Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box screens in Detroit on March 22

Pandora's Box (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Detroit, Michigan on March 22. This presentation by Silents at the Senate will feature a live musical accompaniment by Andrew Rogers on the organ. More information about the event, which takes place at the historic Senate Theater (6424 Michigan Avenue in Detroit), can be found HERE. [ Doors open at 7 pm for this 8 pm screening, with a 7:30 organ recital. ]

 

 

According to the Senate website, "Silents at the Senate begins its 2025 season with Pandora’s Box, a silent masterpiece from Austrian director G.W. Pabst, starring the American flapper icon Louise Brooks! Come see this impeccable example of pre-sound cinematic artistry, accompanied by organist Andrew Rogers on our Mighty Wurlitzer theater pipe organ!  

Produced during the artistically vibrant Weimar Republic period in Germany, Pandora’s Box adapts two popular stage plays into a single tale of depravity, temptation, wrath and ruin. It’s melodrama at its finest, made on the eve of the sound era when the visual language of silent cinema reached its absolute peak.  

And with the majesty of the world’s best instrument for silent film accompaniment enhancing the imagery and emotions, the awesome power of live sound and recorded vision—the original magic of the movies—cannot be denied. 

The Senate Theater and The Detroit Theater Organ Society is supported by The Michigan Arts and Culture Council and The National Endowment for the Arts."

The Detroit area has long had a special relationship with Louise Brooks. Not only were her films shown there in the 1920s and 1930s -- though likely not at the Senate -- but Brooks herself danced in Detroit in the mid 1920s and mid-1930s.

 

The 900 seat Senate Theater is an historic venue, and one of the finest surviving theaters in Detroit. It opened in 1926, during the final few years of the silent film era. More information about the Senate and its history can be found on its about page, on its Wikipedia page, and on its Cinema Treasures webpage. 

The history of the Senate is a story in itself, as is the story of how it came to have its Mighty Wurlitzer. Here is a short 1964 documentary about the installation of the Senate's Mighty Wurlitzer. 

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (filmography page).

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.