Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. FW Murnou was born December twenty eighth, eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, or one hundred and thirty six years ago today,
Speaker 1: so our episode on him is today's Saturday classic. This
Speaker 1: is also spectacular timing because the new version of Nos
Speaker 1: Farautu is freshly out, so I theoretically will have seen
Speaker 1: it by the time this is out, but have not
Speaker 1: seen it yet as we record, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: This episode on Burnow originally came out on October twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Hey, Tracy,
Speaker 1: it's October. I know it's kind of like the middle
Speaker 1: ish of October at this point. Yeah, So for anybody
Speaker 1: who's worried that we haven't had a ton of Halloween content,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of clumping all at the end, whereas
Speaker 1: in previous years it's kind of been like every other
Speaker 1: one throughout the month, right just because of some scheduling needs,
Speaker 1: it's ended up that our October stuff is all coming
Speaker 1: out really in the back half of October. Hopefully that
Speaker 1: will be enough to tide people over. I know it's
Speaker 1: hard to wait those extra two weeks. I know, as
Speaker 1: someone who celebrates Halloween virtually every day of the year,
Speaker 1: I understand the topic that we're covering today is something
Speaker 1: I have wanted to talk about for a really long time,
Speaker 1: and that is F. W. Murnow. I make no secret
Speaker 1: that I love No Sparatu as well as a lot
Speaker 1: of his other work, but No Saratu has a very
Speaker 1: special place in my heart. See above Halloween every day.
Speaker 1: But Murdow's life is so much more than that one film,
Speaker 1: and that's actually happened fairly early in his film career,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot that happened afterwards. And he was
Speaker 1: truly an innovator in cinema and a visual storyteller whose
Speaker 1: work is even today hotly debated for its merits and faults,
Speaker 1: but its influence is felt in so many films that
Speaker 1: you see today where the filmmakers were influenced by Murnow,
Speaker 1: So you are still getting the benefit of his efforts,
Speaker 1: whether you know it or not. Mrnow was born Friedrich
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Plump in Beilefeld, Germany, on December eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: His brother Robert later described him, who went by his
Speaker 1: middle name of Wilhelm, by saying, quote from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: my brother overflowed with imagination. Their family was well off.
Speaker 1: Their father, Heinrich Plump, had inherited a profitable textile business,
Speaker 1: which he sold for a pretty tidy sum and then
Speaker 1: bought a sprawling estate. The family's children would put on
Speaker 1: plays in the garden, and that's where Wilhelm really fell
Speaker 1: in love with the idea of theater. Yeah. Apparently one
Speaker 1: of his sisters his mother was his father's second wife,
Speaker 1: and one of his older sisters, was initially like directing
Speaker 1: all of them to do these plays, but he pretty
Speaker 1: quickly was like, no, I want to make this stuff.
Speaker 1: But their idyllic, privileged childhood was abruptly interrupted when Heinrich
Speaker 1: Pumpe sold the family property and sunk all of his
Speaker 1: money into what turned out to be a bad investment.
Speaker 1: They weren't destitute at that point, but they did have
Speaker 1: a significant downgrade in their lifestyle. But Wilhelm's love of
Speaker 1: putting on productions continued unabated, and his brothers, who wanted
Speaker 1: to encourage his creativity despite their father, thinking that that
Speaker 1: was a waste of time, actually built a little theater
Speaker 1: for him to put on his shows, complete with lighting
Speaker 1: and moving scenery. Wilhelm, who was a voracious reader, was
Speaker 1: at the top of his class in school. His father
Speaker 1: wanted him to go on to become a professor, and
Speaker 1: to that end, he attended university in Berlin, where he
Speaker 1: started working as an actor under the name of Mernow.
Speaker 1: This new name was in the hopes of his father
Speaker 1: not discovering what he was doing, but Wilhelm was tall,
Speaker 1: about six foot for and very easy to recognize. Soon
Speaker 1: a family friend spotted him in a performance and mentioned
Speaker 1: it to his parents. Heinrich then cut his son off financially,
Speaker 1: but Mernell's grandfather on his mother's side started sending him
Speaker 1: a monthly allowance so he could stay in Berlin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was still going to school. He hadn't shirked that
Speaker 1: part of his responsibility. But he also apparently was living
Speaker 1: a rather lavish life, which had caused some problems when
Speaker 1: his father was called with these like huge debts that
Speaker 1: he had amassed, kind of putting only the finest furnishings
Speaker 1: in art in his little apartment. But yeah, he thought
Speaker 1: he could just work as an actor on the side
Speaker 1: while he also went to school. But after Berlin, Wilhelm
Speaker 1: went on to school in Heidelberg, and there he studied literature, art,
Speaker 1: history and philosophy. And it was also there, in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh eight that he connected with Max Reinhardt, Austrian born.
Speaker 1: Reinhardt was a well known figure on the German theater scene,
Speaker 1: and he was impressed by Wilhelm when he saw him
Speaker 1: perform in a play that was put on by the university.
Speaker 1: He was so impressed, in fact, that he offered him
Speaker 1: a place in his theater school with a full scholarship
Speaker 1: if Urnow agreed to attend for a full six years.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eleven, Murnow assisted rein Hart in the production
Speaker 1: of a play called The Miracle, which was written by
Speaker 1: Karl Vomler. He had been exploring directing and he realized
Speaker 1: that he preferred that to acting. Also, this move to
Speaker 1: directing was motivated by a certain practicality. He knew that
Speaker 1: being as tall as he was would be a hindrance
Speaker 1: to being cast in leading roles, but his height really
Speaker 1: made no difference to working as a director. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was so distinctive looking that he was like, no one
Speaker 1: is going to want to cast me from one show
Speaker 1: to another, because I will just look like the same
Speaker 1: dude no matter what I do. World War One, though,
Speaker 1: did put a damper on art for Murnow for a
Speaker 1: little while, who served in the German military. He was
Speaker 1: first called up as a foot guard, and then he
Speaker 1: was promoted, and then became a company commander, and eventually
Speaker 1: he transferred to the Air Force, and while flying with
Speaker 1: the German Air Force eight times, but he walked away
Speaker 1: every time without any serious injuries, and after his last
Speaker 1: crash landing in Switzerland, he was arrested and interned at Andermot,
Speaker 1: where he used his time as a prisoner of war
Speaker 1: to work on a film script and produce theater with
Speaker 1: his fellow internees. According to fellow officer Major wolfgung Schump,
Speaker 1: every evening Mernow would recite a poem called the Pianist
Speaker 1: of Death to the officers, and according to the same account,
Speaker 1: he also carried a stick with him which was made
Speaker 1: out of a propeller which was full of bullet holes.
Speaker 1: He was so influential that a lot of the men
Speaker 1: he served with also started carrying similar sticks as sort
Speaker 1: of a strange wartime fashion trend that Mernow had created.
Speaker 1: While Mernow made it through the war seemingly unscathed, his
Speaker 1: best friend, Hans Ernbaum Digila, was killed at the front,
Speaker 1: and that was a loss that Mernow grieved really deeply.
Speaker 1: The loss of Hans was perhaps so difficult because he
Speaker 1: had been one of the few people that Mernow was
Speaker 1: actually close to. Vernou's family was often kept at arm's length,
Speaker 1: particularly during the time that he had changed his name
Speaker 1: and worked on his secret acting career. There was a
Speaker 1: story about one of his brothers going to the same
Speaker 1: place as him, but like telling his friends and other
Speaker 1: people in the family like, oh, I can't, I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to look at at villel like I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't acknowledge that I related to him. But losing his
Speaker 1: closest friend really seemed to catalyze a desire to connect
Speaker 1: more deeply to his siblings and his family, which he
Speaker 1: did in his early thirties. After the war ended, Burnout
Speaker 1: didn't go back to the theater, and Steady shifted his
Speaker 1: interest to film. He edited a few short films for
Speaker 1: the German embassy. These were basically propaganda. In nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: he founded his own film company with friends from his
Speaker 1: time at the Reinhardt School. Under his company Burnout Vite
Speaker 1: voongevel Shaft, he made the transition into directing long form film.
Speaker 1: He did this when he directed The Boy in Blue
Speaker 1: that was inspired by the seventeen seventy painting The Blue
Speaker 1: Boy by Thomas Gane For A copy of the painting
Speaker 1: appears in the film, but the face in the original
Speaker 1: was replaced with the face of the main character. In
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, his story overlaps with a previous podcast subject,
Speaker 1: Bella Lugosi. Murnow directed Lugosi in an adaptation of The
Speaker 1: Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde's story that was originally published
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six. Murnow's version, which was titled Jana's Faced,
Speaker 1: was a critical success, although like a lot of his work,
Speaker 1: modern audiences have no access to it as it has
Speaker 1: been lost. Almost half of his films were lost over
Speaker 1: the years. Murnow's work in nineteen twenty two is what
Speaker 1: has truly endured, though, and that's what's given the director
Speaker 1: his longevity as a person of interest among horror fans especially.
Speaker 1: It was then that he directed the cult classic Nosferatu.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't know the film, odds are that
Speaker 1: you have seen images from it. Count Orlock, who's the
Speaker 1: vampire at the center of the plot, is just an
Speaker 1: unmistakable figure. This is when I'm going to confess to
Speaker 1: Holly that I've never seen this film all the way through,
Speaker 1: but I immediately can call what count Orloc looks like
Speaker 1: to mine, like and how he moves like all of that.
Speaker 1: I want to mind a big dramatic throwing of things
Speaker 1: across the room, but I'll forgive you. Yeah, you're missing out,
Speaker 1: though I know, I know, there's just so much media
Speaker 1: to consume. Count Orloc is tall and thin, with large
Speaker 1: pointy ears, heavy eyebrows, and long, pointy front teeth, and
Speaker 1: he's one of cinema's oldest and most iconic villains and
Speaker 1: serves as sort of a shorthand for a vampire. Now
Speaker 1: and coming up, we'll talk about some of the rumors
Speaker 1: around the making of No Speratu, but first we're gonna
Speaker 1: pause for a word from one of our sponsors. There
Speaker 1: have been so many rumors and stories surrounding the making
Speaker 1: of the film No Speratu since it was released, in
Speaker 1: part due to some of the promotional materials that were
Speaker 1: released ahead of the movie. To drum up interest, the
Speaker 1: magazine Bunu Unfilm put out an issue just before the
Speaker 1: film came out in nineteen twenty two that featured a
Speaker 1: story told by production designer Alban Grau, in which Grau
Speaker 1: claims that during the war he met a Serbian man
Speaker 1: who claimed that his father had died without receiving the
Speaker 1: holy sacraments and then wandered their village in vampire form. Grau,
Speaker 1: who was an occultist and also one of the people
Speaker 1: who initiated this project, claimed to have seen documents detailing
Speaker 1: the exhumation of the body, which showed no signs of decomposition,
Speaker 1: and then Grau's Serbian friend told him that after the
Speaker 1: body of his father was exhumed, a steak was driven
Speaker 1: through its heart and that the vampire died. So this
Speaker 1: theoretically was the inspiration for Nosferatu. According to Grau, it
Speaker 1: was all based on this true story that he had
Speaker 1: heard while during the war, and he claimed that no
Speaker 1: s ferratu was the Serbian word for vampire, although the
Speaker 1: true etymology of that word is a lot hazier than that.
Speaker 1: There's no exact news origin point. Nosparatu continues to have
Speaker 1: its own mythos as the first vampire film. It's drawn
Speaker 1: a lot of interest in the century since that it
Speaker 1: was made, but it was almost lost, just like several
Speaker 1: of Mernow's other films. That's because the story is a
Speaker 1: loose adaptation of bram Stoker's Dracula, and it was made
Speaker 1: without the rights to that story, something that is a
Speaker 1: non issue now because it's so old, but was an
Speaker 1: issue at that time. Mernow's production company was unable to
Speaker 1: secure the rights to it, but they went ahead with
Speaker 1: the production anyway, changing a number of the elements, and
Speaker 1: Florence Balcolm Stoker, who was bram Stoker's widow, sued over it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they changed names of characters in the location, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different, but there's enough there that
Speaker 1: it's pretty clearly if you had read Dracula, you'd be like, this,
Speaker 1: shear looks like a lot like Dracula. Yeah, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like when you go to buy Halloween costumes and
Speaker 1: they are named something like Magical School Student, and you
Speaker 1: know it's really Harry Potter. Right. A recent one that
Speaker 1: I saw was Midweek Angry Girl and it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be Wednesday, which to me was very funny. By the
Speaker 1: time that the case that Florence Balcomstoker brought went to court,
Speaker 1: the film company was already bankrupt. So much money had
Speaker 1: been spent on publicity for nos Faratu and on staging
Speaker 1: a massive gala opening at the Berlin Zoo that there
Speaker 1: was literally nothing left for the widow Stoker to be awarded. Still,
Speaker 1: a German court did rule in her favor and issued
Speaker 1: a verdict that all copies of the film had to
Speaker 1: be destroyed, of course, not to thwart the law, but thankfully,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, that did not happen. Prince of the
Speaker 1: film made their way to London, where Florence Balcomstoker was
Speaker 1: able to block its screening in nineteen twenty five, and
Speaker 1: then to New York, where it was viewed by audiences
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine. And as with a lot of
Speaker 1: Murnow's work, there are multiple different versions of the film,
Speaker 1: and over the years, film fans and historians have worked
Speaker 1: very hard, in some cases referring to the original shooting
Speaker 1: script to untangle which of those versions is actually closest
Speaker 1: to Murnow's original. As an aside the film Shadow of
Speaker 1: the Vampire, which, unlike tas Sperazzi I have seen, stars
Speaker 1: Williem Dafoe as actor Max Shrek, who brought count Orlock
Speaker 1: to life. It's a really fun movie and it plays
Speaker 1: on the long running rumor that Shrek actually did practice
Speaker 1: vampirism during the filming of Nosperazu, but to be clear,
Speaker 1: that is fiction. Mernow is portrayed by John Malkovich in
Speaker 1: a manner that suggests that the director was just a
Speaker 1: driven auteur who only cared about capturing what he saw
Speaker 1: as his vision without being concerned about anything or anybody else.
Speaker 1: That is totally opposite of just about every account of
Speaker 1: Mernow as a director. Yeah, we're gonna read something later
Speaker 1: that was was said at his funeral that will kind
Speaker 1: of very clearly point out how differently he really really
Speaker 1: was portrayed in that film from what he was like
Speaker 1: in real life. And while Nosharatu is probably the film
Speaker 1: he's most famous for today, at least in sort of
Speaker 1: general audience circles, I think if you get into cinophile circles,
Speaker 1: others come up pretty quickly. But Mernow went on, as
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, to direct plenty of other films,
Speaker 1: and it was really those films that put him on
Speaker 1: the map as a director of note with his contemporaries
Speaker 1: in Germany. In nineteen twenty four, Der Lets demnn was released,
Speaker 1: and it was a breakthrough moment in narrative cinema. While
Speaker 1: the title translates directly to the Last Man in its
Speaker 1: English language release that was titled The Last Laugh, it
Speaker 1: tells the story of the doorman at a fancy hotel who,
Speaker 1: as he ages, is forced into the lesser role of
Speaker 1: bathroom attendant. This transition is significant and difficult for the
Speaker 1: main character because his identity is totally tied up in
Speaker 1: his work as a doorman, and this emotional fall mirrors
Speaker 1: the fall and his status as a staff member in
Speaker 1: the hotel. There is almost no dialogue in the Last Laugh.
Speaker 1: There's no audible dialogue at all. This was still in
Speaker 1: the silent film era, so The Jazz Singer would not
Speaker 1: debut for another three years. But there is also only
Speaker 1: a single title card in all of Murnow's nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: four film, which runs seventy seven minutes. The entire story
Speaker 1: is told through pantomime and the use of shadow light
Speaker 1: and another artist creative skill. The Last Laugh gained Mernow
Speaker 1: a lot of attention, in part because of the work
Speaker 1: of cinematographer Carl Freund in service to Marnew's vision. Unlike
Speaker 1: most of the films of the time that were shot
Speaker 1: on sound stages from an audience perspective, almost like you
Speaker 1: were viewing a play, the Last Man traveled through the
Speaker 1: set to mimic walking the streets of the city. The
Speaker 1: main character's point of view is captured and shared with
Speaker 1: the audience, and that's something that moviegoers of the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties weren't really accustomed to. Today, there are dollies and
Speaker 1: rigs that are specifically made to make the cameras agile,
Speaker 1: but Freud had to really improvise to find ways to
Speaker 1: get his shots and to meet Brnow's demands because Mernow
Speaker 1: really felt like the film needed to be more dynamic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Frend did everything from attaching cameras to bicycles to strapping
Speaker 1: a camera to his waist, and for one scene he
Speaker 1: wore the camera on his waist and he crossed the
Speaker 1: set wearing a pair of roller skates with the camera
Speaker 1: rolling to create the illusion of drunkenness. For the audience,
Speaker 1: and for the film's opening shot, he was on a
Speaker 1: bicycle as it traveled on an improvised elevator going down
Speaker 1: and then essentially he pedaled out into a hotel lobby set.
Speaker 1: So it drew the audience into the motion and the
Speaker 1: tone and the world of the character in the film instantly.
Speaker 1: I think, living in the era of go pro footage,
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget that, like people had to work
Speaker 1: out how to make cameras move this way. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: a really great story that one of his colleagues tells
Speaker 1: about how when Murnow is first like, we need to
Speaker 1: follow this smoke up this this set, and they're like, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: we got to walk up the stairs, and how he
Speaker 1: realized later that they had already assumed that they could
Speaker 1: figure out how to carry the camera. They were just like,
Speaker 1: but how will we get up the stairs? Like they
Speaker 1: had no problem getting over that idea of taking it
Speaker 1: off the tripod, but the next part was just like
Speaker 1: the logistics of the next thing were so big that
Speaker 1: they didn't even think about like just having to hold
Speaker 1: the camera after the last laugh. Mernow was known as
Speaker 1: the great impressionist in German film Circles. He took that
Speaker 1: reputation and used it to turn out a very sumptuous
Speaker 1: and extravagant film. Next that was an adaptation of Moliere's Tartuffe,
Speaker 1: which debuted in nineteen twenty five. His next film was
Speaker 1: another literary adaptation. That one was Faust, Twitch, debuted in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six. Throughout the mid nineteen twenties, Mernow had
Speaker 1: become quite a big name in German cinema, and it
Speaker 1: was not long before Hollywood took notice. After the release
Speaker 1: of Faust, Fox Film Corporation offered the director a contract
Speaker 1: to move to California and start making films in the
Speaker 1: United States. One of Murnow's requests was that he be
Speaker 1: allowed to take his crew with him, and that was
Speaker 1: something that Fox agreed to. Murnow's first project under his
Speaker 1: contract was a nineteen twenty seven picture called Sunrise, A
Speaker 1: Song of two Humans. It opens with title cards that read, quote,
Speaker 1: this song of the man and his wife is of
Speaker 1: no place in every place. You might hear it anywhere,
Speaker 1: at any time. For whatever the sun rises and sets
Speaker 1: in the city's turmoil or under the open sky on
Speaker 1: the farm, life is much the same. Sometimes Bitter, sometimes Sweet.
Speaker 1: The film, which is considered a masterpiece by a lot
Speaker 1: of people, tells the story of a married man who
Speaker 1: has an affair and his lover suggests that he kill
Speaker 1: his wife so that he can leave behind his old
Speaker 1: life and start a new life in the city with
Speaker 1: her and the man that is all he is named
Speaker 1: as is played by George O'Brien, and he's unable to
Speaker 1: follow through on this plan, and instead he reconciles with
Speaker 1: his wife. There are a lot of shots in this
Speaker 1: film that are considered like the first of their kind.
Speaker 1: There's one where the two of them are on a
Speaker 1: trolley car kind of passing from a more rural suburban
Speaker 1: setting into a city setting that's considered super important. The
Speaker 1: wife in this movie was played by Janet Gaynor. Sunrise
Speaker 1: was and still is a critical success. It went on
Speaker 1: to win an award at the first Academy Awards that
Speaker 1: was held in nineteen twenty nine, and it was in
Speaker 1: the now defunct category of Unique and Artistic Picture. Janet
Speaker 1: Gaynor also won Best Actress that year. She was nominated
Speaker 1: in three different roles, including her work on Sunrise, Seventh Heaven,
Speaker 1: and Street Angel. Sunrise won for cinematography and was also
Speaker 1: nominated for Art direction and that all sounds like Sunrise
Speaker 1: was a big, big hit, but not so much with audiences.
Speaker 1: Critics loved it, but Sunrise just did not draw viewers,
Speaker 1: and the ticket sales on it were really disappointing. Despite
Speaker 1: all of the accolades that the film garnered, Fox decided
Speaker 1: that Mernow was going to have less freedom on future projects.
Speaker 1: Four Devils came out in nineteen twenty eight. It told
Speaker 1: the story of four orphans who were raised by a
Speaker 1: clown and became a high wire circus act. This is
Speaker 1: one of Murnow's films which has not survived. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sometimes when you talk to film people, it's definitely mentioned
Speaker 1: as sort of a holy Grail film. They everybody hopes
Speaker 1: that one day we will find this film because it
Speaker 1: does when you read treatments of it and script pieces
Speaker 1: sound very very interesting. Our Daily Bread premiered in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine. This film also came out under a different title,
Speaker 1: which was City Girl, and Mernow, still being pretty highly
Speaker 1: supervised by the studio, did not have complete control over
Speaker 1: this project and additional scenes were added at the last
Speaker 1: minute by the studio so that there could be some
Speaker 1: audio dialogue in the film to take advantage of the
Speaker 1: audience's interest in talkies. If you see it today, you're
Speaker 1: probably going to see an all silent version, because most
Speaker 1: most versions we would see today are re edited back
Speaker 1: to what people believe was Murnow's initial vision. Naturally, that
Speaker 1: kind of tampering with his work was not something that
Speaker 1: Mernow was happy about at all, and an effort to
Speaker 1: regain his artistic freedom, he formed a partnership with Robert Flaherty.
Speaker 1: The two combined their efforts to start their own production company.
Speaker 1: But this was kind of an odd pairing. Murnow was
Speaker 1: known for his fictional work and that was where his
Speaker 1: heart really was as a filmmaker. But Flerty, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, was a documentarian, so working on films together
Speaker 1: put them at odds. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the project that Mernow and Flerty took on as their
Speaker 1: first collaboration in just a moment. But first we're going
Speaker 1: to hear from one of the sponsors that keep stuff
Speaker 1: you missed in history class going. Mrnow and Flerty's first
Speaker 1: and only project together was a film called Taboo that's
Speaker 1: spelled Tabu. It was shot on location in the South Pacific,
Speaker 1: primarily on Bora, Bora and Tahiti. But whereas Flaherty thought
Speaker 1: that they were making a documentary about Polynesian culture, Mernow
Speaker 1: saw the documentary aspects of the production as a backdrop
Speaker 1: for a fictional story that he wanted to tell. The
Speaker 1: collaboration aspect of this film quickly ended. Flaherty left the
Speaker 1: project pretty early on, although his name does appear in
Speaker 1: the credits as a co director. How much either of
Speaker 1: them influenced this film is another thing that people sometimes
Speaker 1: like to debate. Mernow continued as he desired crafting a
Speaker 1: love story set in the tropics. He cast local Islanders
Speaker 1: in the two lead roles of lovers whose desire to
Speaker 1: be together is at odds with their cultural rules. Mernow
Speaker 1: fell so in love with Tahiti that he built himself
Speaker 1: a home there. His mother later wrote that he had
Speaker 1: always been fascinated with the South Seas and that going
Speaker 1: there to make Taboo was the culmination of a lifelong dream.
Speaker 1: He planned to make more movies there after Taboo was released,
Speaker 1: and in the time that was leading up to the
Speaker 1: release of Taboo, Mernow, who had traveled back to California,
Speaker 1: had planned to visit his mother, and before he left
Speaker 1: for Germany, he planned to have a creative meeting with
Speaker 1: author William Morris about some potential projects together. On the
Speaker 1: morning of March eleventh, nineteen thirty one, Mernow stopped by
Speaker 1: the home of his friend, actress and screenwriter Salka Vitel,
Speaker 1: to pick up some sandwiches for the car ride up
Speaker 1: to Carmel del Monte, where his meeting was going to
Speaker 1: take place. Mernow was riding in a hired car, which
Speaker 1: he planned to take with him by ship to Germany,
Speaker 1: and he was traveling with a chauffeur for the California
Speaker 1: drive named John Freeland, as well as a much younger man,
Speaker 1: Garcia Stevenson, who the director had hired to be his
Speaker 1: valet and driver in Germany. There are different accounts of
Speaker 1: what happened next, but a little less than twenty miles
Speaker 1: outside of Santa Barbara, the car Mernow and the other
Speaker 1: two men were traveling in skidded off the road and
Speaker 1: down an embankment. According to the news story that ran
Speaker 1: in The New York Times, the car rolled twice on
Speaker 1: its thirty foot drop and then it landed on its
Speaker 1: Roof Mernow frack his skull in the accident and died
Speaker 1: the next day. In a bit of an unsettling coincidence,
Speaker 1: Murnaut had told friends that he had consulted a fortune
Speaker 1: teller before starting his journey, and this fortune teller told
Speaker 1: him that he would die in a car on this trip.
Speaker 1: He had thought about taking a ship from California all
Speaker 1: the way to Europe instead of driving to New York
Speaker 1: to cross the Atlantic, and he thought that would thwart
Speaker 1: that prediction. Yeah, he thought booking this longer cruise was
Speaker 1: his way around what the fortune teller had told him.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those sort of creepy coincidences
Speaker 1: that the fact that he died on the much shortened
Speaker 1: drive portion of his trip just adds to the mystique
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. But this is also an issue
Speaker 1: that involves a lot of rumors, because rumors began to
Speaker 1: swirl immediately as to what exactly had happened to cause
Speaker 1: this accident, and there are multiple different accounts, some by
Speaker 1: his friend Slckovertel, won by a man who was in
Speaker 1: a car by behind him. There is also testimony given
Speaker 1: by Freeman because Mernow's mother tried to sue the company
Speaker 1: that he had rented the car from, and in one account,
Speaker 1: Mernow himself was driving. In others, it was Mernow's valet,
Speaker 1: Garcia Stevenson, who was underage. He was a teenager who
Speaker 1: was at the wheel. Stories began to circulate in Hollywood
Speaker 1: that Mernow and Stevenson had been engaged in a sexual
Speaker 1: act in the front seat while the chauffeur, Freeman, slept
Speaker 1: in the back when the accident had happened. Because all
Speaker 1: of the men had been thrown from the car as
Speaker 1: it had tumbled to its final landing position, nothing was
Speaker 1: clear and gossip ran rampant. This is still a thing
Speaker 1: that is talked about in large question marks. Nobody really
Speaker 1: knows what caused this accident. Were the other two men
Speaker 1: also killed in it? They were not okay. Freeman and
Speaker 1: Garcia both survived. As I said, Freeman gave an account
Speaker 1: during the investigation. Garcia, I didn't see anything that listed
Speaker 1: a clear account from him, so I'm not entirely sure
Speaker 1: what happened there. Even the accounts of where Marnau was
Speaker 1: to meet the boat that would take him down to
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal and then across the Atlantic were at
Speaker 1: odds with each other. One version stated he was headed
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, another claimed he was going to San
Speaker 1: Diego after the visit with Morris. All these rumors gave
Speaker 1: Murnau's sudden death of very seedy and unpleasant association. Only
Speaker 1: eleven people attended the funeral that was held for him
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, Yeah, with some of his collaborators, a
Speaker 1: couple of actors he had worked with, a couple of
Speaker 1: his very close friends. After Murnow's body was transported to Germany,
Speaker 1: which took considerable effort and paperwork, there was another service
Speaker 1: held there and filmmaker Fritz Lange gave a eulogy, which
Speaker 1: was described by art director Robert Hurlth. This is also
Speaker 1: interesting because Fritz Lang was considered something of a competitor
Speaker 1: to Murnow. But according to hurl Quote, he Fritz described
Speaker 1: Murnow striding into the studio. All was good tempered, smiling, affably,
Speaker 1: able by his mere presence to kindle enthusiasm. He seemed
Speaker 1: like some great aristocrat interesting himself in the Senate. I'm
Speaker 1: a partly out of curiosity and partly by way of amusement,
Speaker 1: which was in fact what a lot of people believed.
Speaker 1: In reality he was a tireless and thorough worker. Behind
Speaker 1: his gaiety was an indefatigable energy that was nonetheless there
Speaker 1: because he liked to hide it. Taboo was released on
Speaker 1: schedule just a week after Murnou's death. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: box office success. Mernou was finally buried in Stansdorf Cemetery
Speaker 1: outside of Berlin. Even the burial became a source of gossip,
Speaker 1: as stories started to circulate that the director's coffin was
Speaker 1: unburied in a seller because there wasn't any money to
Speaker 1: have it interred. A German film periodical published a counter
Speaker 1: to that rumor, stating that the delay in putting Murnau's
Speaker 1: coffin in the ground was because of the chapel not
Speaker 1: being completed. After Murnow's sudden death, his family came to
Speaker 1: know a whole new side of the director. His brother Robert,
Speaker 1: traveled to Tahiti to deal with Murnow's property in his
Speaker 1: business there, and in Robert's account, he said that when
Speaker 1: he arrived at the port, the locals essentially ignored him,
Speaker 1: which was a stark contrast to the warm greeting that
Speaker 1: all of the other disembarking travelers had received. Allegedly, the
Speaker 1: home that Mernow had built there was on the sacred
Speaker 1: soil of ancient temples, something that he had been warned
Speaker 1: would bring him misfortune, and in his brother Robert's explanation,
Speaker 1: the locals believed that Mernow had brought his death upon
Speaker 1: himself and viewed anyone associated with him as carrying the
Speaker 1: curse as well. Eventually, Robert said that he was able
Speaker 1: to win over the people of Tahiti and that they
Speaker 1: confided in him that they had really loved his brother.
Speaker 1: Whether that is true or not, we do not know.
Speaker 1: Robert definitely made an effort to present sort of a
Speaker 1: whitewashed version of Murnow after his death. For example, there
Speaker 1: had been a lot of rumors and a lot of
Speaker 1: discussion that he had been a homosexual. There's some theories
Speaker 1: that that's why he was so eager to take the
Speaker 1: job in Hollywood, it was going to be a less
Speaker 1: restrictive culture than it was in Germany at the time.
Speaker 1: Vehemently denied that anything of the type could happen. This
Speaker 1: is sort of the trick with Murnow is that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people involved with a stake in
Speaker 1: his story that want to tell it very different ways
Speaker 1: and paint him very differently. Yeah, you'll, like, you'll see
Speaker 1: him on a lot of lists of like early gay
Speaker 1: film pioneers and that type of stuff, Like those types
Speaker 1: of more celebratory lists. But then there's other like this
Speaker 1: whole story of potentially building a house on a sacred
Speaker 1: site like that has its own connotations. Yes, for sure,
Speaker 1: and it is. It's one of those tricky things. We
Speaker 1: talk about it on the show a lot when someone
Speaker 1: is not maybe publicly out as homosexual. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: they are entitled to their own privacy even after death.
Speaker 1: On the other, I understand the desire for representation and
Speaker 1: for people to be able to see that this has
Speaker 1: always been part of our history. And in Murnow's case,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's tricky because different people involved in
Speaker 1: his life tell his story very very differently. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's certainly some degree of evidence to suggest that he
Speaker 1: was in fact homosexual, but in the very protected enclave
Speaker 1: of Hollywood, so and also a place where there were
Speaker 1: lots of rumors. Yeah, I feel like we've talked about
Speaker 1: other figures whose the relationships are a lot more clear
Speaker 1: and even like, even if they were living in a
Speaker 1: time before that was such a clearly established identity in
Speaker 1: the way that it is today, Like we had more
Speaker 1: documentation of their relationships and what their life was like
Speaker 1: than this particular aspect of his life. Yeah. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, the FW Murnow Foundation was established to preserve
Speaker 1: Germany's film history. This foundation maintains and evaluates and manages
Speaker 1: German films quote for the promotion of German film culture
Speaker 1: and film art. Yeah. They also do a lot of
Speaker 1: work to contextualize, for example, films that were made during
Speaker 1: the Third Reich and just kind of trace how film
Speaker 1: has developed in Germany over the years. And in a
Speaker 1: final chapter that makes mernow the perfect subject for one
Speaker 1: of our October episodes. He became a headline again in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, as Murnow's work, and particularly nos Feratu, had
Speaker 1: gained a cult following in the second half of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. His tomb began to be not just visited
Speaker 1: but broken into. Then in July of twenty fifteen, the
Speaker 1: coffin was found opened and Murnow's skull was gone. Who
Speaker 1: stole it remains a mystery. There was candle wax left
Speaker 1: the scene, which led authorities to speculate that it might
Speaker 1: have been quote some sort of occult practice. I can
Speaker 1: think of various non occult reasons for there to have
Speaker 1: been handle wax there. But regardless, the skull remains at large. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know where it is. And his tomb, the
Speaker 1: cemetery that he was buried in, is in a forest
Speaker 1: outside of Berlin. He is buried between two family members,
Speaker 1: his brother and his father, and it's one of those
Speaker 1: places where a lot of notable people in German history
Speaker 1: have been buried, and it's considered really a huge cultural
Speaker 1: loss that his tomb and his burial place was desecrated
Speaker 1: in this way. We have no idea where that skull is.
Speaker 1: Maybe somedays someone will come forward with it, or a
Speaker 1: family member will pass and they will discover that they
Speaker 1: were hiding it all along. We don't know. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: it will be found with his films. We can only
Speaker 1: hope that's clearly jesting on my part. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: send us a note, our email addresses History Podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to the show
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.