Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

Directed by G.W. Pabst
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Kino)

Louise Brooks is the daughter of a creepy pharmacist, he has affairs with the maids and takes pictures to prove it. One day his assistant takes advantage of poor Louise when she passes out for some reason. They give the baby up to a midwife and send Louise to a reformatory. It's hard to believe, but life there is even worse than at home. A sadistic nun and her bald crony run the place like a prison camp. Louise escapes, but life on the streets leads her to take up prostitution. She lives comfortably servicing local wackos for awhile. She gets news that her father has died and she stands to inherit a fortune, but instead gives it to her father's mistress and their bastard children. Luckily for Louise, a rich Count marries her and she tries to use her wealth and influence to save other girls in the reformatory. Soap opera plot goes on and on, and supposedly this is only half of the screenplay. The film's final message is that "love" is all that is needed to solve all of these social problems; it didn't work, then or now.

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