She is the Bride of Dracula. That is what they whispered whenever Florence Balcombe Stoker stepped into public view. Once an ethereal beauty whose features could capture Oscar Wilde’s imagination, if not his true ardor, the widow of author Bram Stoker spent the final decades of her life being haunted by her husband—but not his ghost; it was his vampire that refused to give her rest.
Today, Florence is chiefly remembered as the architect behind what some might call the greatest act of attempted vandalism in cinematic history. She did, after all, pursue with the tenacity of Abraham Van Helsing a scorched earth crusade intent on having all prints of Nosferatu burned to ash. If she had succeeded, F.W. Murnau’s German Expressionist masterpiece, and one of the finest horror films ever produced, would have been lost to posterity—instead of still being watched and celebrated exactly 100 years since its Berlin premiere.
Today, Florence is chiefly remembered as the architect behind what some might call the greatest act of attempted vandalism in cinematic history. She did, after all, pursue with the tenacity of Abraham Van Helsing a scorched earth crusade intent on having all prints of Nosferatu burned to ash. If she had succeeded, F.W. Murnau’s German Expressionist masterpiece, and one of the finest horror films ever produced, would have been lost to posterity—instead of still being watched and celebrated exactly 100 years since its Berlin premiere.
- 3/3/2022
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
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