Louise's provocative look won her the role of "Lulu" in Pandora's Box
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Legend has it that a pre-Blue Angel Marlene Dietrich was present in Wilhelm Pabst's Berlin office when he received news that Louise would accept his offer of Lulu in Die Busche der Pandora. The director would later go on record: "Dietrich was too old and too obvious. One sexy look and the picture would become a burlesque. But I gave her a deadline and the contract was about to be signed when Paramount cabled saying I coudl have Louise Brooks." Dietrich's contemptous reaction was characteristic: "Imagine Pabst choosing Louise Brooks when he could have had me!"
Fortunately for Louise, Pabst was fluent in English, for she hadn't even the rudiments of German. But his enthusiasm, based on his reaction to her performance in A Girl in Every Port, did much to overcome German chauvanism towards the "outrageous" idea of a foreigner playing a Wedekind heroine. For Louise, the occasion was momentous. She had gone overnight from being a mere Paramount contract player to 1928's version of an American superstar. With Pabst seeing to ti that her striking, black-helmeted image was seen everywhere in Germany, the press was alive with commentary, both pro and con, about ehr casting. One Hamburg newspaper typified the prestige which anticipated her arrival: "For the first time in history a great star comes from America in order to conquer here." Always critical of her treatment in Hollywood-a town she professed to hate-Louise could not have been more pleasantly surprised by this reception abroad. As she wrote in her 1982 memoir, Lulu in Hollywood: "I stepped onto the station platform to meet Pabst, and became an actress. I would be treated by him with a kind of decency and respect unknown to me in Hollywood." |
Copyright: McKenna W. Rowe, 1997-2006