Director: G.W. Pabst
Writers: Frank Wedekind, Ladislaus Vajda, Joseph Fleisler, G.W. Pabst
Photography: Gunther Krampf
Music: An orchestra
Editor: Joseph Fleisler
Cast: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Francis Lederer, Gustav Diessl, Carl Goetz, Krafft-Raschig, Daisy D’Ora, Alice Roberts
Pandora’s Box is one more movie classic that comes in many bewildering versions: just at a gross level based on running times, for example, Halliwell’s has it at 97 minutes, IMDb puts it at 109 minutes, and the one on the Criterion Channel goes 133 minutes. Then the soundtrack—for a picture of the silent era in the silent style, with intertitles—offers its own set of problems. Well, soundtracks for silent pictures always do, don’t they? Descriptions of the Criterion DVD, now out of print and going for circa $210 each, claim four separate soundtracks. But there is only one online, an orchestral version. I thought I recognized some of the themes as well-known, but that might have been only because they recurred regularly and became familiar across a long movie.
Though it failed in its time, the chief attractions of Pandora’s Box now are the star, Louise Brooks, a certain “it” girl of that era, and the director, G.W. Pabst, whose name I remember from film classes in college. Otherwise I don’t know his work well. The story is about a young woman, Lulu (Brooks), a flapper type of the 1920s with a bobbed haircut and super-sexualized air. She may have loose morals—she may even be a prostitute—but she exudes sex so much that women as well as men are attracted to her, struck dumb in her presence. Lulu has affairs with men in high positions and lives a carefree life but gets caught up in murder plots and intrigue. One thing follows another in tacked-on fashion, based on a pair of stage plays, as the picture builds a big head of steam for the second half.
Pandora’s Box is one more movie classic that comes in many bewildering versions: just at a gross level based on running times, for example, Halliwell’s has it at 97 minutes, IMDb puts it at 109 minutes, and the one on the Criterion Channel goes 133 minutes. Then the soundtrack—for a picture of the silent era in the silent style, with intertitles—offers its own set of problems. Well, soundtracks for silent pictures always do, don’t they? Descriptions of the Criterion DVD, now out of print and going for circa $210 each, claim four separate soundtracks. But there is only one online, an orchestral version. I thought I recognized some of the themes as well-known, but that might have been only because they recurred regularly and became familiar across a long movie.
Though it failed in its time, the chief attractions of Pandora’s Box now are the star, Louise Brooks, a certain “it” girl of that era, and the director, G.W. Pabst, whose name I remember from film classes in college. Otherwise I don’t know his work well. The story is about a young woman, Lulu (Brooks), a flapper type of the 1920s with a bobbed haircut and super-sexualized air. She may have loose morals—she may even be a prostitute—but she exudes sex so much that women as well as men are attracted to her, struck dumb in her presence. Lulu has affairs with men in high positions and lives a carefree life but gets caught up in murder plots and intrigue. One thing follows another in tacked-on fashion, based on a pair of stage plays, as the picture builds a big head of steam for the second half.
I liked Pandora’s Box more when I looked at it a second time recently. It is episodic, sprawling across some generic European city—Berlin, perhaps, or Vienna—and into a cross-country train trip, a gambling ship offshore, and finally to London, where Lulu is hunted and then murdered by none other than Jack the Ripper. Yes, that Jack the Ripper, although pretty much everything about him is wrong. They have him working in the Christmas season, for one thing, which I admit adds a nice element to the movie.
As one might surmise, Lulu is not a particularly virtuous woman, but I wouldn’t call her corrupted either. Brooks is originally from Kansas and there is always a hint of that, one of the best things about her. Times being what they were even in Europe in 1929, her sizzling sexuality is a delicate subject around which the picture dances. Even so, the movie is generally more frank than many of its contemporaries, with a distinctly modern feel. Critics at the time howled that it was all too much and approximately here is where the movie started to be chopped up into different versions. One that played in France, Britain, and the US cut out the Jack the Ripper stuff altogether and the picture ends with Lulu joining the Salvation Army.
For me, the 133-minute Pandora’s Box I looked at starts slow and then picks up momentum with the train and ship, where it is wild scenes of bacchanalia and personal ruin. Lulu and one of her paramours finally escape the ship and make their way to London. By the time we’re off the train and aboard the ship I was caught up by it and my notes became more excited, proclaiming it “epic!” And perhaps it is, or perhaps I was just caught up in the audacious excitement of bringing in Jack the Ripper. And in turn that might have been only because I recently saw a straightforward documentary about the serial killer that was factual and good.
The Kansas roots of Louise Brooks was another beef European critics apparently had with Pandora’s Box. I didn’t see much in her to impress me beyond an extraordinary fashionable presence, but that has its indelible qualities and I guess I can also see how it could catapult her to the levels of cult adoration she enjoys now in posterity. Clara Bow, the original “it” girl, had some of this appeal, and Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo (who also worked with Pabst) had even oodles more of it.
I liked the complexities and depths of Pandora’s Box enough that I thought it might be fun to get the DVD and try all four soundtracks. The present starting price of over $200 is too much for me, however. I’m not that interested. As for Pabst, Pandora’s Box is his only picture in all of the 1,000 movies in the big list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? But it’s not among the four “Known For” tiles showing at IMDb, which are: The 3 Penny Opera (1931), The Comedians (1941), Der Prozess (1948), and Young Girls in Trouble (1939). Haven’t seen a one of them, or even heard of any besides The 3 Penny Opera. Might be worth tracking them down. Meanwhile, if you have the Criterion Channel, Pandora’s Box is surely worth a look.
As one might surmise, Lulu is not a particularly virtuous woman, but I wouldn’t call her corrupted either. Brooks is originally from Kansas and there is always a hint of that, one of the best things about her. Times being what they were even in Europe in 1929, her sizzling sexuality is a delicate subject around which the picture dances. Even so, the movie is generally more frank than many of its contemporaries, with a distinctly modern feel. Critics at the time howled that it was all too much and approximately here is where the movie started to be chopped up into different versions. One that played in France, Britain, and the US cut out the Jack the Ripper stuff altogether and the picture ends with Lulu joining the Salvation Army.
For me, the 133-minute Pandora’s Box I looked at starts slow and then picks up momentum with the train and ship, where it is wild scenes of bacchanalia and personal ruin. Lulu and one of her paramours finally escape the ship and make their way to London. By the time we’re off the train and aboard the ship I was caught up by it and my notes became more excited, proclaiming it “epic!” And perhaps it is, or perhaps I was just caught up in the audacious excitement of bringing in Jack the Ripper. And in turn that might have been only because I recently saw a straightforward documentary about the serial killer that was factual and good.
The Kansas roots of Louise Brooks was another beef European critics apparently had with Pandora’s Box. I didn’t see much in her to impress me beyond an extraordinary fashionable presence, but that has its indelible qualities and I guess I can also see how it could catapult her to the levels of cult adoration she enjoys now in posterity. Clara Bow, the original “it” girl, had some of this appeal, and Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo (who also worked with Pabst) had even oodles more of it.
I liked the complexities and depths of Pandora’s Box enough that I thought it might be fun to get the DVD and try all four soundtracks. The present starting price of over $200 is too much for me, however. I’m not that interested. As for Pabst, Pandora’s Box is his only picture in all of the 1,000 movies in the big list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? But it’s not among the four “Known For” tiles showing at IMDb, which are: The 3 Penny Opera (1931), The Comedians (1941), Der Prozess (1948), and Young Girls in Trouble (1939). Haven’t seen a one of them, or even heard of any besides The 3 Penny Opera. Might be worth tracking them down. Meanwhile, if you have the Criterion Channel, Pandora’s Box is surely worth a look.
So in the end the Flapper, the new independent woman, is snuffed out by Jack the Ripper? The penalty for women's independence and right to vote! That smile on Brooks in your still is sly, flirty, inviting, maybe a little wicked. This is maybe an antecedent to Looking for Mr. Goodbar? Anyway, keeping with the theme, female protagonists, I'm still stumping for Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders from 1722. Arguably the first feminist novel in the English language. Moll had lots of wit, sex appeal, pluck, and wickedness too.
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