Amazon.com reviews for
Büchse der Pandora, Die (1929)

photos

board

trailer

details

Pandora's Box (vhs):

Amazon.com Essentials: G.W. Pabst's 1928 silent masterpiece Pandora's Box stars the luminous and highly photogenic Louise Brooks. She plays the irresistible Lulu, a cabaret star who entices, captures, and eventually destroys all men who cross her path. Her beauty and her fetching charm draw an assortment of repressed and lonely people; Schigolch, a boozy old man who pretends he's her father, Geschwitz, a countess who has also fallen for Lulu, and Schoen, a rich tycoon who carries on an affair with Lulu even though he's to be married. His short solution is to put Lulu in his son Alwa's vaudeville show. As Alwa, too, becomes trapped in Lulu's charms, Schoen's fiancée catches Lulu and Schoen in a backstage embrace. Lulu quickly takes her place as Schoen's bride, only to drive Schoen to suicide during their wedding party. Put on trial for murder, Lulu almost gets out of it by simply batting her eyes at the prosecutor. Still, she is found guilty, and Alwa, who has grown increasingly obsessed, causes a distraction to allow Lulu's escape from the courthouse. Alwa, Lulu, and Schoen become desperate fugitives, eventually ending up in London where Lulu finally meets her match: Jack the Ripper. Pandora's Box offers pure cinematic delights--Pabst's luscious photography, the tense drama of its story line, and most impressively and importantly, Louise Brooks, who gives a performance that is certainly one of the best in the history of cinema. --Shannon Gee