Frank Wedekind created Lulu, the character portrayed by Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box.
Wedekind was a German playwright whose Lulu cycle includes Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. These plays provide the main literary source for G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film. Lulu is a deliberately provocative figure whose relationships expose the hypocrisy and instability of the society around her.
Wedekind’s drama was controversial because of its frank treatment of sexuality, power, and social respectability. Pabst’s movie reshaped the material for silent cinema while preserving Lulu as its central character. Louise Brooks’s performance later became especially influential in establishing how audiences imagined Lulu.
Wedekind should not be confused with Bertolt Brecht, another major German-language playwright, or Arthur Schnitzler, the Austrian writer of works such as La Ronde. The title Pandora’s Box belongs both to Wedekind’s play and to Pabst’s film, but the ancient Greek myth is the older source of the phrase.