SYMHC Classics: F.W. Murnau

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: SYMHC Classics – F.W. Murnau

Episode Release Date: December 28, 2024

In this episode of "Stuff You Missed in History Class" by iHeartPodcasts, hosts Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the life and legacy of F.W. Murnau, a pivotal figure in early cinema whose influence resonates to this day. The episode, released on Tracy's 136th birthday, provides an in-depth exploration of Murnau's contributions to film, his personal life, and the enduring myths surrounding his most famous work, Nosferatu.

Early Life and Theatrical Beginnings

Tracy V. Wilson begins by outlining Murnau's origins:

"Murnau was born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe in Bielefeld, Germany, on December 28, 1889. His brother Robert later described him, who went by his middle name of Wilhelm, by saying, 'From the very beginning, my brother overflowed with imagination.'" ([04:51])

Growing up in a well-off family, Murnau was immersed in the arts from a young age, putting on plays in his family's estate gardens. This early exposure ignited his passion for theater, despite his father's desire for him to pursue an academic career.

Transition to Film

Murnau's shift from theater to cinema was influenced by Max Reinhardt, a renowned figure in German theater. In 1911, Murnau assisted Reinhardt in the production of The Miracle and soon realized his preference for directing over acting. His stature—standing at 6'4"—made leading roles impractical, steering him towards directing where his height was an asset rather than a hindrance.

Tracy V. Wilson notes:

"Murnau's move to directing was motivated by a certain practicality. He knew that being as tall as he was would be a hindrance to being cast in leading roles. But his height really made no difference to working as a director." ([07:46])

World War I and Personal Loss

Murnau's artistic pursuits were interrupted by World War I, where he served in the German Air Force. Despite multiple crash landings—eight in total—he survived each without serious injury. During his internment in Switzerland, he continued to create, working on film scripts and theater productions with fellow prisoners.

The war took a personal toll when his best friend, Hans Ehrenbaum Digle, was killed on the front lines. This loss deepened Murnau's desire to reconnect with his family and led him to focus more intensely on his craft upon the war's conclusion.

"The loss of Hans was perhaps so difficult because he had been one of the few people that Murnau was actually close to." ([09:30])

Breakthrough in Cinema: Nosferatu and Beyond

Post-war, Murnau founded his own film company and transitioned to directing feature films. His 1922 masterpiece, Nosferatu, remains his most enduring work and a cornerstone of the horror genre. The film introduced Count Orlok, an iconic vampire figure whose visual design continues to influence cinematic portrayals of vampires.

Tracy V. Wilson reflects:

"Count Orlok is tall and thin, with large pointy ears, heavy eyebrows, and long pointy front teeth. And he's one of cinema's oldest and most iconic villains." ([11:55])

Innovations in Filmmaking

Murnau was not only a storyteller but also an innovator. His 1924 film, The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann), showcased groundbreaking techniques in narrative cinema. The film's minimal use of title cards and reliance on visual storytelling were revolutionary during the silent film era.

"There's almost no dialogue in The Last Laugh. The entire story is told through pantomime and the use of shadow, light, and another artist's creative skill." ([22:18])

Collaborating with cinematographer Karl Freund, Murnau employed innovative camera movements and techniques, such as attaching cameras to bicycles and wearing roller skates to create dynamic shots, which were unprecedented at the time.

Hollywood and Sunrise

Murnau's success in Germany caught Hollywood's attention, leading to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. His first Hollywood project, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), is often hailed as a masterpiece for its lyrical storytelling and technical prowess. The film won an award at the first Academy Awards and earned Janet Gaynor a Best Actress accolade.

"Sunrise was a big hit critically, but not so much with audiences. Despite the accolades, Fox decided that Murnau would have less freedom on future projects." ([26:40])

Final Projects and Untimely Death

Murnau's ambition led him to form a partnership with documentarian Robert Flaherty, resulting in the film Taboo (1929). This project, shot in Bora Bora and Tahiti, was Murnau's final work before his tragic death in a car accident in 1931. The circumstances surrounding his death have spawned numerous rumors and myths, including unfounded speculations about his personal life.

"Murnau's sudden death gave his story a very seedy and unpleasant association, with rumors of impropriety swirling around the accident." ([37:16])

Legacy and Continuing Mystique

Murnau's influence persists in modern cinema, with Nosferatu enduring as a seminal work in the horror genre. The myths surrounding his death, including the theft of his skull and speculative rumors about his personal life, have only added to his enigmatic legacy.

Tracy V. Wilson concludes:

"Murnau was a tireless and thorough worker. Behind his gaiety was an indefatigable energy that was nonetheless there because he liked to hide it." ([38:51])

The episode underscores Murnau's role as a pioneer who pushed the boundaries of visual storytelling, leaving an indelible mark on the art of filmmaking.

Notable Quotes

• Tracy V. Wilson: "From the very beginning, my brother overflowed with imagination." ([04:51])
• Tracy V. Wilson: "Murnau was born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe in Bielefeld, Germany, on December 28, 1889." ([04:51])
• Unknown Speaker: "Count Orlok is tall and thin, with large pointy ears, heavy eyebrows and long pointy front teeth." ([11:55])
• Tracy V. Wilson: "There's almost no dialogue in The Last Laugh. The entire story is told through pantomime and the use of shadow, light and another artist's creative skill." ([22:18])
• Tracy V. Wilson: "Sunrise was a big hit critically, but not so much with audiences. Despite all of the accolades, Fox decided that Murnau was going to have less freedom on future projects." ([26:40])

Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive look at F.W. Murnau's life, highlighting his artistic innovations, his transition from theater to film, his influence on the horror genre, and the enduring fascination with his persona and work. Through engaging storytelling and insightful analysis, Holly and Tracy present Murnau not just as the director of Nosferatu but as a visionary whose legacy continues to shape cinema.

For those intrigued by the intersection of history and film, this episode serves as an enlightening guide to understanding one of cinema's early legends.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. F.W. murnau was born December 28, 1888, or 136 years ago today. So our episode on him is today's Saturday classic.

[Unknown]

This is also spectacular timing because the new version of Nosferatu is freshly out, so I theoretically will have seen it by the time this is out, but have not seen it yet as we record. So I'm very excited. This episode on Murnau originally came out on October 21, 2019. Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Unknown]

Hey, Tracy. It's October. I know.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's kind of like the middle ish of October at this point.

[Unknown]

Yeah. So for anybody who's worried that we haven't had a ton of Halloween content, it's just kind of clumping all at the end, whereas in previous years it's kind of been like every other one throughout the month.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Right.

[Unknown]

Just because of some scheduling needs, it's ended up that our October stuff is all coming out, really in the back half of October. Hopefully that will be enough to tide people over. I know it's hard to wait those extra two weeks.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I know.

[Unknown]

As someone who celebrates Halloween virtually every day of the year, I understand the topic that we're covering today is something I have wanted to talk about for a really long time, and that is FW Murnau. I make no secret that I love Nosferatu as well as a lot of his other work. But Nosferatu has a very special place in my heart. See above re Halloween every day. But Murnau's life is so much more than that one film, and that film actually happened fairly early in his film career, so there's a lot that happened afterwards. And he was truly an innovator in cinema and a visual storyteller whose work is even today hotly debated for its merits and faults. But its influence is felt in so many films that you see today, where the filmmakers were influenced by Murnau. So you are still getting the benefit of his efforts, whether you know it or not.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Murnau was born Friedrich Wilhelm Plump in bielefeld, Germany, on December 28, 1889. His brother Robert later described him, who went by his middle name of Wilhelm, by saying, quote, from the very beginning, my brother overflowed with imagination. Their family was well off. Their father Heinrich Plumpe had inherited a profitable textile business, which he sold for a pretty tidy sum, and then bought a small sprawling estate. The family's children would put on plays in the garden. And that's where Wilhelm really fell in love with the idea of theater.

[Unknown]

Yeah, apparently one of his sisters, his mother was his father's second wife, and one of his older sisters was initially, like, directing all of them to do these plays, but he pretty quickly was like, no, I want to make this stuff. But their idyllic, privileged childhood was abruptly interrupted when Heinrich Plumpe sold the family property and sunk all of his money into what turned out to a bad investment. They weren't destitute at that point, but they did have a significant downgrade in their lifestyle. But Wilhelm's love of putting on productions continued unabated. And his brothers, who wanted to encourage his creativity, despite their father thinking that that was a waste of time, actually built a little theater for him to put on his shows, complete with lighting and moving scenery.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Wilhelm, who was a voracious reader, was at the top of his class in school. His father wanted him to go on to become a professor and to that end attended university in Berlin, where he started working as an actor under the name of Murnau. This new name was in the hopes of his father not discovering what he was doing. But Wilhelm was tall, about 6 foot 4, and very easy to recognize. Soon a family friend spotted him in a performance and mentioned it to his parents. Heinrich then cut his son off financially, but Murnau's grandfather on his mother's side started sending him a monthly allowance so he could stay in Berlin.

[Unknown]

Yeah, he was still going to school. He hadn't shirked that part of his responsibility. But he also apparently was living a rather lavish life, which had caused some problems when his father was called with these huge debts that he had amassed, kind of putting only the finest furnishings and art in his little apartment. But yeah, he thought he could just work as an actor on the side while he also went to school. But after Berlin, Wilhelm went on to school in Heidelberg, and there he studied literature, art history and philosophy. And it was also there in 1980, that he connected with Max Reinhardt. Austrian born, Reinhardt was a well known figure on the German theater scene. And he was impressed by Wilhelm when he saw him perform in a play that was put on by the university. He was so impressed, in fact, that he offered him a place in his theater school with a full scholarship if Murnau agreed to attend for a full six years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1911, Murnau assisted Reinhart in the production of a play called the Miracle, which was written by Carl Volmuller. He had been exploring directing, and he realized that he preferred that to acting also. This move to directing was motivated by a certain practicality. He knew that being as tall as he was would be a hindrance to being cast in leading roles. But his height really made no difference to working as a director.

[Unknown]

Yeah, he was so distinctive looking that he was like, no one is gonna wanna cast me from one show to another. Cause I will just look like the same dude no matter what I do. World War I, though, did put a damper on art for Murnau for a little while, who served in the German military. He was first called up as a foot guard, and then he was promoted and then became a company commander. And eventually he transferred to the air force. And while flying with the German Air force, he crashed eight times. But he walked away every time without any serious injuries. And after his last crash landing in Switzerland, he was arrested and interned at Andermatt, where he used his time as a prisoner of war to work on a film script and produce theater with his fellow internees.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

According to fellow officer Major Wolfgang Schramm, every evening Murnau would recite a poem called the Pianist of Death to the officers. And according to the same account, he also carried a stick with him which was made out of a propeller which was full of bullet holes. He was so influential that a lot of the men he served with also started carrying similar sticks. As sort of a strange wartime fashion trend that Murnau had created. While Murnau made it through the war seemingly unscathed, his best friend, Hans Ehrenbaum Digle, was killed at the front. And that was a loss that Murnau grieved really deeply.

[Unknown]

The loss of Hans was perhaps so difficult because he had been one of the few people that Murnau was actually close to. Even Murnau's family was often kept at arm's length, particularly during the time that he had changed his name and worked on his secret acting career. There's a story about one of his brothers going to the same place as him. But, like, telling his friends and other people in the family, like, oh, I can't. I'm not allowed to look at Will. Like, I can't acknowledge that I'm related to him. But losing his closest friend really seemed to catalyze a desire to connect more deeply to his siblings and his family, which he did in his early 30s.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After the war ended, Murnau didn't go back to the theater. Instead, he shifted his interest to film. He edited a few short films for the German Embassy. These were basically propaganda. In 1919, he founded his own film company with friends from his time at the Reinhardt School. Under his company Murnau Veit Wilmgavelschaft, he made the transition into directing long form film. He did this when he directed the Boy in Blue that was inspired by the 1770 painting the Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough. A copy of the painting appears in the film, but the face in the original was replaced with the face of the main charact in 1920.

[Unknown]

His story overlaps with a previous podcast subject, Bela Lugosi. Murnau directed Lugosi in an adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story that was originally published in 1886. Murnau's version, which was titled Janice Faced, was a critical success, although like a lot of his work, modern audiences have no access to it as it has been lost. Almost half of his films were lost over the years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Murnau's work in 1922 is what has truly endured though, and that's what's given the director his longevity as a person of interest among horror fans especially. It was then that he directed the cult classic Nosferatu. Even if you don't know the film, odds are that you have seen images from it. Count Orlok, who's the vampire at the center of the plot, is just an unmistakable figure. This is when I'm going to confess to Holly that I've never seen this film all the way through. But I immediately can call what Count Orlok looks like to mind like, and how he moves, like all of that.

[Unknown]

I wanna mime a big dramatic throwing of things across the room, but I'll forgive you. Yeah, you're missing out though.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I know, I know. There's just so much media to consume. Count Orlok is tall and thin, with large pointy ears, heavy eyebrows and long pointy front teeth. And he's one of cinema's oldest and most iconic villains and serves as sort of a shorthand for vampire now.

[Unknown]

And coming up, we'll talk about some of the rumors around the making of Nosferatu. But first we're gonna pause for a word from one of our sponsors.

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[Unknown]

There have been so many rumors and stories surrounding the making of the film Nosferatu since it was released, in part due to some of the promotional materials that were released ahead of the movie. To drum up interest, the magazine Buhne und Film put out an issue just before the film came out in 1922 that featured a story told by production designer Albin Grau in which Grau claims that during the war he met a Serbian man who claimed that his father had died without receiving the holy Sacraments and then wandered their village in vampire form. Grau, who was an occultist and also one of the people who initiated this project, claimed to have seen docum detailing the exhumation of the body, which showed no signs of decomposition. And then Grau's Serbian friend told him that after the body of his father was exhumed, a stake was driven through its heart and that the vampire died. So this theoretically was the inspiration for Nosferatu. According to Grau, it was all based on this true story that he had heard while during the war. And he claimed that Nosferatu was the Serbian word for vampire, Although the true etymology of that word is a lot hazier than that. There's no exact known origin point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Nosferatu continues to have its own mythos as the first vampire film. It's drawn a lot of interest in the century since that it was made, but it was almost lost, just like several of Murnau's other films. That's because the story is a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it was made without the rights to that story. Something that is a non issue now because it's so old, but was an issue at that time. Murnau's production company was unable to secure the rights to it, but they went ahead with the production anyway, changing a number of the elements. And Florence Balcombe Stoker, who was Bram Stoker's widow, sued over it.

[Unknown]

Yeah, they changed names of characters and the location, and it's a little bit different, but there's enough there that it's pretty clearly. If you had read Dracula, you'd be like, this sure looks a lot like Dracula.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, sort of like when you go to buy Halloween costumes and they are named something like Magical School Student. And you know, it's really Harry Potter.

[Unknown]

Right. A recent one that I saw was Midweek Angry Girl, and it's supposed to be Wednesday, Adam, which to me was very funny. By the time that the case that Florence Balcombe Stoker brought went to court, the film company was already bankrupt. So much money had been spent on publicity for Nosferatu and on staging a massive gala opening at the Berlin Zoo that there was literally nothing, nothing left for the widow Stoker to be awarded. Still, a German court did rule in her favor and issued a verdict that all copies of the film had to be destroyed. Of course, not to thwart the law, but thankfully, in my opinion, that did not happen. Prints of the film made their way to London, where Florence Balcombe Stoker was able to block its screening in 1925, and then to New York, where it was viewed by audiences in 1929. And as with a lot of Murnau's work, there are multiple different versions of the film. And over the years, film fans and historians have worked very hard, in some cases referring to the original shooting script, to untangle which of those versions is actually closest to Murnau's original.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As an aside, the film Shadow of the Vampire, which, unlike Nosferatu I have seen, stars Willem Dafoe as actor Max Schreck, who brought Count Orlok to life. It's a really fun movie and it plays on the long running rumor that Shrek actually did practice vampirism during the filming of Nosferatu. But. But to be clear, that is fiction. Murnau is portrayed by John Malkovich in a manner that suggests that the director was just a driven auteur who only cared about capturing what he saw as his vision without being concerned about anything or anybody else. That is totally opposite of just about every account of Murnau as a director.

[Unknown]

Yeah, we're gonna read something later that was said at his funeral that we'll kind of very clearly point out how differently he really was portrayed in that film from what he was like in real life. And while Nosferatu is probably the film he's most famous for today, at least in sort of general audience circles, I think if you get into cinephile circles, others come up pretty quickly. But Murnau went on, as we said at the beginning, to direct plenty of other films, and it was really those films that put him on the map as a director of note with his contemporaries in Germany.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1924, Der let's de Man was released and it was a breakthrough moment in narrative cinema. While the title translates directly to the Last man, in its English language release, it was titled the Last Laugh. It tells the story of the doorman at a fancy hotel who, as he ages, is forced into the lesser role of bathroom attendant. This transition is significant and difficult for the main character because his identity is totally tied up in his work as a doorman. And this emotional fall mirrors the in his status as a staff member in the hotel.

[Unknown]

There is almost no dialogue in the Last Laugh. There's no audible dialogue at all. This was still in the silent film era, so the Jazz Singer would not debut for another three years. But there is also only a single title card in all of Murnau's 1924 film, which runs 77 minutes. The entire story is told through pantomime and the use of shadow light and another artist's creative skill.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Last Laugh gained Murnau a lot of attention, in part because of the work of cinematographer Karl Freund, in service to Murnau's vision. Unlike most of the films of the time that were shot on sound stages from an audience perspective, almost like you were viewing a play, the Last man traveled through the set to mimic walking the streets of the city. The main character's point of view is captured and shared with the audience. And that's something that Moviegoers of the 1920s weren't really accustomed to. Today, there are dollies and rigs that are specifically made to make the cameras agile. But Freund had to really improvise to find ways to get his shots and to meet Murnau's demands, because Murnau really felt like the film needed to be more dynamic.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Freund did everything from attaching cameras to bicycles to strapping a camera to his waist. And for one scene, he wore the camera on his waist, and he crossed the set wearing a pair of roller skates with the camera rolling to create the illusion of drunkenness for the audience. And for the film's opening shot, he was on a bicycle as it traveled on an improvised elevator going down. And then essentially, he pedaled out into a hotel lobby set. So it drew the audience into the motion and the tone and the world of the character in the film instantly.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I think living in the era of GoPro footage, it's easy to forget that, like, people had to work out how to make cameras move this way.

[Unknown]

Yeah. There's a really great story that one of his colleagues tells about how when Murnau is first, like, we need to follow this smoke up this set. And they're like, okay, wait, we gotta walk up the stairs. And how he realized later that they had already assumed that they could figure out how to carry the camera. They were just like, but how will we get up the stairs? Like, they had no problem getting over that idea of taking it off the tripod. But the next part was just the logistics were so big that they didn't even think about, like, just having to.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hold the camera after the last laugh. Murnau was known as the great impressionist in German film circles. He took that reputation and used it to turn out a very sumptuous and extravagant film. Next. That was an adaptation of Moliere's Tartuffe, which debuted in 1925. His next film was another literary adaptation. That one was Faust, which debuted in 1926.

[Unknown]

Throughout the mid-1920s, Murnau had become quite a big name in German cinema. And it was not long before Hollywood took notice. After the release of Faust, Fox Film Corporation offered the director a contract to move to California and start making films in the United States. One of Murnau's requests was that he be allowed to take his crew with him. And that was something that Fox agreed to.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Murnau's first project under his contract was a 1927 picture called A Song of Two Humans. It opens with title cards that read, quote, this song of the man and his wife is of no place and every place you might hear it anywhere at any time. For whenever the sun rises and sets in the city's turmoil or under the open sky on the farm, life is much the same. Sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.

[Unknown]

The film, which is considered a masterpiece by a lot of people, tells the story of a married man who has an affair. And his lover suggests that he kill his wife so that he can leave behind his old life and start a new life in the city with her. And the man that is all he is named as is played by George O'Brien. And he's unable to follow through on this plan and instead he reconciles with his wife. There are a lot of shots in this film that are considered like the first of their kind. There's one where the two of them are on a trolley car kind of passing from a more rural suburban setting into a city setting that's considered super important. The wife in this movie was played by Janet Gaynor.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Sunrise was, and still is a critical success. It went on to win an award at the first Academy Awards that was held in 1929, and it was in the now defunct category of unique and artistic picture. Janet Gaynor also won Best Actress that year. She was nominated in three different roles, including her work on Sunrise, 7th Heaven and Street Angel. Sunrise won for cinematography and was also nominated for art direction.

[Unknown]

And that all sounds like Sunrise was a big, big hit, but not so much with audiences. Critics loved it, but Sunrise just did not draw viewers and the ticket sales on it were really disappointing. Despite all of the accolades that the film garnered, Fox decided that Murnau was going to have less freedom on future projects.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Four Devils came out in 1928. It told the story of four orphans who were raised by a clown and became a high wire circus act. This is one of Murnau's films which has not survived.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that's sometimes when you talk to film people. It's definitely mentioned as sort of a Holy Grail film. Like everybody hopes that one day we will find this film, because it does, when you read treatments of it and script pieces sound very, very interesting. Our Daily bread premiered in 1929. This film also came out under a different title, which was City Girl. And Murnau, still being pretty highly supervised by the studio, did not have complete control over this project. And additional scenes were added at the last minute by the studio so that there could be some audio dialogue in the film to take advantage of the audience's interest in talkies. If you see it today, you're probably gonna see an all silent version, because most versions we would see today are re edited back to what people believe was Murnau's initial vision.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Naturally, that kind of tampering with his work was not something that Murnau was happy about at all. In an effort to regain his artistic freedom, he formed a partnership with Robert Flaherty. The two combined their efforts to start their own production company, but this was kind of an odd pairing. Murnau was known for his fictional work and that was where his heart really was as a filmmaker. But Flaherty, on the other hand, was a documentarian, so working on films together put them at odds.

[Unknown]

And we're going to talk about the project that Murnau and Flaherty took on as their first collaboration in just a moment. But first we're going to hear from one of the sponsors that keeps Stuff youf Missed in History class going.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Unknown]

Murnau and Flaherty's first and only project together was a film called Taboo that's spelled T A, B U. It was shot on location in the South Pacific, primarily on Bora Bora and Tahiti. But whereas Flaherty thought that they were making a documentary about Polynesian culture, Murnau saw the documentary aspects of the production as a backdrop for a fictional story that he wanted to tell. The collaboration aspect of this film quickly ended. Flaherty left the project pretty early on, although his name does appear in the credits as a co director. How much either of them influenced this film is another thing that people sometimes like to debate. Murnau continued as he desired, crafting a love story set in the tropics. He cast local islanders in the two lead roles of lovers whose desire to be together is at odds with their cultural rules.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Murnau fell so in love with Tahiti that he built himself a home there. His mother later wrote that he had always been fascinated with the South Seas and that going there to make Taboo was the culmination of a lifelong dream. He planned to make more movies there after Taboo was released, and in the.

[Unknown]

Time that was leading up to the release of Taboo, Murnau, who had traveled back to California, had planned to visit his mother. And before he left for Germany, he planned to have a creative meeting with author William Morris about some potential projects together. On the morning of March 11, 1931, Murnau stopped by the home of his friend, actress and screenwriter Salka Virtel, to pick up some sandwiches for the car ride up to Carmel del Monte, where his meeting was going to take place. Murnau was riding in a hired car, which he planned to take with him by ship to Germany. And he was traveling with a chauffeur for the California drive named John Freeland, as well as a much younger man, Garcia Stevenson, who the director had hired to be his valet and driver in Germany.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There are different accounts of what happened next, but a little less than 20 miles outside of Santa Barbara, the car Murnau and the other two men were traveling in skidded off the road and down an embankment. According to the news story that ran in the New York Times, the car rolled twice on its 30 foot drop and then it landed on its roof. Murnau fractured his skull in the accident and died the next day in a Bit of an unsettling coincidence. Murnau had told friends that he had consulted a fortune teller before starting his journey. And this fortune teller told him that he would die in a car on this trip. He had thought about taking a ship from California all the way to Europe. Instead of driving to New York to cross the Atlantic. And he thought that would thwart that prediction.

[Unknown]

Yeah, he thought booking this longer cruise was his way around what the fortune teller had told him. So it was one of those sort of creepy coincidences. That the fact that he died on the much shortened drive portion of his trip. Just adds to the mystique of the whole thing. But this is also an issue that involves a lot of rumors. Because rumors began to swirl immediately as to what exactly had happened to cause this accident. And there are multiple different accounts. Some by his friend Salka Vertel, one by a man who was in a car behind him. There is also testimony given by Freeman. Because Murnau's mother tried to sue the company that he had rented the car from. And in one account, Murnau himself was driving. In others, it was Murnau's valet, Garcia Stevenson, who was underage. He was a teenager who was at the wheel. Stories began to circulate in Hollywood that Murnau and Stevenson had been engaged in a sexual act in the front seat. While the chauffeur, Freeman, slept in the back. When the accident had happened. Because all of the men had been thrown from the car. As it had tumbled to its final landing position, nothing was clear, and gossip ran rampant. This is still a thing that is talked about in large question marks. Nobody really knows what caused this accident.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Were the other two men also killed in it?

[Unknown]

They were not.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Okay.

[Unknown]

Freeman and Garcia both survived. As I said, Freeman gave an account during the investigation. Garcia. I didn't see anything that listed a clear account from him. So I'm not entirely sure what happened there.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Even the accounts of where Murnau was headed to meet the boat that would take him down to the Panama Canal and then across the Atlantic were at odds with each other. One version stated he was headed to San Francisco. Another claimed he was going to San Diego after the visit with Morris. All these rumors gave Murnau's sudden death a very seedy and unpleasant association. Only 11 people attended the funeral that was held for him in Los Angele.

[Unknown]

Yeah, with some of his collaborators, a couple of actors he had worked with, and a couple of his very close friends. After Murnau's body was transported to Germany, which took considerable effort and Paperwork. There was another service held there, and filmmaker Fritz Lang gave a eulogy which was described by art director Robert Hurlth. This was also interesting because Fritz Lang was considered something of a competitor to Murnau. But according to Hurlth quote he Fritz described Murnau striding into the studio, always good tempered, smiling, affably able by his mere presence to kindle enthusiasm. He seemed like some great aristocrat, interesting himself in the cinema, partly out of curiosity and partly by way of amusement, which was in fact what a lot of people believed. In reality, he was a tireless and thorough worker. Behind his gaiety was an indefatigable energy that was nonetheless there because he liked to hide it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Taboo was released on schedule just a week after Murnau's death. It wasn't a box office success. Murnau was finally buried in Stansdorf cemetery outside of Berlin. Even the burial became a source of gossip as stories started to circulate that the director's coffin was unburied in a cellar because there wasn't any money to have it interred. A German film periodical published a counter to that rumor, stating that the delay in putting Murnau's coffin in the ground was because of the chapel not being completed.

[Unknown]

After Murnau's sudden death, his family came to know a whole new side of the director. His brother Robert traveled to Tahiti to deal with Murnau's property and his business there. And in Robert's account, he said that when he arrived at the port, the locals essentially ignored him, which was a stark contrast to the warm greeting that all of the other disembarking travelers had received. Allegedly. The home that Murnau had built there was on the sacred soil of ancient temples, something that he had been warned would bring him misfortune. And in his brother Robert's explanation, the locals believed that Murnau had brought his death upon himself and viewed anyone associated with him as carrying the curse as well. Eventually, Robert said that he was able to win over the people of Tahiti and that they confided in him that they had really loved his brother. Whether that is true or not, we do not know. Robert definitely made an effort to present sort of a whitewashed version of Murnau. After his death, for example, there had been a lot of rumors and a lot of discussion that he had been a homosexual. There's some theories that that's why he was so eager to take the job in Hollywood. It was gonna be a less restrictive culture than it was in Germany. At the time Robert vehemently denied that anything of the type could happen. This is sort of the trick with Murnau, is that there are a lot of people involved with a stake in his story that want to tell it very different ways and paint him very differently.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Like, you'll see him on a lot of lists of, like, early gay film pioneers and that type of stuff, like those types of more celebratory lists. But then there's other. Like, this whole story of potentially building a house on a sacred site, like, that has its own connotations.

[Unknown]

Yes, for sure. And it is. It's one of those tricky things. We talk about it on the show a lot. When someone is not maybe publicly out as homosexual. On the one hand, they are entitled to their own privacy, even after death. On the other, I understand the desire for representation and for people to be able to see that this has always been part of our history. And in Murnau's case, like I said, it's tricky because different people involved in his life tell his story very, very differently.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So there is certainly some degree of evidence to suggest that he was, in fact, homosexual. But in the very protected enclave of Hollywood. So. And also a place where there were lots of rumors.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I feel like we've talked about other figures whose relationships are a lot more clear. And even, like, even if they were living in a time before that was such a clearly established identity in the way that it is today, we had more documentation of their relationships and what their life was like than this particular aspect of his life.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1966, the F.W. murnau foundation was established to preserve Germany's film history. But this foundation maintains and evaluates and manages German films, quote, for the promotion of German film culture and film art.

[Unknown]

Yeah. They also do a lot of work to contextualize, for example, films that were made during the Third Reich and just kind of trace how film has developed in Germany over the years. And in a final chapter that makes Murnau the perfect subject for one of our October episodes, he became a headline again in 2015, as Murnau's work, and particularly Nosferatu, had gained a cult following in the second half of the 20th century, his tomb began to be not just visited, but broken into.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Then, In July of 2015, the coffin was found, opened, and Murnau's skull was gone. Who stole it remains a mystery. There was candle wax left at the scene, which led authorities to speculate that it might have been, quote, some sort of occult practice. I can think of various non occult reasons for there to have been candle wax there. But regardless, the skull remains at large.

[Unknown]

Yeah, we don't know where it is. And his tomb, the cemetery that he was buried in is in a forest outside of Berlin. He is buried between two family members, his brother and his father. And it's one of those places where a lot of notable people in German history have been buried in. And it's considered really a huge cultural loss that his tomb and his burial place was desecrated in this way. We have no idea where that skull is. Maybe someday someone will come forward with it or a family member will pass and they will discover that they were hiding it all along. We don't know. Yeah, maybe it will be found with his films. We can only hope. That's clearly jesting on my part.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is history podcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Here's to the season. From hanging ornaments in matching pajamas to building gingerbread houses with extra icing and staying up late to wrap gifts and watch movies, these traditions make the holidays truly special. And through it all, the Chinette brand is there to share in the joy. With the Chinette Crystal Collection, holiday tables are perfectly coordinated, allowing for excellence with less cleanup so everyone can focus on what really matters. Here's to the traditions that bring everyone together year after year. Here's to us, us, all of us. Find a local [e-mail] youm wake up.

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