Diary of a Lost Girl

Last updated

Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929 film).JPG
Directed by G. W. Pabst
Screenplay by Rudolf Leonhard [1]
Based on Tagebuch einer Verlorenen
by Margarete Böhme [1]
Produced byG. W. Pabst [1]
Starring
Cinematography Sepp Allgeier [1]
Production
company
  • Hom-Film AG

Pabst-Film GmbH [1]

Release dates
  • 12 September 1929 (1929-09-12)(Vienna)
  • 15 October 1929 (1929-10-15)(Berlin)
Running time
110 minutes [1]
CountryGermany [1]
Language
  • Silent film

Diary of a Lost Girl (German : Tagebuch einer Verlorenen) is a 1929 German silent film directed by G. W. Pabst and starring American silent star Louise Brooks. The film was shot in black and white, and diverse versions of the film ranged from 79 minutes to 116 minutes in length. This was Brooks' second and last film with Pabst, and like their previous collaboration, Pandora's Box , many film historians consider it to be a classic. It is based on the controversial and bestselling 1905 novel of the same name by Margarete Böhme. The novel had been previously adapted by Richard Oswald as Diary of a Lost Woman .

Contents

Plot

Brooks as Thymian in the brothel scene Louise Brooks in Diary of a Lost Girl.jpg
Brooks as Thymian in the brothel scene

Thymian Henning, the innocent, naive daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning, is puzzled when their housekeeper, Elisabeth, leaves suddenly on the day of Thymian's confirmation. It turns out that her father has made Elisabeth pregnant. Elisabeth's body is brought to the pharmacy later that day, an apparent suicide by drowning, upsetting Thymian.

Robert Henning's assistant, Meinert, promises to explain it all to Thymian later that night but instead rapes her while she is unconscious, and she also becomes pregnant. Though Thymian refuses to name the illegitimate baby's father, her relatives find out by reading her diary and decide that the best solution is for her to marry Meinert. When Thymian refuses because she does not love him, they give the baby to a midwife and send Thymian to a strict reformatory for wayward girls run by a tyrannical woman and her tall, bald assistant.

Meanwhile, Thymian's friend, Count Osdorff, is cast off and left penniless by his rich uncle, also Count Osdorff, after he proves unsuccessful at every school and trade. Thymian begs her friend to persuade her father to take her back, but Thymian's father has married his new housekeeper, Meta, and Meta wants no rivals for his affection. Rebelling against the reformatory's rigid discipline, Thymian and her friend Erika escape with Osdorff's help. When Thymian goes to see her baby, she learns the child has recently died. After wandering the streets despondent, she reunites with Erika who is working in a small upper-class brothel. With no skills, Thymian also becomes a prostitute.

By chance, Thymian encounters her father, Meta, and Meinert in a nightclub. Her father is shocked when he realises what she has become, and Meta and Meinert prevent them from speaking by quickly ushering Robert out of the nightclub. Three years later, her father dies. With the expectation of a large inheritance, Thymian decides to start a new life. Her friends at the brothel suggest she obtain a new identity by marrying Osdorff. After thinking about it, he agrees. At the lawyer's office, Meinert buys Thymian's interest in the pharmacy, making her rich. However, when she learns that Meinert is throwing Meta and her two children out on the street, Thymian gives Meta the money so that her young half-sister does not suffer the same fate as her.

Osdorff, who had been counting on the money to rebuild a life for himself, throws himself out of the window to his death when Thymian tells him what she has done. The uncle, grief-stricken, decides to make amends by taking care of Thymian. He introduces her to his cousin as his niece, Countess Osdorff. In a strange twist of fate, Thymian is invited to become a director of the same reformatory where she herself was once held. When Erika, her old friend, is brought before the directors as an "especially difficult case", Thymian denounces the school and takes Erika out of the room. Count Osdorff follows the two women; but before leaving, he pauses, turns back toward his startled cousin and declares: "A little more love and no-one would be lost in this world!"

Cast

Release

Diary of a Lost Girl premiered in Vienna, Austria on 12 September 1929. [1] It had its German premiere in Berlin on 15 October 1929. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Brooks</span> American actress (1906–1985)

Mary Louise Brooks was an American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. W. Pabst</span> Austrian film director (1885–1967)

Georg Wilhelm Pabst was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic.

<i>Pandoras Box</i> (1929 film) 1929 silent film directed by G. W. Pabst

Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer. The film follows Lulu, a seductive young woman whose uninhibited nature brings ruin to herself and those who love her. It is based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sybille Schmitz</span> German actress

Sybille Maria Christina Schmitz was a German actress.

<i>Hold Your Man</i> 1933 film by Sam Wood

Hold Your Man is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by an uncredited Sam Wood and starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, the third of their six films together. The screenplay by Anita Loos and Howard Emmett Rogers was based on a story by Loos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Donnell</span> American actress (1921–1988)

Jean Marie "Jeff" Donnell was an American actress.

<i>Beggars of Life</i> 1928 film by William A. Wellman

Beggars of Life is a 1928 American part-talkie sound film that was directed by William Wellman. Although the film featured sequences with audible dialogue, the majority of the film had a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was released on both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film formats. Currently circulating are mute prints from the sound-on-disc version. The majority of the sound discs are believed to be lost.

<i>The Canary Murder Case</i> (film) 1929 film

The Canary Murder Case is a 1929 American pre-Code crime-mystery film based on the 1927 novel of the same name by S.S. Van Dine. The film was directed by Malcolm St. Clair, with a screenplay by Wright, Albert Shelby LeVino, and Florence Ryerson. William Powell starred in the role of detective Philo Vance, with Louise Brooks co-starred as "The Canary"; Jean Arthur, James Hall, and Charles Lane also co-starred in other principal roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannah Pick-Goslar</span> Close friend of Anne Frank (1928–2022) and Holocaust survivor

Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar was a German-born Israeli nurse and Holocaust survivor best known for her close friendship with writer Anne Frank. The girls attended the 6th Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum. During The Holocaust, they saw each other again whilst imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Goslar and her young sister were the only family members who survived the war, being rescued from the Lost Train. Both emigrated to Israel, where Hannah worked as a nurse for children. They shared their memories as eyewitnesses of the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis</span> German aristocrat and writer

Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis is a German journalist, author, socialite, and art collector. By birth, as the daughter of Johannes, 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, she is a member of the German princely House of Thurn and Taxis. Since 2012 Elisabeth has worked as a style editor-at-large for Vogue. A Catholic traditionalist, she has written as a columnist for Vatican Magazine and authored a book on Catholic spirituality called The Faith of Children: in Praise of the People's Devotion. She has been referred to in the press as Princess TNT, a nickname once associated with her mother, Gloria, Princess of Thurn und Taxis.

<i>Free Love and Other Stories</i> 1995 short story collection by Ali Smith

Free Love and Other Stories is a short story collection by Scottish Booker-shortlisted author Ali Smith, first published in 1995 by Virago Press. It was her first published book and won the Saltire First Book of the Year award. and a Scottish Arts Council award It contains twelve short stories.

André Roanne was a French actor. He began his career playing in short films, and acted in 91 films in total, most notably those of Fernandel. Most of his films were French; he did, however, also appear in German and Italian works, especially co-productions with French companies. He also served occasionally as an assistant director, screenwriter, technician, and film editor.

<i>The American Venus</i> 1926 film

The American Venus is a 1926 American silent comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Esther Ralston, Ford Sterling, Lawrence Gray, Fay Lanphier, Louise Brooks, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The film was based on an original story by Townsend Martin. The scenario was written by Frederick Stowers with intertitles by Robert Benchley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greta Granstedt</span> American actress (1907–1987)

Greta Granstedt was an American film and television actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margarete Böhme</span> German writer (1867–1939)

Margarete Böhme was, arguably, one of the most widely read German writers of the early 20th century. Böhme authored 40 novels – as well as short stories, autobiographical sketches, and articles. The Diary of a Lost Girl, first published in 1905 as Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, is her best known and bestselling book. By the end of the 1920s, it had sold more than a million copies, ranking it among the bestselling books of its time. One contemporary scholar has called it “Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century.”

<i>Tagebuch einer Verlorenen</i> (book)

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen is a book by the German author Margarete Böhme (1867–1939). It purportedly tells the true story of Thymian, a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution. When first published in 1905, the book was said to be a genuine diary, though speculation quickly arose as to its authorship.

Louise Auguste Henriette, was a German noblewoman, a member of the House of Stolberg by both birth and marriage. She was also a notorious Lyric poet, translator and editor.

<i>Padlocked</i> 1926 film by Allan Dwan

Padlocked is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Allan Dwan and written by Rex Beach, Becky Gardiner, and James Shelley Hamilton. The film stars Lois Moran, Noah Beery Sr., Louise Dresser, Helen Jerome Eddy, Allan Simpson, Florence Turner, and Richard Arlen. The film was released on August 2, 1926, by Paramount Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Meinhard</span> German actress

Edith Meinhard was a German actress who appeared in more than fifty films during her career including the 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl.

<i>Diary of a Lost Woman</i> 1918 film

Diary of a Lost Woman is a 1918 German silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Erna Morena, Reinhold Schünzel, and Werner Krauss. The rising star Conrad Veidt also appeared. It is now considered a lost film. It was remade at the end of the silent era as Diary of a Lost Girl by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Tagebuch einer Verlorenen". Filmportal.de . Retrieved 15 December 2019.

Bibliography