BOOTLEG FILES 794: “Der Januskopf” (1920 unauthorized version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” directed by F.W. Murnau).

LAST SEEN: When it was theatrically released.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Murnau did not clear the rights to the Robert Louis Stevenson source material.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Excellent, provided that someone finds a print of the film.

In the early 1920s, the great German director F.W. Murnau made back-to-back horror films based on popular books from his era: “Der Januskopf,” based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and “Nosferatu,” based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” There was just one problem: Murnau never bothered to secure the rights to these books and tried to get circumvent copyright laws by making slight adjustments to their respective stories and changing the names of the characters.
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