Frank Wedekind wrote the two Lulu dramas adapted into the film Pandora’s Box. The relevant plays are Earth Spirit, also known as Erdgeist, and Pandora’s Box, or Die Büchse der Pandora.
Wedekind’s Lulu is a provocative figure whose relationships expose social hypocrisy, sexual double standards, and destructive desire. Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1929 film combines material from both plays, with Louise Brooks playing Lulu.
The title can mislead viewers into expecting a version of the ancient Greek myth. Wedekind’s play title borrows the Pandora image, but Lulu is not the mythological Pandora, and the plot is set in a modern European social world rather than among the Olympian gods.