The famous first "lesbian" scene in cinema history!
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The film Pandora's Box actually derives from both Wedekind's two Lulu plays, the sensational 1895 Erdgeist (Earth Spirit) and its scandalous 1902 sequel, Die Busche der Pandora (Pandora's Box). All about the loves and escapades of a sexually liberated woman, these dakly satirical works outraged Victorian morality and moved novelist Thomas Mann to brand their creator the "least popular major dramatist" of the twentiest century.
Lulu's sordid story had already been filmed on four previous occasions, then most recently in a 1923 version called Lou Lou, with the Danish star, Asta Nielsen. But Pabst believed that this German literary classic had yet to be filmed faithfully, and he set out to do justice to Wedekind. Ladislaus Vajda made the adaptation, which opens witht eh dancer Lulu persuading her wealthy lover, Dr. Schon (Fritz Kortner), to marry her. With a more respectable fiancee waiting in the wings, he attempts to break off with Lulu. But she shoots him and runs off to London with his smitted son, Alwa (Franz Lederer, before Americanizing his given name to "Francis"), her "foster father" Schigolch (Carl Gotz), and her lesbian admirer, the Countess Geschwitz (Alice Roberts). There Lulu falls on bad times, finally sinking to the profession of streetwalker. On Christmas Eve, she makes the understandable mistake of picking up an attractive man who turns out to be none other than jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl), who leaves her dead in her flat. |
Copyright: McKenna W. Rowe, 1997-2006