The journey taken by Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Pandora's Box to reach its status as a classic of Weimar German cinema is an interesting one. It received mild praise upon its release, but was shrouded in controversy due to its frank depiction of sexuality, even featuring one of cinema's first portrayals of a gay woman. The film was soon forgotten about, until it was re-discovered by a group of socialites and film enthusiasts in the 1950s - some close friends with star Louise Brooks - who heralded the film a masterpiece and set out to spread the word. Soon enough, Pabst's work was undergoing a revival, but this was overshadowed by the attention Brooks received. She was being talked about as an even more striking screen presence than the likes of Garbo and Dietrich, much to her amusement.The truth is, Pandora's Box would perhaps only be an okay movie without Brooks in the title role. A known party girl, she started as a flapper dancer and bit-part actress before she was signed to Paramount by producer Walter Wanger, catching the eye of Charlie Chaplin in the process. As the film roles came in, she developed a hatred for the Hollywood scene, and fled to Europe after being denied a pay rise. She was unofficially blacklisted in her homeland, but it would be in Germany that she would make the two movies that would cement her as a goddess of the silent era, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, both directed by the Austrian pioneer of the psycho-sexual melodrama, Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Both told a story of a care-free, and careless, woman brought down by a society that had different plans for her, and Brooks was the perfect face to channel such a dangerous force of nature.Here she plays Lulu, a young dancer and aspiring performer engaging in an affair with the soon-to-be-married newspaper publisher Dr. Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner). On the night of her performance as a trapeze artist, Lulu refuses to go on stage while Schon's fiancée is in the crowd, and kicks up such a fuss that he ends up marrying her instead. Events eventually force her to go on the run with Schon's son (Francis Lederer), and she finds herself in the hands of increasingly unscrupulous men as her naivety and promiscuity invite trouble. At over 2 hours, it's too long, but the film always holds your interest because of Brooks. Her performance is incredibly modern and playful, and there's something almost dangerous about her. Like a beautiful woman who is obviously nothing but trouble, you cannot help but be drawn in by Brooks' seduction. Pabst tastefully weaves a story of drama, tragedy and sexuality with an intense eroticism, but it is the star, with her perfectly symmetrical face and iconic bob hairstyle, who leaves the great impression.

'Pandora's Box' is what 'It' might have looked had it been written by Erich von Stroheim and directed by FW Murnau. Instead of a romantic comedy, we get a softly lit noir where the sexy flirtatious girl is caught up in a web of crime and devious desires. The Greek myth of Pandora claims her to be a beautiful charming girl who brings evil to all around her, and with Lulu representing Pandora, the film doesn't deviate from this script, although as one misadventure brings about another, we see her get a weighty dose of Karma, and become quite a memorable anti-hero. Just as Lulu's flaws are laid bare however, so are those of the male characters, who one after the other fall for her, and bring their own wickedness to the frame.Not being familiar with the story before watching, and not quite understanding the censorship in place in 1929, I wasn't sure if she was a prostitute or not (it is heavily hinted at, rather than shown explicitly). It made sense in the number of men she lead on, but not in the way they appeared to desire her love and marriage, while another who claimed to be her father acted more like a wannabe over. Even the newly married husband thought he was not father but lover, and wanted to kill because of it. Surely the groom wouldn't make that mistake! The uncertainty made the plot hard to swallow at times, and enticingly mysterious at others, so it was a double edged sword, but either way neither she nor any of the characters are particularly likable. At over two hours the film drags a bit, too much I think for anyone previously unfamiliar with silents, and with Lulu's unlikely escapes from the law, you need to take a few small leaps with the script. To the stories credit however, it is always told through action and dialogue, which is a great improvement on the many title-card reliant silents of the time.Aside from the strong cast performances, the most winning feature is the mood and atmosphere created by GW Pabst and co. The cinematography, particularly in the back half of the film, is stunning, and the shadowy darkness captures the evil lurking beneath, while the softness gives it all a kind of depressing romantic charm, as if to say, even in this sad place, there is beauty. The misty scenes at the end bring to mind Von Sternberg's compellingly shot unromantic romance 'Docks of New York'. The old saying is that you can't polish a turd - ie. you can't make a good film from a poor story- but these types of films provide a case that with strong photography, you can certainly make improvements.

This is a great movie, not only as an example of cinematic expressionism but as a story. The movie is well-acted, movies along at a brisk pace, has a well-organized story, and has a female lead who is pretty and endearing. She can't help being who she is, and if she gets into trouble it's really not her fault. Louise Brooks is beautiful as the lovely lady Lulu, who is everyone's friend. Of course men are going to love her because she is so lovable. And the rest of the cast is wonderful too. The movie touches on all kinds of themes that would ring true for a contemporary audience, including marital fidelity, jealousy, bisexuality, domestic violence, and class conflict, and does this all within the framework of a coherent story. Although this is a silent movie, it still manages to keep the audience's attention. This movie is proof that a compelling story can be told without sound, and that silent movies, as a genre, are worthy of respect.

Pandora's Box has become something of a legendary film amongst connoisseurs and its reputation stems largely from Louise Brooks' performance as the ubiquitous Lulu. It is for this reason that the film's mythological status is justified: Brooks gives the first modern performance on celluloid, moving from the melodramatic acting style of her silent film predecessors towards something much more naturalistic.As others have noted, the film itself is a simple melodrama, based on Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays. Although he wrote these during the Fin de Siecle period, it is tempting to read Pandora's Box as reflective of the increasing moral decay of the Weimar Republic. The film starts with a light tone and grows increasingly dark as Lulu's predicament worsens. (For many audience members, who would have lost vast sums in the stock market crash and subsequent Depression, Lulu's descent into poverty must have been harrowing viewing as well.) The cinematography is beautiful and, as other reviewers have noted, the final scenes are lit in a proto-noir style.The film's pacing is good, apart from the tedious seventh act, when a lot of momentum is lost. Fortunately, the pace picks up again in the gripping final act.Lulu's destructive effect on the men around her could be read as reflective of the new role of women in Weimar society. With the loss of so many males in the war, females suddenly had unprecedented power in the social and political spheres, far removed from the "Mothers of the Nation" role they had held in traditional German society. How much of this anxiety about the roles of women existed prior to the war, when the Lulu plays were first written remains a question of interest.The ending, in which the destroyer of men is herself annihilated by that ultimate destroyer of women, Jack the Ripper, is suitably ironic and dark. Again, it is tempting to read it as prescient, given the imminent destruction of the corrupt and decadent Weimar culture at the hands of the even more morally-repugnant Nazis but perhaps it is better left as a general feeling of unease that the fledgling German nation-state (which had been established less than sixty years previously) may be in worse health than the previous independent Germanic kingdoms.Ultimately, this melodrama is worth watching for a variety of reasons, chiefly Brooks' performance and the cinematography. It does depict the increasingly dark and sordid themes that preoccupied the final years of Weimar Cinema and society but, without having seen the original plays, one wonders how much this is Pabst's input and how much was a carryover from the original pre-War texts.