Which German playwright wrote the two dramas that inspired the 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind wrote the two dramas that inspired the 1929 film Pandora’s Box: Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. G. W. Pabst’s film uses the central character Lulu from these plays.

Wedekind wrote Earth Spirit, also known by its German title Erdgeist, in the 1890s and followed it with Pandora’s Box. Together, the plays trace Lulu’s relationships and the social danger assigned to her by the men around her. The stage works were controversial because of their treatment of sexuality, power, and bourgeois respectability.

Pabst’s movie is an adaptation rather than a literal screen version of the ancient Greek myth. The title evokes Pandora as a figure associated with desire and catastrophe, while Lulu belongs to Wedekind’s modern dramatic world. The 1929 film helped preserve the character’s cultural influence and later became an important work in silent-film criticism.