Florence Stoker and Nosferatu

Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau for the new studio Prana-Film, premiered in Berlin on 4 March 1922. It changed the names — Count Dracula became Count Orlok — and moved the English action to Germany, but the plot remained recognisably Bram’s. The studio’s own publicity acknowledged the adaptation of Dracula. No permission had been sought and no fee paid. Florence learned of the film when an anonymous correspondent sent her the programme from the Berlin premiere.

In April 1922 Florence joined the Incorporated Society of Authors so that it would act for her. The Society engaged a Berlin lawyer, Manfred Wronker-Flatow. Prana-Film soon went bankrupt, and the dispute continued through the German courts. At one point Florence was offered a share of profits if she would allow the film to be shown in English-speaking countries under the title Dracula. She refused.

With damages from a bankrupt company unlikely, the legal campaign sought destruction of the film. In July 1925, after appeals, the court ordered the negative and prints to be handed over and destroyed. Later family accounts distinguish Florence’s determination to protect Bram’s work from the remedy recommended by her legal advisers.

Prints had already spread across Europe. In late 1925 Florence learned that the newly founded Film Society in London planned to show the film; after pressure from her and the Society of Authors, the screening was cancelled. In January 1926 the Society of Authors withdrew from the case. Copies continued to circulate, however, and surviving prints eventually made restoration possible. The court’s order did not erase the film.

The novel’s American position also differed from its protection in Europe. A later U.S. judgment described the original Dracula as having always been in the American public domain. This should be distinguished from the separate rights in a stage adaptation or a film.

The case shows Florence acting as a determined guardian of Bram’s work. At the same time she was licensing Hamilton Deane’s authorised stage version, which opened in Derby in 1924. Her objection was to an unauthorised adaptation, rather than to adaptation itself. She is not known to have seen Nosferatu.

Read more about Florence Stoker and the licensed stage play and Universal’s film-rights deal.

Hollywood Gothic — David J. Skal, revised edition, 2004 · British Film Institute: Nosferatu (1922) · Nosferatu Is Found to Have Violated Dracula Copyright — Grove Koger, EBSCO · Nosferatu and the fangs of copyright infringement — The Irish Times, 5 March 2022 · Nosferatu: film and restoration record — Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung · Florence Stoker and Nosferatu correspondence — Society of Authors archive, British Library

Lugosi v. Universal Pictures (1979), p.818 and footnote 4 · The U.S. Copyright Act of 1891, section 3