Which playwright wrote the two plays adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind wrote the two plays adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box: Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s movie combines material from these works into its story of Lulu.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose Lulu plays examine sexuality, social hypocrisy, control, and the consequences of treating a person as an object of desire. The stage works were controversial and influential in European theater.

The film’s title comes from Wedekind’s second Lulu play, while the character’s destructive effect on those around her echoes the older Pandora metaphor. It is therefore a modern literary and cinematic adaptation, not a literal version of Hesiod’s myth.

Knowing the source plays also helps explain why the film’s central figure is called Lulu rather than Pandora. The ancient name supplies the symbolic frame, while Wedekind’s character supplies the plot and dramatic history.