LGM Film Club, Part 308: Diary of a Lost Girl

I recently watched G.W. Pabst’s 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl for the first time in several years. It is legendary, one of his great films with Louise Brooks as a sexual vamp who blew everyone’s minds. It’s a great film, though I don’t think I prefer it to Pandora’s Box. Brooks plays the innocent daughter of a pharmacist. She gets seduced and impregnated by the pharmacist’s assistant. Meanwhile, her dad might love her but he’s fallen in love with the domineering housekeeper more and she wants her rival gone. Brooks is sent to a reformatory where the lesbian themes are waaaaaaaayyy over the top. She escapes with help from her friends in a brilliant scene of revenge over their terrible treatment. But what choice is there but prostitution? This she is very good at, but also very sad about. Things happen, eventually she is redeemed. But will she be able to make a difference? In the end, she is not only the innocent but sexually beguiling young woman of the late 20s, but also a better person than everyone else in the movie. That level of continued innocence might undercut the film just ever so slightly, but it’s still a total classic.

Whole thing is on YouTube, so check it out tonight!!