Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) (1929)

Posted : 1 month ago at Oct 22 15:09

Pandora’s Box should not have worked as well as it did. The storyline is pure melodrama. To put it more bluntly: it’s faintly ridiculous stuff that wouldn’t have been out of place in a soap opera. But it does work, and that is all thanks to the performance of Louise Brooks. With her severe black bob, perfectly straight eyebrows, cupid’s bow mouth and blank face she might just have been one of the three best silent film actresses. She was certainly one of the most striking images, and much of the film is all about her face and how she reacts. Brooks was not a throw-yourself-about kind of silent film star, she was withdrawn, almost neurotically insular. There is something of an early Method about her acting. She is too modern, and there is something of a vague autobiography about her...Read more