From Amazon.com
The mystique and stunning beauty of Louise Brooks are on glorious display in
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), Brooks's second historic collaboration (after
Pandora's Box) with director G.W. Pabst. In a restrained performance that a lesser actress would've taken over the top, Brooks strikes a resonant note of innocence, tenacity, and worldliness as Thymian, the idealistic daughter of an unscrupulous pharmacist, who is raped by her father's lecherous assistant. Forced to leave her child with a midwife, she escapes from a hellish reform school and is drawn into a brothel as if her fate were predetermined. Pabst tells her story (from Margurethe Bohme's novel) with lurid flourishes, especially in his encouragement of leering, grotesque performances from Thymian's ruthless exploiters. Mature even by modern standards, this lurid melodrama spans a full spectrum of emotions, expressed with subtle nuance by Brooks, who casts her spell in close-ups that will take your breath away.
--Jeff Shannon
Additional Features
This DVD also includes the 1931 comedy short "Windy Riley Goes Hollywood," costarring Louise Brooks. Hollywood largely rejected Brooks after her star-making exodus to Germany, leaving her to play in low-budget features and independent two-reelers like this one, directed under a pseudonym by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who likewise never recovered from his own Hollywood scandal. "Windy Riley" is typically innocuous fare, with Brooks playing "the girl" in the tepid tale of a cross-country auto racer (Jack Shutta) who gets mixed up in Hollywood high jinks. Picture and sound quality are poor, but this remains a rare and fascinating artifact from Brooks's declining career.
--Jeff Shannon
