This smokey and sensual adult story belongs firmly to its star, Louise Brooks. She’s Lulu, a beaming vessel of sexual energy whose very presence makes men, and at least one woman (Alice Roberts as Countess Geschwitz, one of cinema’s earliest lesbians), immediately stupid. Her big, intelligent eyes and shiny black bob hairstyle steal every scene here. Lulu’s underhanded when she connives her way into marriage with a wealthy newspaper tycoon who keeps her as his mistress, but she is innocent of his accidental death by gunshot. Nevertheless, she ends up on the run from the law and is forced to move in seedy underground circles where even more people want a piece of her. It all builds up to a great ending that perfectly mixes the scary, the sexy, the tragic, and the hopeful.
This was the first film Louise Brooks made after she severed ties with the Paramount studio in the US and went off to Germany to work with director G.W. Pabst, who filmed her as if she were the world’s biggest star. It turned out to be a good move, as this, and Diary of a Lost Girl (also directed by Pabst), ended up as her tickets to cinematic immortality.
The plot here is loosely inspired by two Frank Wedekind plays.