G. W. Pabst directed Pandora’s Box, the 1929 German silent film based on Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays. The film is also known by its German title, Die Büchse der Pandora.
Louise Brooks plays Lulu, the film’s central character, in one of her most famous performances. Pabst’s adaptation is not a direct retelling of the ancient Greek myth; it uses the Pandora image as a title and cultural reference for a story about desire, social constraint and destructive consequences.
The film belongs to the late silent era and is associated with Weimar-era German cinema. Its title can cause confusion with later films and with the mythological expression itself. Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau and Robert Wiene were also major German filmmakers of the period, but none directed this particular Pandora’s Box.