The common English title of the 1929 film based on Frank Wedekind’s Pandora play is Pandora’s Box.
The film is a German silent drama directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring Louise Brooks as Lulu. Its German title, Die Büchse der Pandora, literally corresponds to “Pandora’s Box.” The film draws primarily on Wedekind’s plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora rather than adapting the ancient Greek myth directly.
Wedekind’s Lulu is a modern dramatic character whose relationships unleash social and personal catastrophe. The Pandora reference gives the story a mythic frame, suggesting that once destructive forces are released, they cannot easily be contained. This symbolic connection explains the title even though the film’s plot, setting, and characters belong to modern European drama.
The film’s title is sometimes confused with the title of Wedekind’s play or with general retellings of the Greek myth. In film history, the 1929 work is specifically identified as Pandora’s Box and is especially remembered for Brooks’s performance and Pabst’s direction.