Frank Wedekind’s stage dramas inspired which 1929 film titled Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind’s stage dramas inspired the 1929 film Pandora’s Box. Directed by G. W. Pabst, the film adapts material chiefly from Wedekind’s Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.

Both plays focus on Lulu, a sexually independent and socially disruptive figure whose relationships bring conflict and ruin. Pabst’s film does not reproduce the plays word for word; it reshapes their characters and situations for silent cinema and gives Louise Brooks the leading role.

The film’s title can cause confusion because Pandora’s Box is also the title of Wedekind’s second Lulu play, the 1951 film directed by Albert Lewin, and many unrelated modern works. The 1929 production is especially associated with Brooks’s performance, Pabst’s direction, and its place in the history of German silent film.