F.W. Murnau changed the name and ghastly appearance of his villain, but this unauthorized version of Bram Stoker's couldn't fool the Stoker estate, and it became the center of a lawsuit that almost resulted in its complete destruction. Thankfully this masterpiece survives (though in a somewhat altered form), for despite its liberties with the novel, this 1921 horror classic remains the most beautiful and resonant interpretation of Stoker. Though the plot remains essentially the same--naive real-estate clerk Thomas (Gustav von Wangenheim) is sent abroad to finalize a sale with the nocturnal Count Orlock (the hideous-looking Max Schreck), who imprisons Thomas and travels to England to claim Thomas's beautiful young wife, Ellen (Greta Schroder), as his own--the visual realization creates a very different story. Schreck plays the vampire as a grotesque demon, with his claw-like hands, bald head and sharp, bat-like ears, and he rises from his coffin with an supernatural stiffness, like a tent pole pulled upright. When the eerily empty ghost ship carrying his coffin arrives in Thomas's home port, a river of rats pours out and spreads through the town like a plague. Perhaps the most noticeable changes from the novel are the absence of Van Helsing and the richer realization of Ellen, the would-be victim, whose innate sensibility and solemn spirituality give her a spooky connection with the vampire. With his stark, symbol-laden visual scheme and sacrificial conclusion, Murnau creates a more mythic tale than any subsequent adaptation of Stoker's novel.
