Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1929)

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writers:

Margarete Böhme (novel)
Rudolf Leonhardt (writer)

Release Date:

24 April 1930 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Thymiane is a beautiful young girl who is not having a storybook life. Her governess, Elizabeth, is thrown out of her home when she is pregnant...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Brothel | Countess | Sexual Repression | Dark Secret

Cast

Louise Brooks	...	Thymian
André Roanne	...	Count Nicolas Osdorff
Josef Rovenský	...	Robert Henning
Fritz Rasp	...	Meinert
Vera Pawlowa	...	Aunt Frieda
Franziska Kinz	...	Meta
Arnold Korff	...	Elder Count Osdorff
Andrews Engelmann	...	The director of the establishment
Valeska Gert	...	The director's wife
Edith Meinhard	...	Erika
Sybille Schmitz	...	Elisabeth
Sig Arno	...	Guest (as Siegfried Arno)
Kurt Gerron	...	Dr. Vitalis
Hedwig Schlichter
Hans Casparius
Jaro Fürth
Emmy Wyda
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marfa Kassatskaya		(as M. Kasazkaya)
Sylvia Torf
Michael von Newlinsky

Directed by
Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Margarete Böhme		novel
Rudolf Leonhardt		writer

Produced by
Georg Wilhelm Pabst	....	producer

Original Music by
Otto Stenzeel

Cinematography by
Sepp Allgeier
Fritz Arno Wagner

Art Direction by
Emil Hasler
Ernö Metzner

Production Management
Heinz Landsmann	....	unit production manager
Victor Skutezky	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Paul Falkenberg	....	assistant director
Marc Sorkin	....	assistant director

Production Companies

• Pabst-Film
• Hom-AG für Filmfabrikation

Also Known As:

Diary of a Lost Girl (USA)
Diário de Uma Perdida (Brazil) [pt]
Diario di una donna perduta (Italy) [it]
Dusze bez steru (Poland) [pl]
Dziennik upadlej dziewczyny (Poland) (informal literal title) [pl]
El diario de una joven perdida (Venezuela) [es]
Il diario di una ragazza perduta (Italy) [it]
Kadotetun päiväkirja (Finland) [fi]
Le journal d'une fille perdue (France) [fr]
Le journal d'une jeune fille perdue (Canada: French title) [fr]
Trois pages d'un journal (Belgium: French title) [fr]

Runtime:

104 min | Germany:100 min (restored version) (24 fps) | USA:79 min | 115 min (Kino Print)

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Pabst-Film

Goofs:

Continuity: The scene in the notary's office (for the reading of the will): Thymian moves over to the window and looks out. Meinert joins her, and puts his hand on her shoulder. The camera view suddenly changes, and his hand is no longer on her shoulder. It changes back to its original POV, and the position has changed again (though his hand is now drawing away from her shoulder).

Movie Connections:

Featured in Lulu in Berlin (1984)

The modern melodrama was born.

The melodrama we would love with Stahl's and Sirk's works was born with Pabst .We are far from DW Griffith's "orphans in the storm" !Although implausible,this film has realist accents and Pabst's directing takes our breath away.And what a beautiful last line:"Nobody's lost when there's a little love!"

Melodrama is par excellence a woman's story.An unfairly treated woman.Its construction is parabolic: happiness,downfall,redemption. But "Tagebuch" is much more complex;its first part already features tragedy:Elisabeth's suicide is a sinister omen.

Admirable sequences:

The reformatory where two martinets (a shrew and a terrifying smiling bald man)treat their pupils like dogs.The scene when the girls eat their soup is unforgettable.

The scene at the notary's office where Thymiane returns good for evil ,which climaxes the movie.Pabst uses no (or so few) subtitles : his pictures have the strength of a Chaplin movie.The close-up on Meinert's hand after the girl has refused to shake it,sublimates her redemption.

The final scene when Thymiane meets again her former mate and her final rebellion:"I know the benefits of that house!"

Like very few silent movies,"Tagebuch" can grab today's audience at least as much as "Pandora's box" (aka "Loulou" aka "der büchse der Pandora").Both movies have a very dense screenplay full of twists and unexpected ends -Loulou's death in the former;Thymiane's rebellion in the latter).Both feature Louise Brooks ,who remains an attractive woman even by today's canons when so many silent screen actresses'charm -and actors' - seems outdated nowadays (think of Brigitte Helm -Maria in Lang's masterpiece "Metropolis").Her charisma was so strong that she did not have to speak to move us.That may account for her failure in the talkies.

Do not miss Pabst's anti-war "West front 1918" either.It compares favorably to Milestone's "All quiet on the western front" and Gance's "J'accuse".