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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Pandora’s Box (1929) 
Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s most notorious film is actually based on two plays by Franz Wedekind (Ergeist and Die Busche der Pandora) resulting in one of the silent era’s most successful and sexually charged melodramas — a film that made Kansas-born Louise Brooks a movie star. Brooks, with her famous bangs and smile that both reflects a childish playfulness and exudes a uninhibited sexuality, still impresses, as does the film’s remarkable visual style, falling somewhere in between Murnau-like expressionism and art deco. We first see the showgirl Lulu (Brooks) in the home of rich newspaper magnate Dr. Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner), a monocled, middle-aged man, who announces to his mistress Lulu that he must get married to the daughter of the Minister of the Interior to stop the possible career ruining gossip about himself and the fallen showgirl. For the time being, Lulu has other things on her mind. Her best friend and ally from her dark past, the elderly Schigloch (Carl Goetz) has arranged for Lulu to meet strongman/variety artiste Rodrigo Quast (Carl Rasching) for a possible part in his trapeze show. But when Schon hears of it, he asks his composer son Alwa (Francis Lederer) to put her in his new show, promising that his newspapers will provide good reviews. Schon arrives backstage at Alwa’s opening night to see Lulu — as does the bisexual artist Countess Anna Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), also lovestruck for Lulu. When Lulu sees that Schon has brought his fiancée, she throws a major tantrum and refuses to go on stage. Schon takes Lulu to her dressing room to calm her, and soon falls for her charms again. His fiancée arrives to find the two in a passionate embrace: Schon is humiliated. "This is my execution", he says. We next see the wedding reception of Lulu and Schon, with Lulu’s admirers — Schigloch, Rodrigo and Geschwitz — in tow, making Schon visibly nervous. Soon Schon realizes he is in the wedding reception from hell: Lulu pays more attention to Geschwitz, with whom she dances cheek to cheek, as well as the drunken Schigloch and Rodrigo, whom Schon finds in the bridal bedroom flirting with Lulu. To make matters worse, Alwa declares his undying love to Lulu. Driven to the brink, Schon takes a revolver, forces it into Lulu’s hand and demand she take her own life. Lulu turns the gun on Schon and kills him. Lulu is put on trial and given five years for manslaughter, but Geschwitz arranges for a fire alarm to go off in the courtroom, and Lulu escapes back to Schon’s apartment, where Alwa finds her. Lulu and her cohorts make their way to France where they hook up with the owner of a sleazy gambling ship in a harbor town where Alwa and Rodrigo rack up massive gambling debts. The owner also finds himself short enough on cash to offer Lulu for sale to an Egyptian brothel owner. Rodrigo threatens to reveal Lulu's whereabouts to the police if she won’t try to get money for him. Geschwitz gives all her money to Alwa for one last big score, but Schigloch has instructed Alwa how to cheat. Lulu and Schigloch arrange for Rodrigo to have a romantic liaison with Geschwitz to cool him off, but when Alwa is caught cheating, all hell breaks loose. Lulu, Alwa and Schigloch escape, but poor Geschwitz is caught with the corpse of Rodrigo, whom she has dispatched during their would-be romantic interlude. The scene finally changes to foggy London, where Lulu is working the damp streets as a prostitute, living in poverty conditions with Alwa and Schigloch. On a fateful Christmas Eve, however, Lulu decides to be charitable to a seemingly nice young man who cannot afford to pay for her services. Little does she know that the man is the most famous murderer of London’s history — Jack the Ripper. Pandora’s Box looks impressively modern for a silent film, and perhaps it is because of its expressionist/art deco style and for its content. Perhaps only Josef von Sternberg in some of his films with Marlene Dietrich from roughly the same era - Morocco, Shanghai Express, Dishonored — are comparable as sexually charged melodramas. Wedekind’s plays, by the way, were also the source for Alban Berg’s astonishing 1935 opera Lulu, itself a brilliant example of modernism, containing perhaps the most haunting music of the 20th century. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your film or video? Nick Burton lives in Newport Beach, California. His fiction has appeared in many small press and web publications, including: Chronicles Of Fiction, Pauper, and of course Pif.
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