SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Before Bela Lugosi was Count Dracula, the German director F. W. Murnau created his own bloodsucking fiend - a kind of tribute band Dracula that he called Count Orlok - in his 1922 silent film "Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror." Well, it was a lot less expensive than paying for the rights to film Bram Stoker's "Dracula." Murnau gave his hemoglobin-gobbling villain a bald, skeletal skull, long fingernails like eagles' talons. F. W. Murnau eventually moved to Hollywood. He made some films, but died in a car accident in 1931. He was buried back in German, and over the years, his tomb has become a kind of tourist spot for Satanists. This week, F. W. Murnau's skull was taken from his iron-clad coffin in the Stahnsdorf Cemetery near Berlin. Police are looking for witnesses. They may have to wait until after sunset.
The skull of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who directed the vampire movie Nosferatu, has disappeared from his grave in Germany.