker was furious and demanded that the Society give her their copy, but the Film Society refused and legalities followed. By 1928 Universal Pictures owned the screen rights for Dracula, and therefore all adaptations of it, including Nosferatu. Initially, Universal allowed the Film Society to keep the print, but after pressure from Florence Stoker they acquired the print, and it joined its departed kin in 1929. Then came a sudden spurt of American copies of the film under the name Nosferatu the Vampire, but Universal had them all destroyed in 1930. It finally seemed as though this pesky film had met its end.
This was not the case though. Following Florence Stoker's death in 1937, copies of the film started cropping up again, as if the celluloid itself was among the immortal undead.
Nosferatu truly regained its popularity in 1960 due to American television screenings, and in 1972 Blackhawk Films released the uncut original to the collector's market as Nosferatu the Vampire, which brings us up today. Now, due to it's availability via the Public Domain, it's damn near impossible to find a DVD horror collection that doesn't have a copy of Nosferatu!
See the hole thing here.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=100136707839&topic=13013&post=64427
