Pandora's Box
1929
I actually watched this a couple days ago because my Netflix list got screwed up (ahem...Storm Over Asia). This movie was interesting, kind of dark, and chilling but seductive all at the same time.
So Louise Brooks is a woman who seduces everyone she sees. She resembles Catherine Zeta-Jones from Chicago and now I am pretty sure that they modeled her look after Louise Brooks because it goes with the time period (Chicago is set in the twenties). She even attracts a lady, which makes this the first movie with a lesbian. She is really beautiful but I think people were more attracted to the way she carried herself; she was just...womanly. Like Scarlett O'Hara. Anyway, she gets married, and that blows up in her face, and then a series of events occur that lead her to Jack the Ripper.
This movie definitely had a distinct tone. It was, as stated before, really creepy but it wasn't a horror movie. For instance, the London they showed wasn't the London I knew and loved. Instead, it was foggy, dangerous, and mysterious. I don't think I was supposed to get as creeped out as I did watching this film, but it was something about the mystical power she had over people or the dark settings. Very good, very well-acted.
RATING: ****-
Interesting Facts:
Alice Roberts, who played the Countess Ann, was opposed to playing a lesbian at first but then the director told her to just act like she was making her "love gestures" to a man off screen.
Her haircut is still referred to as the Lulu to this day.
Not available on YouTube sorry. Here is a clip:
Although Lulu is at the center of the movie this is more about the men (and women) around her. It is an incredibly smart movie.
ReplyDeleteVery true
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