Try as she might, Bram Stoker’s widow couldn’t kill Nosferatu

Estate summary

Avery Keatley’s centenary report brings together film scholar Lokke Heiss, silent-film researcher Brent Reid and conductor Gillian Anderson to explain the survival of Nosferatu. The transcript describes Florence Stoker’s objection to an adaptation made without permission and the protracted legal action that followed Prana Film’s financial collapse. Its distinctive contribution is the account of what survived despite the destruction order: incomplete prints scattered across archives, later combined through painstaking restoration. Anderson also explains the reconstruction of Hans Erdmann’s music, challenging the assumption that a silent film was experienced without sound. The report therefore connects Florence’s copyright campaign with the material history of the film and its score. Its narration attributes the request for destruction to Florence; that differs in emphasis from Dacre’s account of advice from the lawyers in The Irish Times. Neither retrospective supplies the original court documents.

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