Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, screens with classical music accompaniment

Pandora's Box, the sensational German silent starring Louise Brooks, will be shown on October 29th at Muziekgebouw in The Netherlands with classical music accompaniment featuring Olga Pashchenko at the piano. More about this event can be found HERE.

This special screening is part of a series, Film and Live Music, which offers new live score for classic and modern films. The musical accompaniment, compiled by Jed Wentz, will feature musical selections from Fréderic Chopin, Louis Durey, César Franck, Charles Gounod, Edvard Grieg, Gustav Holst, Arthur Honegger, Franz Liszt, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Albert Roussel, Erik Satie, Erwin Schulhoff and Germaine Tailleferre. 

The event description reads: "Old or young, man or woman: whoever meets the unconventional, free-spirited Lulu falls for her disarming charm. Her impulsive behaviour not only brings ruin to those who love her, but ultimately seals her own doom. Louise Brooks delivers a stunning performance as the enigmatic Lulu in Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box), the film that catapulted her to international stardom and cemented her status as a silent film icon. 

Brooks’ natural acting style, unusual at the time, made her ideal for the role of Lulu. In this performance, her spontaneous energy is mirrored by the passionate piano playing of Olga Pashchenko. She performs a score compiled by Jed Wentz from works by composers popular at the time of the film’s release. Director Georg Wilhelm Pabst based the film on Frank Wedekind’s two-part play Erdgeist / Die Büchse der Pandora that also served as the inspiration for Alban Berg’s opera Lulu."

This is an event not to be missed. 

SOME MUSICAL TRIVIA:

— When Pabst’s Pandora’s Box debuted in Berlin in 1929, an orchestra accompanied the film. This musical accompaniment — in the form of either a formal score or informal arrangement of pre-existing compositions, was attributed to Willy Schmidt-Genter in at least a couple of publications, namely Lichtbild-Buhne (on February 16) and Reichsfilmblatt (on February 23). Each expressed reservations concerning Schmidt-Genter’s overall approach. Besides it being an orchestral accompaniment, little else is known about the music except that it included musical passages from two noted German composers, Richard Strauss (the third main theme from Don Juan) and Gottfried Huppertz (a passage from the music for Fritz Lang’s Der Nibelungen).

— The jazz combo playing during the wedding scene was an actual group known as Sid Kay’s Fellows. Founded in 1926 and led by Sigmund Petruschka (“Sid”) and Kurt Kaiser (“Kay”), Sid Kay’s Fellows were a popular ten member dance band based in Berlin. Notably, they performed at the Haus Vaterland (a leading Berlin night-spot) between 1930 and 1932. And in 1933, they accompanied the great American jazz musician Sidney Bechet during his recitals in the German capitol. Sid Kay’s Fellows also accompanied various theatrical performances and at various times played in Munich, Dresden, Frankfurt, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona and elsewhere. The group’s inclusion in Pandora’s Box predates their career as recording artists. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Sid Kay’s Fellows were forbidden to perform publicly. They disbanded, and transformed themselves into a studio orchestra and made recordings for the Jewish label Lukraphon. For more about the group, see the April 29, 2012 Louise Brooks Society blog “Music in Pandora’s Box: Sid Kay’s Fellows” and the October 20, 2012 blog, “More on Sid Kay’s Fellows“. [Notably, director G.W. Pabst included a different jazz combo, lead by Juan Llossas, in his next film, The Diary of a Lost Girl.]

— Pandora’s Box was shown now and then in Germany in the early 1930s. In particular, it was shown in Frankfurt am Main in September, 1933 at a screening attended by the composer Alban Berg, who would go on to write an opera, Lulu, based on Wedekind’s plays. (read more) 

— While living near the George Eastman House, Brooks researched various movies, including Pandora’s Box. She also watched the film, likely for the first time. Sometime later, Brooks created a  “score” for Pandora’s Box when she compiled a list of 78 rpm recordings of classical music selected to accompany the film.   

For more about Pandora's Box, please visit the newly revised Pandora's Box filmography page on the Louise Brooks Society website. 

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