Frank Wedekind wrote the plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box that inspired the 1929 film. The two dramas center on Lulu, a provocative and destructive figure whose relationships expose hypocrisy, desire, and social control.
Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged conventional morality and theatrical expectations. Earth Spirit premiered in the 1890s, while Pandora’s Box followed as the continuation of Lulu’s story. Georg Wilhelm Pabst later combined material from both plays for his silent-film adaptation, with Louise Brooks playing Lulu.
The playwright’s title Pandora’s Box invokes the ancient myth without reproducing it. Wedekind’s Lulu is not the mythological first woman, and the film is not a scene-by-scene version of Hesiod. The connection is thematic: an alluring figure becomes associated with consequences that spread beyond the initial act of opening or exposure.