Pandora's Box

Louise Brooks – what a star she was…here in arguably her greatest screen role. Whatever the merits of the rest of the movie, I guarantee that you will not be able to take your eyes off Brooks. Her looks are somehow beyond our expectations of the human norm and she takes on an almost alien form. This sense of being above and beyond the rest of the cast is reinforced by her acting technique being years ahead of the silent era. You can easily imagine her in a modern movie, not something you can say about most stars of the silent age. But enough about the remarkable Ms Brookes, except perhaps to add that in later years she came back to the public attention as an excellent writer. Her collected essays on Hollywood entitled Lulu in Hollywood is essential and enjoyable reading. Pandora’s Box without Ms Brooks would not have made much of an impact on the cinema landscape. Its an odd tale which follows the ups and downs of a femme fatale and the men she leaves in her wake until she meets a tragic end at the hands of no less than Jack The Ripper!