G.W. Pabst (director)
Eureka! (studio)
PG (certificate)
115min (length)
24 November 2014 (released)
23 December 2014
Silent screen icon Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box) stars as the destitute Thymian Henning, who ends up going through her own personal hell before striking it rich.
When Thymian, the daughter of a well-to-do but philandering pharmacist gets seduced and impregnated by Meinert (Fritz Rasp), her father’s assistant, her family expects her to do the ‘decent’ thing and marry him. Refusing marriage on the grounds that she does not love her abuser, her outraged father sends her to a strict reformatory school and gives her child into the care of a midwife. The institute in question is run by its bald, tall and weird director (Andrews Engelmann), and his sadistic, pinch-faced and sexually frustrated wife (an over-the-top performance by Valeska Gert).
Being forced to swap her trademark bob for a more severe hairstyle (Brooks fans – don’t get too downhearted it doesn’t last forever), our heroine experiences her fair share of torment before she manages to break free with her friend Erika, courtesy of Thymian’s friend, the penniless Count Osdorff (André Roanne). A short while later, she learns that during her time in the reformatory, her child has died. Miserable and wandering the streets alone, once again she bumps into her old friend Erika, who takes her from the squalor of the streets to the dubious glitz of an upper-class brothel… soon more drama is about to unfold!
Diary Of A Lost Girl was the final collaboration of Brooks with German director G.W. Pabst. Brooks turns in a fine performance as the naïve young woman who finds herself a victim of circumstance. Her performance contains both pathos and strength of character without slipping into syrupy affectation. It should be borne in mind that Brooks, herself a sexually abused child, was only twenty-three at the time.
This new HD print of the German silent classic is presented in Special Dual Format and with a host of extras, including essays, a 40-page booklet, and a piano score by Javier Pérez de Aspeita.