Frank Wedekind’s plays provided the main literary source for Lulu’s story in the 1929 film Pandora’s Box.
Wedekind created Lulu as the central figure of two connected dramas, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. The plays present her relationships with men and the social judgments surrounding her, combining melodrama with criticism of bourgeois morality.
G. W. Pabst’s film uses both plays as source material. It does not reproduce the ancient story of Pandora, but the title signals a similar idea: an alluring figure becomes associated with consequences that spread beyond anyone’s control.
Wedekind’s Lulu cycle influenced later adaptations and interpretations, including Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. The 1929 film is particularly famous because Louise Brooks’s performance gave the character a distinctive cinematic identity, separate from the stage versions that came before it.