"Pandora's Box" is a legendary silent film, and it is very well directed by G.W. Pabst, with emphasis on the German Expressionism popular in 1928, when it was filmed.

Still, the film would likely be forgotten were it not for the dazzling, mesmerizing performance of its star, Louise Brooks, whose natural style and alluring sexuality was largely ignored by American audiences and critics in the '20s.

The film casts Brooks, with her straight black hair in a pageboy bob (later the model for the "Dixie Dugan" comic strip), as Lulu, a femme fatale who defines the term.

The film opens in Germany, with Lulu as the mistress of newspaper mogul Dr. Peter Schon (Fritz Kortner), but that doesn't keep her from flirting with other men — including the mogul's son, Alwa (Franz Lederer). The plot has Lulu eventually marrying Schon, after a scandalous backstage sequence at a musical revue, but as she's rising in social prominence, she finds herself charged with murder and sentenced to prison. Soon she's on the lam and winds up a prostitute on the streets of London, ultimately having an ill-fated encounter with Jack the Ripper.

Wild-eyed soap opera? You bet, but Brooks gives a cagey interpretation to Lulu that is quite unexpected and which keeps the film from falling on its face. She plays the character as completely charming and without guile so that there is never a trace of meanness or trickery in her spirit. The result is that Lulu is quite likeable, even when she does despicable things.

New Yorker magazine critic Pauline Kael, who is retired now, described Brooks' performance this way: "She's like a cool, beautiful, innocently deadly cat that people can't keep their hands off."

It's a stunning film, no question, with sexuality that is quite frank for its day, effective atmosphere and, of course, Brooks' stunning performance.

Born in Kansas, Brooks began her show-business career at age 15 as a dancer on Broadway, eventually becoming a Ziegfeld girl. This led to a Hollywood contract, and she made several mediocre pictures in the mid to late 1920s.

Then, in 1928, she did two films that garnered particularly good notices for her — "A Girl In Every Port" (directed by Howard Hawks) and "Beggars of Life" (directed by William Wellman). Hollywood paid little attention, but G.W. Pabst was fascinated by her and offered Brooks the lead in "Pandora's Box," which he would film in Germany. Brooks was 23 at the time.

The film was a European sensation, and Brooks and Pabst quickly followed it with "Diary of a Lost Girl." She then made a third successful film in Europe in 1930,

"Prix de Beaute" for French director Rene Clair.

Upon returning to Hollywood, however, Brooks found she was still not considered a hot property and defied studio bosses when they tried to put her in minor roles she considered demeaning. (She was offered the Jean Harlow role in "Public Enemy," but turned it down.)

As a result, Brooks appeared in a few minor movies through the 1930s, including several B-Westerns ("Overland Stage Raiders," with an unknown actor named John Wayne), but eventually quit show business, never to fulfill the promise of her early successes.

In the 1950s, Brooks' German films were rediscovered, and critics began heaping praise on her work, and when Brooks herself was eventually tracked down, she was living in New York, oblivious to the fact that her work was being examined anew.

View Comments

Later, Brooks wrote essays on cinema for film journals, and her writings today are considered unparalleled criticism. She lived out her life as a virtual recluse in Rochester, New York, and died in 1985.

The rebirth of her fame has been compared to that of Buster Keaton in his later years and is yet another testament to the power and longevity of film.

Brooks put it this way:

The art of films does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body, but in the movements of thought and soul, transmitted in a kind of intense isolation.

Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.