Pandora's Box (1929)

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writers:

Frank Wedekind (plays), Ladislaus Vajda (scenario)

Stars:

Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Francis Lederer

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Louise Brooks	...	Lulu
Fritz Kortner	...	Dr. Ludwig Schön
Francis Lederer	...	Alwa Schön (as Franz Lederer)
Carl Goetz	...	Schigolch
Krafft-Raschig	...	Rodrigo Quast
Alice Roberts	...	Gräfin Geschwitz - Countess Anna Geschwitz
Daisy D'Ora	...	Charlotte Marie Adelaide v. Zarnikow - braut Dr. Schöns - Dr. Schön's Bride (as Daisy d'Ora)
Gustav Diessl	...	Jack the Ripper (as Gustav Diesel)
Michael von Newlinsky	...	Marquis Casti-Piani (as Michael v. Newlinsky)
Sig Arno	...	Der inspizient - the Stage Manager (as Siegfried Arno)

Storyline

Lulu is a beautiful young woman who can seemingly work her charms on all of the men around her. She is currently being kept by the rich editor Dr. Ludwig Schön. She is just a plaything however and he is engaged to be married to Charlotte, a woman of his own class. He arranges for Lulu to appear in his son Alwa's musical revue and he too falls for all of her charms. When Dr. Schön and his fiancée go to the theater, Lulu ensures that he is put in a compromising situation and the elder Schön feels he now must marry her, knowing full well it will ruin his reputation. On his wedding day, Dr. Schön reaches his breaking point. His actions cost him his life however and Lulu is convicted of manslaughter. She escapes with the help of her old cronies but together they begin a downward spiral.

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Plot Keywords:

femme fatale | german expressionism | expressionism | lust | murder trial | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

22 February 1930 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Pandora's Box

Filming Locations:

Nero-Film Studio, Berlin, Germany

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$9,950, 18 June 2006, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$9,950, 18 June 2006

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nero-Film AG

Technical Specs

Runtime:

133 min (restored) 152 min (Copy with French titles at Brussels Musée du Cinéma) 131 min (original) 110 min (video) 135 min (2018) (restored)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.

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Goofs

[All goofs for this title are spoilers.]

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Quotes

Dr. Ludwig Schön: The whole town is talking about us. I'm jeopardizing my position. Don't you see that we must put an end to this?
Lulu: You'll have to kill me to get rid of me.

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Alternate Versions

Georg Wilhelm Pabst commented with irony the changes imposed by foreign censors and distributors: "I do not know why someone thought useful to substitute Doctor Schoen's son, Alva Schoen, by an assistant, mark Heding; or why Frank Wedekind the play-writer who is not exactly unknown in France, was renamed Thoma Wedering. I do not know why Loulou is acquitted in the French version, while she is condemned in mine; or why the so important sequence of Jack the Ripper was cut, which gives the film a ridiculous moralistic end. It is not surprising that the nature of my characters have been completely changed... I would at least hope that one would have shown the film as I have created it, to professionals, so that they could evaluate it. They did not want to do it. So many efforts wasted for nothing. They wield the scissors... When will be rid of this plague?" (Source: Pour Vous, Paris magazine, May 2, 1929, quoted by Adonis Kyrou in "Amour-Erotisme & Cinéma", 1957.)

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Connections

Featured in Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

User Reviews

The best "Lulu"-performance ever!

For his movie "Die Büchse Der Pandora (Panodra's Box)", G.W. Pabst took together the tragedies "Der Erdgeist" and "Die Büchse Der Pandora", forming the famous Lulu-diptych written by German dramatist Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), an important ancestor of literary expressionism, who wrote amongst other works "Frühlings Erwachen" that caused many scandals.

What is congenial about this movie, is not only the fact, that Louise Brooks is doubtless the best Lulu ever seen (in theater as well as on the screen), but how G.W. Pabst managed to amalgamate this two literary masterpieces of the time of sexual liberation in Europe.

It is a real pity, that not more of Pabst work can be reached in the US and that most of his work is not available at all on DVD.