Diary of a Lost Girl is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the American silent star Louise Brooks. This was Brooks’ second and last film with Pabst, and like their prior collaboration (1929’s Pandora’s Box), it is considered a classic film. The film was based on the controversial and bestselling novel of the same name, Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1905) by Margarete Böhme.
Thymian Henning (Louise Brooks), is the innocent, naive daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning. She is puzzled when their housekeeper, Elisabeth, leaves suddenly on the day of Thymian’s confirmation. It turns out that her father got Elisabeth pregnant. Elisabeth’s body is brought to the pharmacy later that day, an apparent suicide by drowning, upsetting Thymian.
Thymian’s father’s assistant Meinert, promises to explain it all to her late that night, but instead takes advantage of her; she gives birth to an illegitimate child. Though Thymian refuses to name the baby’s father, the relatives find out from her diary. They decide that the best solution is for her to marry Meinert. When she refuses because she does not love him, they give the baby to a midwife and send her to a strict reformatory for wayward girls run by a tyrannical woman and her tall, bald assistant.
Louise Brooks for Diary of a Lost Girl directed by George Wilhem Pabst, 1929 via
Louise Brooks for Diary of a Lost Girl directed by George Wilhem Pabst, 1929 via
Louise Brooks for Diary of a Lost Girl directed by George Wilhem Pabst, 1929 via
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