Nosferatu
00:38:17
About
It’s nearly Christmas; so we’re bringing you some ‘Silent Nights’ - first up is 1922’s beautifully sinister “Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror”. A film in which we learn the very worst way to cut a slice of bread; that nothing looks more confused than a striped hyena in a German forest; and that when your manager finishes every sentence with an insane cackle, it’s probably time to check out your other employment options. This silent occult masterpiece still manages to feel more modern and pacy than a lot of the talkies that followed over the next few decades, and it’s imagery remains burned into the collective unconscious. The first feature-length adaptation of “Dracula”, it offers enough variation from its source material to become a story in its own right - with the spectre of plague and contagion married to the concept of the vampire in a way that chills in the light of our own recent history. It’s Count Orlok is far removed from the suave romantic figure screen Dracula would become; instead being a near folkloric creature from the other side of the forest, and all the more disturbing for it. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 101 year-old spoilers and join us.
Transcript
Show full transcript
Lee Good evening and welcome to Festive Horror.
Lee I'm Christmasy Lee.
Chris I'm Christmasy Chris.
Adam And I'm Festive Adam.
Chris Not dark twisted German expressionism.
Adam Same thing, isn't it?
Chris
Chris Actually, have you got, have you got just a black T-shirt? What, what is, look, move up a bit.
Adam Me?
Chris Yeah.
Adam That's just a black T-shirt, yeah.
Chris It is. There you go.
Lee You move up as far as you like, it doesn't, you know, it's just still a black T-shirt.
Chris It's still black.
Adam Black all the way down.
Lee He's all he's worn since I've known him in school.
Adam There you go.
Adam Well, wore a school uniform then, but.
Adam We all wore, and I like to think you all copied my look.
Chris Whereas Lee is looking very festive.
Adam Lee is very festive.
Chris But it is black.
Lee It is a black festive. I am still in a black festive top.
Lee so we are here for the beginning of our Silent Night, Christmas episode series.
Chris Unholy Night.
Lee Indeed.
Lee there will be spoilers.
Lee To be fair, it's what, 120 years old, I think we did.
Chris Although, although, although, right, I'm going to say actually, someone absolutely could have spoiled this.
Chris Well, Dr. Caligari.
Lee No, we're not doing Dr. Caligari, today's Nosferatu.
Chris Okay.
Lee You have you did watch Nosferatu, didn't you?
Chris I did.
Chris But I thought we were covering both, I was sure we were covering both in one session.
Adam We will we will cover both.
Lee We will cover both, but tonight we are covering Nosferatu.
Lee yes, so from 1922, so 101 years old, Yes, and so we will be spoiling it, if you haven't seen it in 101 years, and it's public domain, I don't know what your excuse is. and there will be swearing quite possibly.
Chris I'm looking forward to finding out the explanation as to why he has the name he does, and if it's based on Dracula, what, what's happened?
Adam Oh, we'll get into it, don't you worry.
Lee We will indeed.
Lee so, Chris, as someone who hasn't seen this film before, I'm assuming.
Lee What did you make?
Chris Yeah, not only have I not seen this film, I've not seen many, it might be one or two silent films before, I kind of think one of them was the Three Amigos where they have the silent clips during the film.
Chris I actually cannot even think of any others, right?
Chris So, yeah, so this was a bit of a, of a, of a different experience.
Chris However, like seriously way better than I was expecting.
Chris Like surprisingly, I was.
Chris I mean, I did see rough, yeah, how old it was and it's like, how is this actually still really quite watchable and really good?
Adam Oh, yeah.
Lee It's so I think because of the it hasn't got the sound, and because it's black and white, the cinematography in it it's just like.
Lee There's just so many stills from this film that people have up in the house as prints, I've got a couple myself.
Lee Yeah, it's just stunning.
Chris But that's really interesting, right, because I've seen the stills, I've seen the images, and in my head that meant it was going to be a very different feel throughout.
Chris Whereas it was way more accessible than I was expecting.
Chris I was thinking it was going to be really heavy, like really like.
Chris Oh, and especially when you said what, so you said it's German impressionism.
Adam Expressionism, yeah.
Chris Expressionism.
Adam And this is kind of the birth of it, yeah.
Chris Right, okay, and and and it's a horror film.
Adam Yes.
Chris So, so I thought this is going to be a tough watch, really.
Chris Like and yeah, I'm going to try and appreciate it, but actually it really was quite entertaining.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And and it's there's no secret to it, it's you can follow it.
Chris Yeah.
Adam You know what I mean, there's because I think even when you go back and read books that were written in different periods, like if you read a book that was written a hundred years ago, the language can be quite, you know, you have to untangle it to sort of get where you are.
Chris It's quite yeah.
Chris You have to put some effort in, yeah, definitely.
Adam Whereas, whereas this where images all they've got and that's where they're creating their narrative and I mean okay you get.
Adam Written bits, like sort of subtitles and little caption cards in there, but essentially, yeah, everything is told through everything is, you know, everything is the vision, that's the only sense that it's got, it can't add music, it can't, you know, but it's so just so well done.
Chris Well, and then it creates a sense of atmosphere as well throughout, it's like yeah, it's very good cinematography.
Adam Go on, man.
Lee I was going to say even the little bits, you know, like the strange stuff that they cut to, you know, the Venus Flytrap and all that stuff.
Chris Yeah, no, yeah.
Lee It's like weird stuff footage, but like.
Lee It's just beautiful.
Chris It's great.
Lee It looks and the the building, that's what I love about this, because it is so old, you see, although obviously it's set earlier than it was made, but you still get that feel of how things were, it's a bit like Vampyr, when you watch Vampyr, it is like like seeing what life was actually like, you know, 100 years ago.
Lee And yeah, and the buildings and everything inside and outside.
Lee I've just got such a rustic old feel to it, I absolutely love the look of this film.
Chris I am going to start cutting my bread the way he does.
Adam Oh yeah, what's wrong with that?
Chris And then there's the slices.
Adam I think I suspect that's where we get the term ham fisted from.
Adam It's because that's that was someone making a a sandwich and yeah, cuz that is.
Chris It's like cutting it with a steak knife or something, wasn't it?
Adam Clair watches a lot of infomercials and they do things like, it'll be like, normal knives will only cut through sawdust and water, but these ones cut through tin cans and dry wall.
Adam And it's yeah, it's in that it's feels that same sort of way, you know.
Chris He's a.
Lee He's what he is.
Chris And then he he sort of scares him towards the fireplace.
Chris And then that's quite a nice seating arrangement there. I sort of thought Lee probably quite likes to have something like that.
Chris I mean, it did look like it was almost right in the fire.
Chris I thought you're going to get warm. But.
Chris Maybe that's the plan.
Adam Well, I think in in that castle, I suspect that it is, I doubt there's central heating, if anything, you know.
Adam But it's and actually you're saying about that, the one, one thing I did find out researching it is a lot of those locations, particularly around the village, are still there.
Chris All right.
Lee Wow.
Adam Like the the town, you know, when they go like the German town where Hutter comes from.
Adam and yeah, I've especially for you like because I know you're a a travel, well, you're a traveler.
Adam Sorry, that sounds wrong.
Adam But you you know, you're you you but go and yeah, they those locations are still there, like the house and the warehousing and stuff like that.
Lee Yeah, see this would definitely be a destination holiday for me to go to I love Germany anyway, but yeah, to go and spend a few days and see these sets.
Lee In the flesh are just be incredible.
Chris
Adam But yeah, so I mean, obviously, like we say, 101 years old, and actually it looks a lot better than some of the talkies that we've watched.
Adam It's there's so much more dynam dynamism to the characters and the to the shots and the composition and everything else like that.
Adam That you probably don't find in later stuff from like the 40s and 50s and things like that.
Adam Because I mean, there's there's like there's all that stuff on the boat.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, and that's with a single like hand crank camera, I believe it's a hand crank camera.
Adam So it's, you know, that's, you know, they they shot the whole thing with one camera.
Adam And at one point impounded, which caused a bit of a problem, but.
Chris I suppose.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Yeah, when when they were traveling to various locations, they got it caught up in customs, it was like, well, we're slightly fucked here because that's literally the only camera we've got, so yeah, we need to, we need to extricate this and get.
Chris But I suppose that is, like we said before, sometimes having limitations really helps you to.
Chris Improve, accentuate, enhance, you know, the what you have got and and do an amazing job with it.
Adam Well, I think it's that old that old adage about with cinema is it should be show, don't tell.
Chris
Adam They can't tell you, so everything is shown, everything.
Chris You have to.
Adam But also the thought that goes into it, you know, in into the composition, like I keep saying composition, but the you know, the the way those.
Adam Every shot, the reason you see so many stills from it is every shot is a portrait.
Adam Every shot is, you know, there's most of it is a it's a moving photograph.
Adam God, I'm really, I'm really bringing out the big guns in here, aren't I, saying moving photograph.
Lee No, but it is.
Chris It's funny how you think of it differently, yeah.
Lee Yeah. But it it totally.
Lee And it it's that thing, I suppose it's, as you say, you know, back then, you know, they only had one camera, they had to make every shot perfect.
Lee It's not, you know, I'm guessing film and stuff was so ridiculously expensive, you didn't waste anything.
Lee And that's why this film, you know, full length feature, an hour and 35.
Lee It still goes by very quickly because they've crammed so much, I mean, obviously, we'll get into it, I'm sure in the next couple of minutes, but it is ultimately the story of Dracula, which is a very big book.
Lee And to cram it all in.
Lee Yeah, and and have to show you, as you're saying, there's no dialogue, so you've got to cut away to the cards in between and stuff, so they do fit a lot in.
Lee But it's it's its pacing is excellent.
Lee And the film rushes by, I tell you, when I went and saw it with Dean, in the summer at the Prince Charles, it was the first time I'd seen it on the big screen.
Lee Yeah, and I was surprised, because normally, you know, you watch a film at home, you pause it, you go to the bathroom, you get a beer, you do whatever.
Lee but yeah, to sit and watch it all the way through, yeah, and it flew by.
Lee I mean, we were pretty drunk.
Lee But it it did charge by at a fair old rate.
Lee yeah, and I was surprised how how much I enjoyed it because it had been a few years since I'd seen it really.
Adam Yeah.
Lee It's one of those, I think because you see so many stills and you see so many bits of it on clips and clip shows and stuff, that you feel you know it inside out and you don't feel you have to regularly return to it, and then when you do, you go, oh shit, yeah, no, I should definitely be doing this on a more frequent basis.
Adam Yeah.
Adam It it lives in it lives in your mind, but you make that assumption that it's actually got, you you make the assumption that you know it, when actually, no, you know all the you know the stills.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And in your head it's like, oh, it's a silent film, you know, I I'm not averse to watching a silent film, but you feel that you've got to gear up to it.
Adam And then actually when you get in there, you're sort of like, oh no, actually, this is a this is a breeze compared to some modern films that I've watched.
Lee Even compared to, as you said, with the 40s and 50s, like when they did all those, you know, like the sci-fi horror invasion that came out at that time, like some of those are a slog.
Lee They're like.
Lee They're like an hour and 10 and you feel every minute of it, whereas this kind of clips by and keeps you entertained and it it's quite, you know, jumping between different moods and it.
Lee Yeah, it it's a really well put together film, which is why, yeah, 101 years later, we're still talking about it.
Lee In the same breath as as stuff that's still being produced today, really.
Adam
Chris I would be interested to know like how many films were getting made at that time.
Chris how big. It must have been.
Adam The German film industry at that point was like was leading the world.
Chris Really, yeah.
Adam In film.
Adam Because if you think about it, obviously there was no language barrier.
Chris So. Yeah, yeah.
Adam All the countries were it was like a free for all because you could show it anywhere, you changed the title cards for the language.
Adam If you're lucky, you might get like a print that no one bothered with and be.
Adam But essentially, you could work your way through it without the captions.
Chris
Adam And yeah, so it was like, so internationally Germany was it in the sort of 20s.
Adam 20s and 30s because they were sort of like.
Adam And then when talking pictures came in, that's when Holly Hollywood sort of took over, weirdly, you know.
Adam Because it was then, I think it may have actually been the international audiences, but apart from English speaking ones, suddenly decided, no, I'm not fucking prepared to sit through subtitles.
Adam Maybe there's I don't even know if subtitle technology would have been that doable as a thing.
Adam But basically, yeah, it was, yeah, so but there were sort of dozens of films out at the time like, and.
Adam and this was actually quite, I would say.
Adam I I want to say lavishly budgeted, but also I think poorly budgeted.
Adam Because basically they set up a company, they set up a film production company called Prana Films.
Adam And by the I think by the time sort of like it was showing in cinemas, they were already filing for bankruptcy.
Adam Because they decided, oh, we're going to, but it was founded by a guy called Albin Grau.
Adam who was a like draftsman, architect, artist, but also a cultist, and so he wanted to do films with a with a cult leanings in them.
Adam and he had this big plan with his big production company and Nosferatu was the only one they ever produced because yeah, they went bust.
Adam But so I think there's for the time this was quite.
Chris But so if they went bust, what, so this didn't make.
Adam It's it's a it's a weird story.
Lee I was going to say, I think we should get into that because it is quite an interesting story how we're very lucky that we actually are still able to see this film.
Adam So, so basically, obviously it's it's basically it's Dracula.
Adam the second half of the film is not Dracula.
Adam That's where it changes when Dracula arrives in Germany.
Adam that's when it sort of free wheels away from Dracula essentially.
Chris Okay.
Chris But why why why why did it not follow.
Adam basically what happened was is they wanted to do an adaptation of Dracula and it's actually they on their material, they put freely adapted from Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Adam But they didn't ask for the rights or buy the rights to make a film of the book.
Adam And again, films in its infancy, so it's kind of like one of those weird things where there's a bit, you know, just people weren't quite sure what the procedure was.
Adam and also I don't think that lawyers of authors were geared up quite at that point of like.
Adam Oh, well, yeah, you know, stage productions was one thing, but film was like.
Chris Yeah, yeah.
Adam Again, it's that usual thing, you know, like with like how can't regulate unable to regulate stuff with the internet and things like that, but it's just like something comes along that's so new and no one's prepared that, oh, actually.
Adam And I mean now they sort of backtrack it where it's like, well, if that's what we did for for theater, that's what we'll do for cinema.
Chris Although we have seen it with with with the AI, people making AI images and yeah, how do you copyright that, who owns it, yeah.
Adam And so it's become a very sort of and that was the similar sort of thing, but basically, so they made this and again, they had an opening night that reportedly cost more than the film.
Adam because they premiered it at the Berlin Zoological Gardens and with a full orchestra concert and master.
Chris Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, that's a bit different to.
Chris The way it's done now.
Adam And so but then weirdly enough, the flyer for that got to Bram Stoker's widow Florence.
Adam Now, she obviously was the executor of Bram Stoker's estate, he was well, widow would have hint at you possibly that he was dead by this point.
Adam but so she was she owned the rights to Dracula.
Adam And again, in that sort of weird way, authors right, you know, authors copyright didn't create that much money.
Adam So it wasn't like she could live off it even though it was a very successful book and you would imagine, but you know, she was she was getting money from it.
Adam So she sort of like found out like she saw this flyer for this amazing premiere and was like.
Adam What the fuck is this, this is.
Adam You know, so she got her, I think they were like the London Authors Society or something like that, where it was like this group.
Adam And she went to them and they sort of went after Prana Films with a view to pay up, you know, you owe her some copyright or you owe her.
Adam an amount from the box office or you do you know what I mean, you you you obviously owe her because you've done this without any any permission, any rights or anything else like that.
Adam And but like I say, by then, Prana Films, because they were basically a a film company set up by an architect who wanted to make occult films had strangely gone bust.
Adam much in the same way that Jodorowsky's Dune didn't get made, because I think that there was a there was a lot of imagination versus a lot of practicality sort of.
Adam And yeah, so they were already bankrupt and the receiver company basically pissed them around for years about getting like money from it.
Adam Meanwhile, it still was going around and was a really successful film.
Adam And so the receiver company, the people who bought out the debt essentially, when went bankrupt were still making a a fair profit off it.
Adam And because of that, in the end, because Florence couldn't get anywhere with it, she was like, right, her last call order was basically like her last legal action was ruled that they had to destroy all prints of the film.
Adam Because it was basically, well, you know, your, you know, if if I can't have it, no one can.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And I get it.
Adam Do you know what I mean?
Adam I think a lot of people have said, oh, she was but no, I understand when like that's a, you know, fucking hell, pay for it.
Adam And like I say, it wasn't anything, none of the filmmakers really, that would be beyond them by the time that Florence getting pissed around by this company.
Adam So she ordered to get them all destroyed and basically they did that quite badly.
Adam But a large majority of them were destroyed, but Prince would turn up here and there, they prints in America, prints in France, because they'd fucking distributed it so many places.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And so we still have the film, but it's kind of a composite of all of those prints because some of them might have had damage, some of them might have had bits missing.
Adam And so on and so forth.
Adam But they've managed to sort of cobble it together from these various prints that were located around the world.
Adam So there was a chance and a lot of films from this period from like the silent film period, a lot of those are lost films now.
Adam They're films where they just, you know, no one kept, no one, no again, back to no one understanding what the thing is that's going on, what film is, it wasn't necessarily considered that it was a preservation thing.
Adam Or something like that, you know, you made your film, it went out, it made a bit of money, that was it.
Adam No one was thinking, oh, in a hundred years time you'll be able to stream it, buy it on a blue shiny disc, or, you know, a digital copy of it or whatever like that.
Adam And yeah, so a lot of films go missing from this period or a lot of films are sort of pieced together from existing elements and stuff like that.
Chris So essentially this is the Frankenstein of Dracula movies.
Lee
Adam Very much so.
Adam Very much so.
Adam And but yeah, but like I was saying, the and actually weirdly enough FW FW Murnau, the director, had a bit of form with this.
Adam Because he also a few in 1920 he did a film called The Head of Janus, which is basically Jekyll and Hyde, and again, I don't think they asked.
Adam You know, it was just I think it was almost like this thing, it was almost like, I don't know, it was almost like sampling, do you know what I mean, it wasn't necessarily that you were plagiarizing this book, but you didn't know that by adapting it, you were sort of somebody else's.
Chris You know the concept of intellectual property almost probably wasn't like an idea.
Adam It was like it was the this thing was there, but we're doing something new with it and it's, you know, and but again, you can sort of and you can see how everyone ended up feeling about it.
Adam That it is a thing where you buy the rights, you you know, there is a process for this sort of thing and you pay the price if you don't follow that process.
Adam
Adam But it's.
Lee Scary to think though, how close we came to not.
Adam Oh yeah, there was never getting to see this film.
Lee If if that had been followed to the letter, that that judicial order.
Lee Like yeah, we would never have seen this and it had just been something you read about in the history books and see the odd still from.
Adam It would be like London After Midnight, which is a famous lost film, Chris, but the with it's a Lon Chaney, film Lon Chaney Senior.
Chris Okay.
Adam And there's loads of pictures of it and loads of sort of stills from it and publicity shots, but the film itself does not exist.
Chris It does not actually exist.
Adam And actually, in a weird way, I think we talked about it on that episode, but it nearly happened to Bloodbath at the House of Death.
Lee Yeah.
Adam That nearly ended up a lost film because no one had preserved it and no one had kept the negative and they was like, well, no one's got a video of it. And if you think about it, back back then it was literally just did your cinema have a print of this, it's not like someone recorded it off a BBC2 and they could like lend them the video or something like that to make.
Adam It was and pretty much I mean, obviously like England and I think pretty much Germany was it was cleared out of all the copies because that was the two places where it had a sort of, you know, Florence's influence was.
Adam So, like I say, there were once turning up in America, what a print from France and stuff like that, but it was all just these weird little dribs and drabs that they managed to put it back together from.
Adam And obviously, because they were going through for freely adapted, that's why also the names are changed.
Adam So.
Chris Yeah, okay.
Adam Jonathan Harker is Hutter.
Adam Ellen is Mina/Lucy kind of.
Adam Because that's the interesting thing as well is I think I love the change that they make. Because obviously you get for a start, this is the first Dracula film where they put Renfield in the role of a member of Harker's estate agency, and in the Bela Lugosi one, it's actually Renfield who goes and does follows Harker's path and then comes back as Renfield essentially.
Adam so this was like the first film to do that.
Adam And interestingly enough, the ending, and again, sorry about the spoilers for this 103-year-old film.
Adam oh, 101.
Adam
Adam The ending isn't in the novel.
Adam In the novel, Dracula is killed because I think Harker slashes his throat and Quincy Morris stabs him through the heart with a fucking Bowie knife and he crumbles to dust.
Chris
Adam But also in the book, Dracula can go around in daylight, it just robs him of any of his powers.
Chris Okay.
Adam So the thing of one of the things that's kind of not original because they're following a lot of folklore and things like that, but one of the things that's definitely started with Nosferatu is the dissolving in sunlight thing with vampires.
Adam And so yes, so that last section when he turns out and I I also love the fact that there's the plague thing.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Because the two things you've got to remember is is because funnily enough, Clare said, oh, it's really weird watching it because all the streets are so empty.
Adam And so basically, obviously this is like 1922, so you're only like four years out of the First World War, so yes, it is quite quiet because loads and loads and loads of able-bodied people men died.
Chris Yeah.
Adam During World War One, so the streets are kind of empty because everywhere is kind of empty, you know.
Adam And on top of that, at the end of World War at the end of World War One, Spanish Flu comes in, and obviously we all heard a lot about Spanish Flu during COVID.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And so the fact that Count Orlok turns up and brings plague rats.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Is clearly sort of from that experience that had also gone on.
Adam You know, where they sort of like, right, they when they're examining the body and it's like, right, it's plague and they all just run out.
Adam And it's like, right, we know what, you know, it's almost like, right, we know what to do at this point, right, we isolate and get the fuck out of here because this is dangerous and contagious.
Adam And so it's got sort of like, it's got bits and pieces that still are quite Dracula, like still are part of Dracula, but not actually from the book.
Adam Sorry.
Adam And but also you've got that sort of you've got the the plague imagery in there as well and you've also got
Adam The sort of fact, weirdly enough, Van Helsing's a bit of a wank in this.
Adam Because Van Helsing's almost going, yeah, let's just just you've got to think about these things reasonably.
Adam You know, he's actually the opposite of how Van Helsing usually is, I mean, it's interesting he's credited as a Paracelsus, now Paracelsus was an alchemist, but also a pioneer of medicine who he basically got people to stop rubbing cow crap into wounds and things like that.
Adam He was one of the first people to be like, oh, maybe maybe there is a benefit to keeping these things clean.
Adam He was also one of the first people to basically go, do you know what, there's probably certain chemicals and compounds that we could give people to make them feel better.
Adam So he was like a sort of pioneer of medicine.
Adam But he was also but he was also an alchemist, so it's like that's sort of interesting thing where it was very much a man of reason but in that same vein that that was that was not a poo pooed thing that it would be, well, this is this is another branch of science that I need to look at.
Chris Right, okay.
Adam You know.
Adam But Van Helsing he's sort of shit and it's it's Ellen who bloody solves it.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, she reads the book that Hutter brings home.
Adam And even down to that, if you think about it, that's like.
Adam There was probably a lot of people coming back from the war like Hutter.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Where, you know, it's like they went off somewhere, something horrible happened and they've come back broken.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And they don't sort of, you know, and he doesn't recover the way he does in the book.
Adam Where he sort of like becomes part of the the team of vampire killers and everything else like that.
Chris And then so.
Chris And what about the the having to take the cursed earth around with him?
Adam I think that is actually that was vampire law and that is in Dracula.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Speaking of, we I mean, we need to talk about Max Shreck.
Lee
Adam He.
Lee He I mean, it's got to be said, the vampire in this, after this, obviously Universal did it and made it, you know, a much more dapper stylish, but this is much closer to Dracula in the book.
Lee He is really freaky looking.
Chris Yeah, right, yeah.
Lee Absolutely terrifying.
Chris He's a serious iconic look.
Lee Yeah.
Adam I don't know if you remember Lee, but I when I first was like, when I first was like, when I first got Nosferatu would have been like 90s, mid 90s or whatever like that, first time I saw it.
Adam And there was a lot there was a lot of Dracula stuff around because the Bram Stoker's Dracula had come out.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And so there were lots of things like, oh, here's the history of Dracula in cinema, so Nosferatu was obviously the starting point for that. But a lot of them at the time, they were like, oh, this guy's called Max Shreck, now Shreck means horror or terror in German, and they were kind of like, oh, I remember at the time like seeing things with, you know, proper scholars and stuff like that, and they're going, oh, it's probably a pseudonym for another actor because, you know, it's like it's like the guy's called Max Fear.
Adam but actually Max Shreck was his fucking birth name, and he was a respected stage actor, he was like, you know, he was.
Adam Even down the fact that his wife, Fanny Shreck is a nurse in this.
Adam So there you go, Fanny Fear.
Lee Yeah, yeah.
Chris Yeah.
Adam
Chris
Adam So maximum fear and Fanny fear, lovely couple from up the road.
Adam
Lee There is actually Chris, if you've not seen it, there's a a film called Shadow of the Vampire, which is incredible.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Chris I think.
Adam Yeah.
Adam I think we need to do that.
Lee Yes, we definitely do.
Lee
Adam I think.
Adam We'll save that.
Lee It's it's basically it's just give you a very quick rundown, it's a film, it's a fictional telling of the making of this film, in which Max Shreck is a real genuine vampire who they've hired to come in and play the character.
Chris Yeah. That sounds very.
Lee And it's.
Lee Jon Malkovich is in it and Eddie Izzard.
Lee I haven't seen it in a very long time.
Lee But it is a fantastic movie, really really entertaining.
Chris And that's actually a great idea.
Adam Yeah.
Adam One thing that I did find out, now like I say, Albin Grau, who's the producer, he's kind of like the visionary of Nosferatu, and he actually left Germany when the Nazis came to power. Because they cracked down on occult groups faster than any other group essentially.
Lee They run a cult group.
Chris I don't think they.
Adam Yeah, but they're.
Chris It's people's front of Judea with a cult.
Adam They're not they're not the proper ones.
Adam You the Judean people.
Adam Fuck off.
Adam You the order Templars, no we got a golden dome.
Chris You.
Adam You.
Adam But.
Adam So sort of he got the fuck out of dodge pretty quickly.
Adam and but FW Murnau, the director, did lots of other films, he did like Faust and Haunted Castle and stuff like that.
Adam And he went to America.
Adam And was doing like he started doing talking pictures and he actually died quite young, he died at 42 in a car crash.
Adam And that was that was like 1930.
Adam So that was before anything had actually sort of kicked off in terms of like the rise of well, the Nazis still hadn't come to power in Germany and stuff like that.
Adam But he was already in Hollywood at that point.
Adam but I didn't know this until I was reading.
Adam Apparently his grave was broken into in 2015 and his skull has been stolen.
Adam And no one knows where it is.
Lee Wow.
Lee Creepy.
Adam And apparently there was well, I mean, this might be goolish sort of entertainment.
Adam News, I don't know.
Adam But apparently there was wax found at the thing so they thought it might have been candles, so it might have been some sort of ceremony or something like that.
Adam But yeah, so somewhere out there is FW Murnau's skull.
Adam Which adds a real sort of touch to touch to the macab to it as well.
Lee Anyone who's looking to offload that for a reasonable price, you can contact us at [email protected] and I will be very interested.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Chris Fair price.
Adam Oh dear, I mean, imagine if that after all the things we've said.
Adam The thing that brings us down is important.
Lee I think if someone wants to get me a Christmas present.
Lee It's a bit, you know, I know we're cutting it fine, but that would be the best Christmas present of all time ever.
Adam I've also got to say one one thing to mention with obviously Max Shreck and because as as our next film will attest how much Tim Burton really likes German expressionism.
Adam But Max Shreck is Christopher Walken's character in Batman Returns.
Adam That's why he's called Max Shreck.
Lee Oh.
Chris Oh.
Adam He's named after the the the the star of Nosferatu.
Adam And Nosferatu is apparently just a kind of catch all term for undead in Eastern Europe.
Chris
Adam It wasn't really.
Adam It's not necessarily vampire.
Adam So.
Adam Seems to be some obscure ideas about where it's come from.
Adam But yeah.
Adam Mostly it seems to be like if you're, you know, it could could be zombies.
Adam It could be.
Chris Oh, okay.
Adam Anything.
Lee Yeah, it's just a supernatural being type.
Adam Revenant.
Adam Anything that's back, anything undead.
Chris I did want to mention and it seems sort of relevant that I have been watching what we do in the Shadows.
Chris I've been catching up.
Adam Yeah.
Chris And that's it's a lot funnier than this.
Lee Yeah.
Lee But that yeah, so the the the master vampire is definitely very much, yes, based upon the Nosferatu type.
Lee And the same with Salem's Lot as well, you know, you've got the the the human looking vampires, but the king of the vampires always looks exactly like Nosferatu.
Adam Well, there's there's there are other versions.
Adam There's Werner Herzog's version of Nosferatu, which I highly recommend, I did watch it earlier in the week.
Adam I might even say we do that at some point because I think that that is such a good thing where you're like.
Adam Oh wow, so that is everything from Nosferatu that I might have not got, I now have.
Chris Okay.
Chris Sure.
Chris Okay.
Adam And it's got some amazing fucking performances in it.
Chris But I also I was going to say that I could do with watching this again, really.
Adam I'll.
Chris You know.
Adam Well, remember that Robert Eggers will be remaking Nosferatu.
Chris Oh, yeah.
Adam So.
Chris So we're we're getting set up now for another good start.
Adam Yeah.
Chris I can't wait.
Adam And.
Adam And also if you can find it, there's a radio adaptation called Midnight Cry of the Deathbird, and it's fucking brilliant, very strange, very weird.
Adam And adapting a silent film for radio, I'm impressed.
Chris That's a pretty great title.
Lee You got it at both ends.
Lee Who,
Lee Right, anyway, on that note, I think it's time to call it a day, so, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, if you haven't, just go and check out Nosferatu.
Lee I know, you know, as Chris said, and Adam and I both agree, it's one of those things that feels like it could be very stodgy and a real struggle to get through.
Lee But.
Lee It absolutely, it's a it's a lovely film to sit back and enjoy.
Lee it really is fantastically well done, so much more well done than a lot of stuff that's come since.
Lee So,
Lee Yes, so go and check that out and return in two weeks time or just before, I think, because we're going to drop it just before Christmas.
Lee for.
Lee Our cabinet of Dr. Caligari episode.
Lee Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, good night.
Chris Good night.
Adam Good night.
