Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren vog obam Here. Death was not
Speaker 1: the end for poor Lucy was Stern Wrath, a character
Speaker 1: in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. She fell victim to the
Speaker 1: book's aristocratic villain while stealing her blood. Night after night,
Speaker 1: Count Dracula of Transylvania slowly drained the life out of Lucy,
Speaker 1: but that was only the beginning for the young woman's
Speaker 1: killer also transformed her into an undead vampire like himself.
Speaker 1: A brief reign of terror ensued at the graveyard. Then
Speaker 1: Lucy's living fiancee, Arthur, and his companions, including the vampire
Speaker 1: savvy dr Abraham van Helsing, found her awake near her tomb.
Speaker 1: She was finally destroyed for good after trying to lure
Speaker 1: Arthur into a lover's embrace. Had Arthur accepted her kiss,
Speaker 1: Dr Van Helsing explained in his broken English, the morning
Speaker 1: suitor would have quote become no farratu as they call
Speaker 1: it in Eastern Europe. The nosferatu do not die like
Speaker 1: the bee when he stinged once. He's only stronger, and
Speaker 1: being stronger have yet more power to work evil. In
Speaker 1: the novel Dracula, Stoker treats nosferatu as a synonym for vampire.
Speaker 1: Countless horror writers took his lead, using the two terms
Speaker 1: interchangeably over the next hundred plus years, including Treehouse of
Speaker 1: Terror four episode of The Simpsons. Like Van Helsing, Stoker
Speaker 1: seems to have believed that nosferatu was an authentic word
Speaker 1: of Eastern European origin, but the evidence tells another story.
Speaker 1: No s farratu is probably a mistranslation of a Romanian
Speaker 1: or Greek term that scholars have yet pinned down. Whatever
Speaker 1: its origins were, horror media gave nos ferratu a new meaning,
Speaker 1: and it became fodder for some of the scariest vampire
Speaker 1: stories ever to rise from the shadows. Nineteenth century travel
Speaker 1: writer Emily Girard was talking vampires well before d Kilo
Speaker 1: went to print. Born in Scotland in eighteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: she emerged as a novelist and literary critic, but history
Speaker 1: mostly remembers her nonfiction works on European folklore. Gerard's eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five essay Transylvanian Superstitions contains the following passage. More
Speaker 1: decidedly evil, however, is the vampire or no sfaratu, in
Speaker 1: whom every Romanian peasant believes as firmly as he does
Speaker 1: in heaven or hell. The problem is no Sfaratu wasn't
Speaker 1: a real word, not in Romanian and not in any
Speaker 1: known Eastern European language or dialect. Gerard might have bungled
Speaker 1: the Romanian word nasu ferrite, which means unbearable. It's also
Speaker 1: possible that she misinterpreted and misspelled neckara tool, a Romanian
Speaker 1: term for devil, Or maybe Girard was thinking of the
Speaker 1: Greek word nasophos, defined as a plague carrier. A nineteenth
Speaker 1: century travel piece Torturing Spirits in Romanian popular belief makes
Speaker 1: a similar mistake. The text mentions the nosferat, whom the
Speaker 1: author calls the most dangerous torturing spirit of Romanian folklore,
Speaker 1: but there's no proof that he was ever exposed to
Speaker 1: this concept out in the field. The author may have
Speaker 1: borrowed the word nos farat from Gerard's writings. Bram Stoker
Speaker 1: seemingly did. Most horror historians credit Gerard's essay and her
Speaker 1: eight book The Land Beyond the Forest, Facts, Figures and
Speaker 1: Fancies from Transylvania with introducing Stoker to the term nos
Speaker 1: farrat to, but the word only makes two appearances in
Speaker 1: the Dracula novel, and it didn't really go mainstream until
Speaker 1: one of Germany's strangest motion picture companies came along, Prana Film.
Speaker 1: This young German based studio was drawn to all things
Speaker 1: occult and supernatural. Early in the nineteen twenties, Prana resolved
Speaker 1: to put Dracula on the silver screen. What followed was
Speaker 1: a true classic of the horror genre and a legal disaster.
Speaker 1: Always spoke by email with Jonathan Bailey, a horror fan
Speaker 1: who has written about this surprisingly long history of copyright
Speaker 1: issues in monster cinema on his website Plagiarism Today. He
Speaker 1: said Prana Film wanted to do an expressionistic retelling of
Speaker 1: the story of Dracula. That was very much the intent
Speaker 1: from day one. However, the estate of Bram Stoker meaning
Speaker 1: his widow Florence Stoker, didn't want to sell them the rights.
Speaker 1: Rather than abandoned the idea, they changed the name and
Speaker 1: a few other elements to make it an original work.
Speaker 1: Calling most of the revisions that Prana Film made superficial
Speaker 1: would be generous. The vampire in Prana's script is still
Speaker 1: an aristocrat with a spooky castle who travels across the
Speaker 1: sea and raises hell in a new city. But here
Speaker 1: he goes by Count Orlock rather than Count Dracula. To
Speaker 1: cover its tracks further, Prana Film discarded the book's title.
Speaker 1: They've chosen replacement No s Ferrat, a symphony of horror
Speaker 1: known frequently today. Just as Nos Ferrato Germany had already
Speaker 1: signed into an international agreement protecting the copyright of literary
Speaker 1: and artistic works. By keeping bram Stoker's basic plot more
Speaker 1: or less intact, the team at Prana was running a
Speaker 1: foul of the law, whether they realized it or not.
Speaker 1: Bailey explained the film was a very new medium at
Speaker 1: the time, especially commercially. Whenever a new technology comes along
Speaker 1: for creativity, copyright is usually one of the last things
Speaker 1: to get serious thought. Even if filmmakers understood the basics
Speaker 1: of copyright law, they likely didn't grasp the nuances of it.
Speaker 1: After all, their filmmakers not lawyers. This is something that
Speaker 1: remains very true today. On March four, of n two
Speaker 1: Prana films, nos Feratu, premiered at the Berlin's Logical Gardens
Speaker 1: of All Places, starring Max Trak as the seriously creepy
Speaker 1: count orlock was acclaimed by audiences and most critics. Most critics,
Speaker 1: that is, except for Florence Stoker, working on her behalf.
Speaker 1: A German lawyer hired by the British Incorporated Iet of
Speaker 1: Authors sought compensation from Prana that they had plagiarized Dracula
Speaker 1: was not in doubt. However, the studio had blown a
Speaker 1: large sum of money promoting nos Faratu and went bankrupt
Speaker 1: before the attorney came knocking. So, in accordance with Stoker's wishes,
Speaker 1: a German court ordered that every copy of the movie
Speaker 1: be destroyed. Try as she might, and she did try,
Speaker 1: Florence Stoker could not slay nos Feratu. An American print
Speaker 1: survived the destruction campaign. Prana Film's masterpiece now resides in
Speaker 1: the public domain. It's gotten countless DVD releases and is
Speaker 1: free to watch on platforms like YouTube. But nos Ferato
Speaker 1: may have actually helped the franchise that it ripped off.
Speaker 1: In Stoker's widow authorized a new stage play adaptation of Dracula.
Speaker 1: The leading man in the Broadway production was a young
Speaker 1: Hungarian named Bella Legosi. He had reprised the role for
Speaker 1: Universal Pictures classic and legal Dracula movie, though Count Dracula
Speaker 1: defined Bella Legosi's career would only play the character once
Speaker 1: more on film, in the Night horror comedy Abbott and
Speaker 1: Costello Meet Frankenstein. As for that haunting Prana flick, it
Speaker 1: got a high profile remake in the form of Werner
Speaker 1: Hertzog's No Sparatto The Vampire from nineteen seventy nine. Then
Speaker 1: came the novel nos ferratt To spelled n O s
Speaker 1: or a two by Joe Hill, which is the pen
Speaker 1: name of Stephen King's son Joseph. A serialized TV adaptation
Speaker 1: ran on AMC for two seasons in twenty nine, and
Speaker 1: so there you have it. No Sparato is a word
Speaker 1: of unknown origin that appeared in a groundbreaking horror novel,
Speaker 1: got implicated in some legal drama, changed movie history and
Speaker 1: inspired a pun from a member of the King family.
Speaker 1: Emily Gerard had no idea what she had started. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Mark Mancini and uced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more than this and lots of other topics, visit
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