Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box (Die Buchse Der Pandora) (1929)

Runtime: 133 minutes

Directed by: G.W. Pabst

Starring: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Francis Lederer, Carl Goetz, Krafft-Raschig

From: Nero-Film AG

Even in 1929, legendary silent motion pictures were made: 

Yep, I get why people would fall under the spell of Louise Brooks.

This was the movie that played late Sunday night at midnight on TCM, which is the time where the channel always plays a silent movie each week. As this is highly regarded yet unseen by me to this point, I might as well see what the hub-bub is about... bub.

The lead in this German melodrama is Lulu (Brooks), an amoral lady who openly flirts-and more-with multiple men. She is a seductive young woman who is more than happy to let her raw sexuality run wild, which is how she has all those suitors... including a woman. The movie definitely punishes her for her ways, including a stunner of an ending that threw me for a loop; beforehand I never could have predicted such a twist, and a hell of a punishment for a lady who often engaged in moral turpitude.

Director G.W. Pabst wanted Brooks BAD for this film; he had to screentest some German actresses for this otherwise all German production (including a then-unfamous Marlene Dietrich) but Pabst stuck to his guns, and we should be all glad he did. She was magnificent in this role, and not just the vivacious temptress who without hardly even trying enchanted both men and women. When the melodrama starts and she is put in some rough spots and made to suffer, Louise's performance does not suffer. Naturally, with Pabst as director this is very well put together and you get to see plenty of the classic German Expressionistic style.

In short, this is a classic film that takes you on quite the journey and is far more bold than you probably expect for a motion picture of this vintage.