Accompanying booklet ("Reflections on 'Pandora's box'") includes essays by film critic J. Hoberman ("Opening 'Pandora's box'"), film critic Kenneth Tynan ("The girl in the black helmet"), & actress Louise Brooks ("Pabst and Lulu").

Special features (disc 1): New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration; Four musical scores, each offering its own interpretation of the film. Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser & Mary Ann Doane. New and improved English subtitle translation.

Special features (disc 2): "Louise Brooks : looking for Lulu" (documentary film by Hugh Munro Neeley ; 1998, 60 min.); "Lulu in Berlin" (documentary filmmakers Richard Leacock & Susan Steinberg Woll interview actress Louise Brooks ; 1984, 48 min.); "The shadow of my father : Michael Pabst on G.W. Pabst's 'Pandora's box'" (interview with director G.W. Pabst's son by Richard Leacock ; 2006, 34 min. ; in German, with optional English subtitles); stills gallery.

Booklet, Reflections on Pandora's Box, featuring Kenneth Tynan's 1979 essay "The girl in the black helmet," an article by Louise Brooks on her relationship with Pabst, and a new essay by critic J. Hoberman.

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1929.

Adapted from the plays "Erdgeist" and "Die Bueschse der Pandora" by Frank Wedekind.

Title from container.

Director of photography, Gunther Krampf ; art directors, Andrej Andrejew, Gottlieb Hesch.

Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer, Carl Goetz, Krafft-Raschig, Alice Roberts; Daisy d'Ora, Gustav Diessl.

Set in Berlin, 1928, Pandora's Box is about Lulu, an aspiring star whose patron, Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner), finds loyalty to his fiancé impossible because of Lulu's unsurpassed charm. Schön's son, Alwa, also falls in love with Lulu until a series of tragic incidents render them destitute in London, where Lulu resorts to prostitution and, in a final devastating scene, picks up her final john, Jack the Ripper. In the silent film era, Brooks's expressive face and graceful movements enabled her to epitomize a Roaring Twenties' version of feminism: innocence underpinned by sexual innuendo. Key scenes in Pandora's Box, such as when Lulu thrills at Dr. Schön's fiancé discovering he and Lulu embraced, or when Lulu's gleaming eyes mimic Jack the Ripper's polished knife blade, are radically risqué examples of all-time seductive cinematic moments. The Criterion Collection's beautifully packaged release of Pandora's Box features a thorough booklet of essays and photos, as well as a biographical documentary about Brooks and an interview with Pabst's son, Michael. After languishing in obscurity for many years preceding her death in the '80s, Louise Brooks will now forever be remembered as Lulu, Hollywood's finest vixen. --Trinie Dalton.

Not rated.

DVD, region 1, full screen (1.33:1) presentation; Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo., restored high-defintion transfer, dual-layer, DVD-9.

German intertitles with accompanying musical scores; optional English subtitles.

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