Nosferatu Background

Nosferatu wasn't just a good film, the background behind the movie is also quite chilling.
Nosferatu is a Romanian word that means Vampire.

In 1916 Albin Grau got the idea to shoot a Vampire based film while serving for Serbia during World War 1.  He would become the co-founder of Prana Film with Enrico Dieckmann to bring Grau's vision to light they hired screen writer Henrik Galeen and director F.W. Murnau.  There would be a couple things that blocked Grau's vision of creating a Vampire based film.  Grau wanted to film a movie based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.  Bram Stoker chose not to sign over the rights to Albin so Albin Grau had to make a couple changes.  Grau changed the names of the movie to Nosferatu instead of using Dracula and the name of the main character was changed to Count Orlok.  Those changes however were not enough and the widow of Bram Stoker would file a copyright infringement claim and the film was ordered to be destroyed along with the prints of the movie and Grau was forced to file for bankruptcy which would shut down Prana Film.  Nosferatu would be the only film from Prana Film.

Luckily, the film had already made its way to the United States before this copyright claim was placed.  The United States had rights for Dracula to be in the public domain in the United States and multiple copies of Nosferatu would be made which helped bring this movie back from the dead.

Because of an extremely low budget only one camera was used to film the entire movie.  Since there was only one camera that was used only one negative.

The symphony for Nosferatu was written by Hans Erdmann and was performed by an orchestra during the production.  Most of the score for the orchestra was lost so the only original performance is the performance that was heard in the movie.

Here's a list of the cast for Nosferatu:
Max Schreck as Count Orlok
Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter
Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter
Alexander Granach as Knock
Georg H. Schnell as Shipowner Harding
Ruth Landshoff as Annie
John Gottowt as Professor Bulwer
Gustav Botz as Professor Sievers
Max Nemetz as The Captain of The Empusa
Wolfgang Heinz as First Mate of The Empusa
Hardy von Francois as mental hospital doctor
Albert Venohr as sailor two
Eric van Viele as sailor two
Guido Herzfeld as innkeeper
Karl Etlinger as student with Bulwer
Fanny Schreck as hospital nurse

Nosferatu was filmed in 4 locations.  The silent film was filmed at the Orava Castle, the Salzspeicher, After Hafen, and Marienkirche.  The Orava Castle is located in  Oravský Podzámok, Slovakia, the Salzspeicher is located in Lubeck, Germany, After Hafen is located in Wismar, Germany, and Marienkirche is the St. Mary's Church in Berlin, Germany.