Diary of a Lost Girl starring Louise Brooks screens in UK on March 19

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Devon, England on Saturday March 19, 2022 with live musical accompaniment by the stellar musical group, Wurlitza. More information about this event can be found HERE.

From the venue website: 

Director: G W Pabst | Cast: Edith Meinhard, Fritz Rasp, Josef Rovensky, Louise Brooks, Franziska Kinz, Vera Pawlowa

1h 56m | 1929  | Silent Film | *Please note the film was originally certified ‘A’ due to adult themes.

£12. Pricing and concessions information 

The Barn Cinema (Dartington, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 6EL) offers a truly unique experience: a wide-ranging film programme, including independent arthouse, world and mainstream cinema, all within a truly beautiful, renovated 15th century barn. The Barn Cinema are taking over The Great Hall for a night to invite Cornish band Wurlitza to perform their magical musical accompaniment to one of silent cinema’s classics: ‘Diary of a Lost Girl’.

After two years in the making, Wurlitza’s present their soundtrack for GW Pabst’s 1929 movie Diary of a Lost Girl.

Diary of a Lost Girl was made in Germany at a time of great artistic freedom. Fast moving and at times shocking, the film traces the story of Thymian, played by the mesmerising screen idol Louise Brookes, as her life yoyos between episodes of lightness and innocence, darkness and despair. Moments of great comedy involve life in a reform school for fallen girls headed by a villainous nun, and a modern dance lesson with an incompetent buffoon.

This gripping film defies convention, confounding expectations, as joy and compassion are found in the most unlikely places.

Repertoire for the live soundtrack includes music by Django Reinhardt, Fun Boy Three, Portishead, Wire, Chopin and Leonard Cohen.

Diary of a Lost Girl has been very well received in venues throughout Cornwall and Devon. They’ve celebrated the film by making a soundtrack which can be enjoyed on Soundcloud and Spotify.

"The music was expertly chosen to run seamlessly with the film. It enhanced the experience. It reflected mood and added nuance. The musicianship was excellent. The performance fitted superbly with the images...Why does Wurlitza work? Because they bring magic. And that is never a bad thing." - Ian Craft ‐ Calstock Arts

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Want to learn more about Diary of a Lost Girl and the book that was the basis for the film? Check out the 2010  Louise Brooks Society publication, the Louise Brooks edition of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl, edited and with an informative introduction by Thomas Gladysz.

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, is based on a controversial and bestselling book first published in Germany in 1905. Though little known today, it was a literary sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of the 1920s, it had been translated into 14 languages and sold more than 1,200,000 copies - ranking it among the bestselling books of its time.

Was it - as many believed - the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? This contested work - a work of unusual historical significance as well as literary sophistication - inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films. The best remembered of these is the oft revived G.W. Pabst film starring Louise Brooks.

This corrected and annotated edition of the original English language translation brings this important book back into print after more than 100 years. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations.

The Louise Brooks edition of Diary of a Lost Girl is available at Amazon Canada and Amazon USA and elsewhere around the world. 

"Long relegated to the shadows, Margarete Böhme's 1905 novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl has at last made a triumphant return. In reissuing the rare 1907 English translation of Böhme's German text, Thomas Gladysz makes an important contribution to film history, literature, and, in as much as Böhme told her tale with much detail and background contemporary to the day, sociology and history. He gives us the original novel, his informative introduction, and many beautiful and rare illustrations. This reissue is long overdue, and in all ways it is a volume of uncommon merit." - Richard Buller, author of A Beautiful Fairy Tale: The Life of Actress Lois Moran 

Read today, it's a fascinating time-trip back to another age, and yet remains compelling. As a bonus, Gladysz richly illustrates the text with stills of Brooks from the famous film. - Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

In today's parlance this would be called a movie tie-in edition, but that seems a rather glib way to describe yet another privately published work that reveals an enormous amount of research and passion. - Leonard Maltin

Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl, back from obscurity. --Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives

It was such a pleasure to come upon your well documented and beautifully presented edition. -- Elizabeth Boa, University of Nottingham (UK)