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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThe familiar story says G. W. Pabst cast Louise Brooks as Lulu in Pandora’s Box after seeing her in Howard Hawks’s A Girl in Every Port. But no direct statement by Pabst establishing that explanation is identified in the published accounts discussed by film historian Thomas Gladysz. The record shifts over time—from a 1956 guess, to a more definite but unattributed claim, to Brooks’s own later recollection—and leaves the precise reason for Pabst’s choice unresolved.
Where did the story that Pabst saw A Girl in Every Port begin?
The earliest version identified by Gladysz appeared in a September 1956 Image article by James Card, then a curator at George Eastman House. Card wrote that Pabst “probably” first saw Brooks in A Girl in Every Port, released early in 1928. That qualification matters: Card presented a likelihood, not a documented statement from Pabst.
In a 1962 UCLA program note, Card recast the idea as a certainty, saying Pabst chanced to see the Hawks film and selected Brooks for Lulu. Gladysz notes that Card did not attribute this information or explain how he knew it. The stronger wording therefore does not, by itself, supply stronger evidence.
What did Louise Brooks say about getting the part?
Her 1956 and 1958 accounts
In her companion 1956 piece, “Mr. Pabst,” Brooks described the practical circumstances around her move to Germany: Paramount’s option on her contract was coming up, the studio did not give her the raise she expected, and Pabst offered to borrow her for Pandora’s Box. She did not mention the Hawks film as the reason for his interest.
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A 1958 account attributed to Brooks likewise framed the decision around Pabst wanting her for Lulu and her option coming up: “And G. W. Pabst wanted me for Lulu. And my option came up…. So I went to Germany.” It does not connect the casting to A Girl in Every Port.
Her 1965 recollection
Brooks later did link Pabst’s knowledge of her to the film. In “Pabst and Lulu,” published in Sight and Sound in summer 1965, she wrote: “He knew nothing more of me than an unimportant part he saw me play in the Howard Hawks film A Girl in Every Port.” Gladysz asks how Brooks knew Pabst had seen that film; the surviving correspondence cited in his account does not answer the question. Brooks’s statement is important testimony, but it does not document Pabst’s own explanation.
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Brooks’s essay was later included in her 1982 book Lulu in Hollywood, a useful source for her perspective rather than independent confirmation of the casting story.
Do the dates fit the theatrical-screening version of the story?
A Girl in Every Port premiered at New York’s Roxy Theater in February 1928 and opened in Cleveland in June. Reports of Pabst’s search for Lulu appeared around June. In October 1928, Close-Up reported: “The long search at last is ended. Lulu has been found,” naming Brooks and saying Pabst had found her in America after searching across several European countries.
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A German-language report summarized by Gladysz says Pabst showed Nero executives films in which Brooks had appeared. However, the Hawks film—released in German-speaking markets as Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen—did not play in Berlin until early December 1928, a few weeks after Pandora’s Box had finished production. That makes a Berlin commercial screening during the casting search difficult to reconcile with the usual account. It does not rule out a private or advance print, for which the cited record provides no confirmation.
What other explanations have been proposed?
An older Adolphe Menjou film
A February 1929 Berliner Volks-Zeitung review reportedly said Pabst discovered Brooks in an older film with Adolphe Menjou. Gladysz suggests Evening Clothes as a possible candidate, but the identification is not proof of what Pabst watched; Evening Clothes is considered lost.
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Stills and Lothar Wolff’s recollection
In a 1972 article, Brooks’s friend Lothar Wolff recalled that when Pabst visited Parufamet looking for a Lulu, Wolff showed him stills of Brooks, his favorite actress. Wolff wrote: “The search was over. She got the part and I got the job, moonlighting, doing the production publicity.” This is a later recollection, not a contemporaneous production record. Gladysz also notes that an image from Brooks’s Now We’re in the Air appears within Pandora’s Box; publicity imagery may have helped make her visible to Pabst, but that remains a possibility.
International appeal
Assistant director Paul Falkenberg is reported as saying Brooks was popular and successful in Europe. Casting performers already known in their home countries could help a film sell abroad, making international marketing a plausible factor. It does not establish that this was Pabst’s personal motive.
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How strong is the evidence for each version?
| Account | What it says | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| James Card, Image, September 1956 | Pabst “probably” first saw Brooks in A Girl in Every Port. | A tentative explanation was in circulation by 1956; Card’s basis is not specified. |
| James Card, UCLA program note, 1962 | Pabst saw the Hawks film and chose Brooks. | A more categorical version appeared, but Gladysz reports no attribution for it. |
| Louise Brooks, 1956 and 1958 accounts | Her Paramount option and Pabst’s offer explain the timing of her departure for Germany. | Brooks’s early accounts describe the circumstances but do not credit the Hawks film with prompting the casting. |
| Louise Brooks, Sight and Sound, summer 1965 | Pabst knew her from an “unimportant part” in A Girl in Every Port. | Brooks later connected Pabst’s knowledge of her to the film; how she knew he had seen it is not documented in the account. |
| Lothar Wolff, 1972 | He recalled showing Pabst stills of Brooks at Parufamet. | A possible route by which Pabst encountered her, recalled years later. |
What can be concluded—and what remains unknown?
The evidence supports a careful distinction: the Hawks-film story was stated tentatively by Card in 1956, made categorical in his 1962 note without an identified attribution, and later echoed by Brooks in her 1965 essay. Yet the available accounts do not identify a direct statement from Pabst explaining his choice, and the reported Berlin release date complicates the idea that he encountered the film in an ordinary local screening during the search. Older films, still photographs, and Brooks’s European popularity offer plausible clues, not a settled answer.
Gladysz points to Pabst’s papers at the Akademie der Künste archive in Berlin as a possible place to look for further evidence; those papers are not examined in the account summarized here. Until a more direct record establishes the circumstances, how Pabst came to select Brooks as Lulu remains unresolved.
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