Pandora’s Box, the 1929 film, was adapted mainly from plays by which author?

The 1929 film Pandora’s Box was adapted mainly from plays by Frank Wedekind.

G. W. Pabst’s film draws primarily on Wedekind’s dramas Erdgeist, translated as Earth Spirit, and Die Büchse der Pandora, translated as Pandora’s Box. Both works center on Lulu, whose relationships and social impact create the story’s dramatic chain of consequences.

Wedekind wrote the Lulu plays in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are associated with German drama’s exploration of sexuality, social convention, power, and moral judgment. Pabst reshaped that material for silent cinema, using images and performance rather than spoken dialogue.

The ancient Pandora myth is therefore an important reference point but not the film’s direct plot source. The film title and Lulu’s destructive effect evoke the myth, while the characters and narrative structure come from Wedekind’s stage works.