Frank Wedekind wrote both Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, the plays that inspired Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s film.
Wedekind was a German playwright whose work frequently challenged conventional morality and social attitudes. Earth Spirit, first performed in 1895, introduces Lulu, and Pandora’s Box, first performed in 1904, continues the character’s destructive and controversial story.
Pabst’s 1929 film is not a literal presentation of only one play. It combines material from both dramas and reshapes it for silent cinema. Louise Brooks’s performance as Lulu helped make the film far better known internationally than many stage productions of the original works.
Wedekind’s Lulu became an important figure in modern European drama. Later adaptations include Alban Berg’s opera Lulu and several films, so the name can appear in theater, opera, and cinema references.