Which writer created the plays that inspired the 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind created the plays that inspired the 1929 film Pandora’s Box.

The film draws on Wedekind’s dramas Erdgeist, often translated as Earth Spirit, and Die Büchse der Pandora, meaning Pandora’s Box. Together, these plays center on Lulu, whose relationships and social environment produce the work’s conflicts and tragedy.

Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s film is therefore not a direct cinematic version of Hesiod’s Greek story. Its title refers to Wedekind’s play and to the destructive potential associated with Lulu, rather than to the ancient myth’s first woman and jar.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged conventional ideas about sexuality, morality, and respectable society. His Lulu dramas became especially influential in later theatre, opera, and cinema, including Alban Berg’s unfinished opera Lulu.