Nosferatu

March 4, 1922 - the premiere of Nosferatu - the very first vampire movie.  Tonight for it's 100 anniversary, the Movies! channel aired it.  I have seen short clips but never watched the whole movie through.  Problem is it didn't start until 9:30 p.m. but I made some popcorn and settled in w/ the cats to watch.  This film is not only shot in black and white but is also silent.  A piano playing single notes was the only accompaniment.   It did have intertitles dispersed throughout - usually dialog shown written on the screen.  The film was made in Germany for Germans ('Nosferatu' is German for vampire)  but the version shown tonight had  those intertitles in English.   In the 'all German' version of the movie, the names of the characters were changed from Bram Stoker's original novel in an attempt to sidestep paying royalties.  That didn't work so well and a German court ordered the film be destroyed.  However by the time the dispute was settled in the courts there were so many copies that some survived.  This English one didn't bother with the ruse of new names but reverted back to the same names in Stoker's book.   These old black and white movies may not have the special effects nor surprises jumping out from stage left (or right) but, to me, they are scarier than the new stuff.