Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

Diary of a Lost Girl was the second of the two silent films Louise Brooks made in Germany for director G.W. Pabst. Pandora's Box is by far the more famous and celebrated of the two.

I have to put my cards on the table right here. While it’s generally regarded as a cinematic masterpiece I am not a great fan of Pandora’s Box. For me it’s an interesting but flawed movie and its only claim to greatness is the performance of Louise Brooks.

One thing that the viewer needs to bear in mind is that not all German movies of the 1920s belong to the Expressionist movement. Pabst most definitely did not adhere to that school. He was a realist.

Diary of a Lost Girl is a realist film but with a plot that is pure melodrama.

Thymian is an innocent young girl. Louise Brooks had many virtues as an actress but playing an innocent virginal young girl was quite outside her acting range. Thymian’s father owns a pharmacy. Thymian is cast out by her family when she falls pregnant to her father’s sleazy assistant pharmacist Meinert. He knocked her out with a sleeping draught in order to have his way with her.

The family is outraged that she then refuses to marry Meinert. She also faces implacable hostility from Meta, her father’s housekeeper. Meta intends to marry Thymian’s father.

Thymian is sent to a reformatory. It’s like a cross between a workhouse in a Dickens novel and a women’s prison in a 1970s women-in-prison exploitation movie. It’s run by a couple of crazed sadists who would be more at home in a horror movie.

Thymian’s only ally is the young Count Osdorff (André Roanne). With his help she escapes, along with one of the other girls, Erika (Edith Meinhard).

Thymian then suffers a personal tragedy, discovering that her child is dead. This is one of the film’s narrative weak points. No woman would bounce back so quickly after the death of a child.

Thymian becomes a high-class prostitute. The nicest, sanest, happiest people in this movie are the madam and the girls in the brothel. They are cheerful and easy-going. The madam obviously looks after her girls and is fond of them, and they’re fond of her. The brothel is an oasis of camaraderie and happiness in an otherwise bleak world. And this is the one time Thymian seems really happy.

Then another plot twist kicks in, followed in quick succession by several others. Pabst seems to be aiming for irony here, and also to give the movie a satisfying cyclical twist.

I believe Pabst was forced to change his original ending which would have been more satisfying and more in keeping with the tone of the film.

On the surface this is a conventional melodrama with an innocent girl corrupted and forced into a degrading life of prostitution (she becomes a “lost girl”) but Pabst was clearly trying to give the story an ironic twist. In this movie trying to be respectable and conform to society’s rules will get you nowhere but if you become a lost girl, a prostitute, you paradoxically find happiness and friendship. It’s a message that might be too radical for many modern viewers.

This movie doesn’t really pull its punches. It’s made quite explicit that Thymian falls pregnant after being taken by force by Meinert. There is no attempt at all to disguise the fact that the brothel is in fact a brothel. It’s also made quite clear (and this might certainly be too radical for some viewers today) that the brothel girls enjoy working in a brothel.

After a shaky start Louise Brooks gives a superb performance. Anyone who thinks actresses in the silent era were not capable of subtle naturalistic performances needs to see Brooks in this movie.

Some of the other acting turns are rather bizarre. The villains in this movie are outrageously over-the-top, almost as if they were appearing in a pantomime. There’s an uneasy mix of tones in this film. Pabst was by inclination a realist but here he’s working with material that is not just pure melodrama but melodrama of an extreme type.

This movie is a bit of a mess in many ways but it has its compensations. Thymian is never presented as a bad girl, or even a good girl gone wrong. Becoming a prostitute is seen as just a perfectly reasonable way to make a living. For all its flaws it’s an oddly fascinating movie, recommended for that reason.

I’ve also reviewed Pandora's Box (1929).

A Girl in Every Port (1928)

A Girl in Every Port has several claims to fame. It was one of Howard Hawks’ very early movies (released in 1928). It was his second-last silent movie. And a German director named G. W. Pabst saw it and was so impressed by the female lead he decided to cast her in his next movie. The actress was Louise Brooks, the movie he cast her in was Pandora’s Box, and thus a legend was born.

A Girl in Every Port is in fact a male buddy film. Ordinarily not my favourite kind of movie, but you expect a male buddy film made by Howard Hawks to be better than average and it is. It’s also a comedy so it provides an intriguing glimpse of one of the greatest masters of cinematic comedy learning the ropes. It’s not quite vintage Hawks comedy but you can see that the potential was already there.



Spike (Victor McLaglen) is a sailor and he really does have a girl in every port. Or so he thought. But now every time he reaches port he finds that all the girls in his little black book are sporting a heart and anchor tattoo. Some other seafaring Lothario has been making time with Spike’s girls. Eventually he catches up to his rival. They start to fight it out, get caught up in a full-scale bar-room brawl, and end up in the lock-up. They discover that they have something in common besides women - they like brawling. And they like each other. Soon they are fast friends and shipmates.

All goes well until Spike meets a girl who is special (the girl is of course Louise Brooks). This girl, Marie, does a high-diving act in a carnival in a French port and Spike is convinced she is the sweetest girl a man could ever meet. She’s not the kind of girl you add to your little black book. She’s the kind of girl you marry, and settle down with. Maybe buy a little farm. Spike has enough money to do this. And she seem so anxious to share his dream of rural connubial bliss that she offers to look after his money for him, so he can’t be tempted to spend it.



Spike’s a nice guy but he’s a bit of an innocent where women are concerned. He’s had his share of success with the ladies but he’s inclined to take a rather romantic view of the fair sex. And he’s the kind of guy who likes to think the best of people. Anyone else would have figured out that Marie was just taking him for a ride and intending to fleece him, but Spike can’t see it.

Things get more complicated when he proudly introduces his new girl (and his intended future wife) to his best buddy Bill. Bill recognises her immediately. She used to be known as Tessy when she did her diving act in Coney Island. She and Bill were pretty friendly. So friendly that (although Spike doesn’t yet know it) Marie/Tessy sports Bill’s heart and anchor tattoo on her arm. What is Bill to do? Spike is his best friend. Can he allow this girl to take Spike for every penny he has and then leave him broken-hearted?



The movie’s sexual politics, and its moral dilemmas, are more complex than they appear to be. Spike and Bill adopt a love ’em and leave ’em policy towards their various girlfriends but their assumption is that the kinds of girls who date sailors know the score. The movie adopts a worldly view towards sex. Marie adopts a similar attitude towards men as the men in this movie adopt towards women, although their objective is sex while hers is money. In both cases no great harm is done unless you happen to be naïve enough (as Spike is) to not realise it’s all a game.

Mostly it’s a movie about friendship. Spike and Bill are true friends, and while that friendship will be sorely tested it will prove strong enough to survive.



Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong are likeable as the two seafaring buddies. Louise Brooks doesn’t get a lot of screen time but she certainly makes the most of what she does get. Her image is already well in place here, as the glamorous femme fatale - it’s obvious why Pabst was so impressed. And of course the camera adores her. Her acting style is not at all what you expect in silent comedy - it’s very understated and very subtle. She is most definitely not a slapstick comedienne. Brooks always admired actors (such as Leslie Howard) who understood the virtues of underacting.

But of course this is a comedy, so the question is, is it funny? The answer is yes, although not in a rolling-on-the-floor kind of way. It’s a cheerful amusing and engagingly amoral little picture, and being a Howard Hawks movie it’s comedy with an edge of intelligence and sophistication.



If you’re a Louise Brooks fan then it’s absolutely essential viewing of course.

Unfortunately this movie is not available in an official DVD release and those prints that are floating about are not in great condition. Most of the silent movies that Louise Brooks made in Hollywood before her departure for Germany survive but despite her huge cult following for some reason they have never enjoyed a proper DVD release.

The Canary Murder Case (1929)

It has to be admitted that the main reason for seeing The Canary Murder Case is curiosity. It’s a rare Louise Brooks talkie, and has the reputation of being the movie that effectively ended her Hollywood career.

It’s a movie that certainly has its problems. Almost all of these problems come down to the time it was made. It dates from that awkward period in movie history when silent movies were clearly dead in box-office terms but the studios still had silent movies either in production, or completed and awaiting release. What to do with these movies?

The answer was to turn these silent movies into talkies by adding dialogue, and occasionally by shooting added footage. In the hands of a genius like Alfred Hitchcock the result could be a minor masterpiece like Blackmail. The results were generally much less satisfactory. Silent movies are not talking pictures without dialogue - they’re a whole different art form. These hybrid semi-talkies, and some of the very early talkies as well, are an uneasy combination of mutually incompatible film-making techniques.

An even bigger problem with The Canary Murder Case is that Louise Brooks had already left Hollywood, and her voice was dubbed (rather badly) by another actress. This is a major problem because even though Brooks is strictly a supporting player, she’s the best thing in the film.

To add to the problems, the plot is disappointingly easy to resolve, and the movie has major pacing problems (presumably caused by the fact that it was shot as a silent movie).

Louise Brooks is The Canary. She’s a major stage star whose act involves her swinging from the ceiling whilst singing, like a canary in a cage. Her main source if income though comes from blackmail, at which she’s both skillful, and ruthless. She has seduced a succession of wealthy and powerful men. Now she wants not merely money, but social position as well. She wants to marry young Jimmy Spottswoode. Jimmy’s father is a pillar of the community and is determined to prevent his son’s marriage to such a notorious woman. Jimmy’s girlfriend isn’t too thrilled either.

When the Canary turns up dead there are countless suspects. Everyone who ever had anything to do with her wanted to kill her. This presents Philo Vance with what should be a a real challenge.

This was William Powell’s first appearance as the debonair detective Philo Vance. It’s an ideal role for him, but he’s hampered by the slow pacing and by the fact that it wasn’t shot originally as a sound film. Powell was always at his best when he had someone, preferably a talented and feisty actress, to strike dialogue sparks off. Put him opposite someone like Kay Francis in a movie like Jewel Robbery and the result is movie magic. But in The Canary Murder Case he doesn’t get to interact at all with the only interesting female cast member (Louise Brooks as the Canary) and his performance lacks a certain sparkle.

Despite all these problems it’s still interesting to see Louise Brooks rehearsing the femme fatale role that was to make her an enduring movie legend in Pandora’s Box. And it’s interesting to see William Powell in an early starring role playing exactly the kind of character that would make him one of Hollywood’s brightest stars of the 30s. An historically interesting but still rather disappointing movie.

Prix de Beauté (1930)

One of the tiny handful of films to feature Louise Brooks in a starring role, Prix de Beauté (Miss Europe) is worth seeing for that reason only. It was one of the very first talkies to be made in France, in 1930, and it was actually started as a silent film. In fact the dialogue is sparse and mostly unnecessary, and it has the feel of a silent film.

It’s a very odd film indeed. It tells the story of a typist named Lucienne who. Much against the wishes of her fiancé Andre, enters and wins a beauty competition. This gives her the opportunity to break into films and thus escape the tedium of both her job and Andre. This doesn’t please Andre at all, who proceeds to behave like a spoilt child whose favourite toy has been taken away from him.

Can Lucienne realise her dream of stardom, or will Andre persuade her to become a meek little obedient housewife?

The movie starts out as if it’s going to be a lightweight comedy, and then takes a darker turn, and then takes a very dark turn indeed. Brooks looks fabulous, of course, and her ability to be both very restrained in her acting and at the same time to light up the screen is the main reason people are going to watch this movie. In fact, although it’s an odd mix, it’s an interesting movie and definitely worth seeing. The ending is particularly well done.

The movie is also nicely ambiguous – we sympathise with Lucienne’s desire to make something of her life but at the same time we see that her dream of being a movie star really is an escape into an unreal existence (which is emphasised by the ending), but then her short-lived attempt at conventional domestic life is portrayed as being equally unreal.

The Kino DVD release is just awful. Picture quality is bad, sound quality is bad, there are no extras. Although it’s a sound film the speed of the movie is all wrong, just like silent movies projected at the wrong speed where everyone is moving too fast.