How Did “Nosferatu” Make It To The U.S.?

Happy Halloween, my friends! As a final spooky season post, I thought I’d investigate a question a reader brought up the other day: Just how did Nosferatu (1922) make it to the U.S.? If you’re familiar with the history of the film, after Bram Stoker’s widow Florence pitched a court battle royale over the film’s obvious plagiarism of Dracula, German courts ordered prints to be destroyed. That was back in the mid-1920s, after the case had dragged on for several years, even as Prana-Film declared bankruptcy–and yet Nosferatu supposedly premiered in the U.S. in 1929. So how did this happen?

Cinea, July 1 1922.

First, it’s useful to remind ourselves of the practical reality of how films travelled around in the silent era. Copies in the form of physical reels of film, stored in metal cans, were rented from film exchanges and run for a specific length of time before the cans were (hopefully) returned in decent enough condition. I know that sounds blindingly obvious, but we’re so used to seeing countless digital copies of movies floating about in the Internet ether that it can take a minute to remember that silent films had finite copies. Some studios (mainly during the 1920s) diligently rounded up copies once the run was over, but some did not. Sometimes theater owners stored them, and sometimes they just threw them away–there were always new films to show, after all.

So not only was it easy for films to disappear forever, but it was also easy for a film to slip through the cracks and turn up in random places. Factor in the headache of trying to track down copies circulating in other countries, and you can see why some films just…persisted. (Did I mention that anyone could edit their own versions, too, with a pair of scissors and maybe a few hand painted title cards?)

So let’s consider Nosferatu. Florence Stoker was technically successful in court, but to her chagrin, Prana-Film was too broke to hand over any money. So the courts ordered the next best thing: to have the copies of Nosferatu destroyed. According to David J. Skal’s book Hollywood Gothic, Stoker had been assisted in her lengthy court battle by members of the British Incorporated Society of Authors and other folks with ties in the publishing world. They tried, mainly in vain, to round up copies of the film. For instance, in late 1925 they heard about a London film society doing quiet showings of the film for their members:

Like Seward, Van Helsing and Harker scouring London for Dracula’s safehouses, Bang, Thring and company tracked the German vampire through commercial London, narrowing the search to an importer, Sargent’s Trust Ltd., in Chancery Lane. But the film cannisters that contained Nosferatu were not to be found. By January, Thring informed Stoker: “I beg to inform you with great regret we must drop the case of the film Dracula…The Sargent’s Trust have already done everything to help us trace the man who actually held the film, but we find this person has disappeared entirely.”

It looks like searches for Nosferatu were always going to be pretty futile, and honestly, the courts probably had more pressing cases to think about. So it’s not too surprising that the film eventually ended up overseas, specifically to New York City where it supposedly “premiered” in 1929.

But was that truly the first time it was shown in the U.S.? While scanning some 1920s trade papers, I was surprised to see it mentioned in a February 10, 1924 issue of The Film Daily:

Note two important details: It’s being marketed specifically as an artsy foreign film, and it’s being handled by a “Russian Art Film Co.” If this was a company that was actually based in Russia, well, that explains a lot–films were pirated in Russia like crazy. The company may have been resurrected from an earlier, shadier form too–I found this 1919 article in Wid’s Daily:

June 23, 1919.

Hmm! Well, regardless of the specifics about this particular exchange, it does provide some clues about Nosferatu being circulated by small, unscrupulous film exchanges, and likely for small, artsy film clubs.

It definitely resurfaced in the U.S. in 1929, where it started playing in the Film Guild Cinema in New York City on June 1. Murnau’s name was featured in the papers:

Exhibitor’s Herald-World, June 29, 1929, page 114.

What was the Film Guild Cinema? This could be a whole article by itself: It was a very modernist/constructivist style building designed by Frederick Kiesler “to resemble the bellows-like interior of a still camera.” Located at 52 W. 8th St. in Greenwich Village, it opened on February 1, 1929 and may have been the first American theater to specialize in avant-garde and off-the-beaten-track cinema. Initially built for the Film Guild, which was started by Symon Gould in 1923, it was later renamed the 8th Street Playhouse and would be a popular place for arthouse films and oddball film festivals for decades to come. Talk about a trippy setting for the Gothic Nosferatu!

Check out that interior.

While this is just a cursory bit of research for now, it seems to me that Nosferatu didn’t exactly “premiere” in the U.S. in 1929, but experienced a revival of interest thanks to groups like the Film Guild searching for artistic foreign films. And yes, Florence Stoker was not happy about it.

Check out this rare ad! Image credit: Brenton Film.

For more details, David Skal’s book Hollywood Gothic is excellent and has details that are very hard to find anywhere else. It’s great reading for this time of the year, too!

Other Sources:

Crow, David. “Nosferatu and the Unholy War to Bury a Classic 100 Years Ago.” https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/nosferatu-war-to-bury-classic-100-years-ago/

Variety, December 1919.
The Film Daily, February 1924.
Exhibitor’s Herald-World, June 1929.
Wid’s Daily, June 1919.

lantern.mediahist.org.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/
http://avantgardecinema.weebly.com/8th-street-playhouse.html
https://www.brentonfilm.com/nosferatu-history-and-home-video-guide-part-2
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4699