Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1929)

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writers:

Margarete Böhme (novel)
Rudolf Leonhardt (writer)

Release Date:

24 April 1930 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Thymiane is a beautiful young girl who is not having a storybook life. Her governess, Elizabeth, is thrown out of her home when she is pregnant...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Brothel | Countess | Sexual Repression | Dark Secret

Cast

Louise Brooks	...	Thymian
André Roanne	...	Count Nicolas Osdorff
Josef Rovenský	...	Robert Henning
Fritz Rasp	...	Meinert
Vera Pawlowa	...	Aunt Frieda
Franziska Kinz	...	Meta
Arnold Korff	...	Elder Count Osdorff
Andrews Engelmann	...	The director of the establishment
Valeska Gert	...	The director's wife
Edith Meinhard	...	Erika
Sybille Schmitz	...	Elisabeth
Sig Arno	...	Guest (as Siegfried Arno)
Kurt Gerron	...	Dr. Vitalis
Hedwig Schlichter
Hans Casparius

Also Known As:

Diary of a Lost Girl (USA)

Runtime:

104 min | Germany:100 min (restored version) (24 fps) | USA:79 min | 115 min (Kino Print)

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Pabst-Film

Goofs:

Continuity: The scene in the notary's office (for the reading of the will): Thymian moves over to the window and looks out. Meinert joins her, and puts his hand on her shoulder. The camera view suddenly changes, and his hand is no longer on her shoulder. It changes back to its original POV, and the position has changed again (though his hand is now drawing away from her shoulder).

Movie Connections:

Remake of Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1918)

Excellent Drama – Earthy, Yet Ultimately Uplifting – With A Fine Performance By Louise Brooks

This excellent drama accomplishes the difficult task of being quite earthy, and often grim, in the ways that it depicts its characters and their lives, yet at the same time being an ultimately uplifting story about the possibilities of human understanding. It also features a fine performance by Louise Brooks. Her performance in "Diary of a Lost Girl" is on a par with that in "Pandora's Box", her other celebrated collaboration with G.W. Pabst.

The story has Brooks as a pharmacist's daughter whose young life is drastically changed by events that she can only dimly understand. From then on, she must endure a variety of trials while gradually learning some important lessons, often with only the barest help from those around her. The role contrasts nicely with her role in "Pandora's Box". Both in that film and in "Diary of a Lost Girl", she has the same level of energy and appeal, but in the former movie, right from the beginning she was very much the catalyst for the other characters' actions, while here she begins as an innocent youth who is completely at the mercy of all of the others, and then grows as the movie proceeds.

The settings are well-chosen so as both to contrast with her character, and to develop it. Her experiences show many aspects of the seamier side of both human nature and human living, and yet this is by no means a mere gratuitous display of sordidness, but rather a growing experience for Brooks's character. It culminates in an uplifting finale that is all the more effective for having arisen from material that is by no means idealistic.

The expressionistic style in the photography, lighting, and sets enhances the atmosphere and also the effectiveness of the story and the characters. The slightly stylized nature of both works quite well, and all of this contributes significantly to the high quality of the movie.