# Diary of a Lost Girl
*Diary of a Lost Girl* (German: *Tagebuch einer Verlorenen*) is a 1929 German silent melodrama directed by G. W. Pabst and starring the American actress [Louise Brooks](https://www.edgepedia.org/louise-brooks) as Thymian, a young woman driven from her home, through a reformatory, and into prostitution after being seduced by her father's assistant. It was the second and final collaboration between Pabst and Brooks, following *Pandora's Box* earlier the same year, and it adapts Margarete Böhme's controversial 1905 novel of the same title.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) • [2](https://kinolorber.com/film/diaryofalostgirl)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Tagebuch einer Verlorenen*[3](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/tagebuch-einer-verlorenen_ea43d4a6bb9b5006e03053d50b37753d) |
| Director and star | G. W. Pabst; Louise Brooks as Thymian Henning[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) |
| Literary source | Margarete Böhme's 1905 novel, which had sold more than 1.2 million copies by the time of the film; Pabst's version was the third screen adaptation[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) |
| Premieres | Vienna, September 27, 1929 (12 cinemas); Berlin, October 15, 1929, at the U.T. Kurfürstendamm[3](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/tagebuch-einer-verlorenen_ea43d4a6bb9b5006e03053d50b37753d) |
| Censorship | Banned by the German state censor on December 5, 1929; re-released January 6, 1930 after cuts[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) |
| Principal crew | Screenplay Rudolf Leonhardt; cinematography Sepp Allgeier; production Hom-Film AG and Pabst-Film GmbH[3](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/tagebuch-einer-verlorenen_ea43d4a6bb9b5006e03053d50b37753d) |
| Restoration | 1997 reconstruction by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna with the Deutsches Filminstitut and the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, running about 112 minutes[4](https://www.filmportal.de/node/38587/stock) • [2](https://kinolorber.com/film/diaryofalostgirl) |
## Spoilers
### Story and source
The film follows Thymian Henning, the daughter of a middle-class pharmacist, who is seduced by her father's assistant Meinert, becomes pregnant, and is rejected by her family. After bearing an illegitimate child she is sent to a harshly run reformatory, escapes with the help of Count Osdorff, and ends up working in a high-class brothel, where she eventually gains a measure of control over her circumstances.[2](https://kinolorber.com/film/diaryofalostgirl) • [5](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88644--diary-of-a-lost-girl-das-tagebuch-einer-verlorenen/)
Böhme's novel, first published in Germany in 1905, was a literary sensation that drew debate and lawsuits, and by the end of the 1920s had sold more than 1,200,000 copies. German, French, and Polish advertisements for Pabst's film emphasized this literary pedigree, some noting the sales figure. Pabst's film was the third cinematic adaptation of the book, after versions directed by Fritz Bernhardt in 1912 and Richard Oswald in 1918, both now considered lost films.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) • [6](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/8353160-the-diary-of-a-lost-girl)
Pabst changed the source's ending. Böhme's novel kills Thymian off with consumption, a standard of nineteenth-century melodrama; the film instead lets her survive and, by the end, gain control of her life. Pabst reportedly wanted to end the film with Thymian as the madam of the brothel, but censorship pressures led to the reinstatement-to-society ending the film now carries.[7](https://www.notcoming.com/reviews/diaryofalostgirl/)
## Production
Production took place in Germany between June 17 and July 26, 1929. Much of the film was shot in and around Berlin, including at Staaken on the city's western rim, while the beach-resort scenes were filmed on the Baltic coast at Swinemünde, now Świnoujście in northwestern Poland.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/)
Brooks came to the project directly from the *Pandora's Box* shoot. According to her own account, Pabst called her in Paris, where a planned [René Clair](https://www.edgepedia.org/rene-clair) collaboration, *Prix de Beauté*, had stalled, and offered her the lead in *Diary of a Lost Girl* at half her then salary; she took the next train to Berlin.[8](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1979/06/11/louise-brooks-tells-all) The supporting cast included Fritz Rasp as Meinert, André Roanne as Count Nicolas Osdorff, Josef Rovenský as Thymian's father, Edith Meinhard as Erika, Valeska Gert as the reformatory director's wife, and Kurt Gerron as Dr. Vitalis.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/)
The film belongs to the German "street film" tradition of the mid-1920s, in the spirit of the [New Objectivity](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-objectivity) (*Die Neue Sachlichkeit*): topical and grimly realistic rather than expressionist. Its target is bourgeois hypocrisy. Thymian's family home, the regimented reformatory, and even her later marriage are each presented as institutions that fail her, while the brothel, by contrast, is shown as a place of camaraderie.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1196072/diary-of-a-lost-girl)
## Release and censorship
The film premiered in Vienna on September 27, 1929, and made its German debut at the U.T. Kurfürstendamm in Berlin on October 15, 1929.[3](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/tagebuch-einer-verlorenen_ea43d4a6bb9b5006e03053d50b37753d) German censors had already passed a cut version in September 1929 with a youth prohibition, and on December 5, 1929 the higher censor board banned the film outright and it was withdrawn from circulation. After further cuts, the ban was lifted on January 6, 1930, and the film was re-released in this censored form, playing across Europe and the Soviet Union; a Madrid cine-club screened it as late as 1933.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) • [10](https://difarchiv.deutsches-filminstitut.de/filme/f000189.htm)
The cuts damaged the film. It was poorly received, partly because sound film was arriving and interest in silent cinema was fading, and partly because continued censorship and cutting left its story, in the words of the Louise Brooks Society's filmography, "in shambles." A famous casualty was a brothel scene in which a client cannot perform unless a drumbeat accompanies him.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) • [9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1196072/diary-of-a-lost-girl)
## Reception
Contemporary reviews were largely negative, sometimes for reasons unrelated to the film itself. Brooks's biographer Barry Paris notes that some German critics devoted their columns to attacking Böhme's then 25-year-old book; the critic Siegfried Kracauer was among them, later writing in *From Caligari to Hitler* (1946) that the novel's popularity rested on "the slightly pornographic frankness with which it recounted the private life of some prostitutes from a morally elevated point of view." Variety's Berlin correspondent called Brooks "monotonous in the tragedy which she has to present."[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/)
The film then faded from view. It was not shown in the United States until the 1950s and received no American theatrical release until the 1980s. Recent restorations have brought renewed attention, and some critics now rank it among the last great silent films and the near equal of *Pandora's Box*.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/)
## Restoration and home video
The film is extant, though material including a downbeat final scene is likely missing. A 1997 restoration by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, in collaboration with the Deutsches Filminstitut and the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, was based on the only three known existing nitrate positive prints, from the Cinémathèque Française, the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, and the Sodre archive in [Montevideo](https://www.edgepedia.org/montevideo); it restored most scenes originally cut by German censors and recovered a key brothel scene. The Murnau Stiftung distributes this restoration at about 112 minutes.[4](https://www.filmportal.de/node/38587/stock) • [11](https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201210/22/P201210190445_print.htm) • [12](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/sites/default/files/pdf/Film%20Distributions%20DCP%20Silent%20films_Murnau-Stiftung%20dated%2001-2026.pdf)
[Home video](https://www.edgepedia.org/home-video) editions followed, including a Kino Lorber Blu-ray released in October 2015, mastered in HD from archival 35mm elements, with a piano score by Javier Pérez de Azpeitia and commentary by Thomas Gladysz, director of the Louise Brooks Society.[1](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/) • [2](https://kinolorber.com/film/diaryofalostgirl) The film is also available on streaming services.[13](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/diary-of-a-lost-girl)
## References
1. [Diary of a Lost Girl (filmography page), Louise Brooks Society](https://www.pandorasbox.com/films-of-louise-brooks/diary_of_a_lost_girl/)
2. [Diary of a Lost Girl, Kino Lorber Theatrical](https://kinolorber.com/film/diaryofalostgirl)
3. [Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/tagebuch-einer-verlorenen_ea43d4a6bb9b5006e03053d50b37753d)
4. [Bestandskatalog: Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/node/38587/stock)
5. [Diary of a lost girl = Das Tagebuch einer verlorenen, ACMI collection](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88644--diary-of-a-lost-girl-das-tagebuch-einer-verlorenen/)
6. [The Diary of a Lost Girl by Margarete Böhme, Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/8353160-the-diary-of-a-lost-girl)
7. [Diary of a Lost Girl review, Not Coming to a Theater Near You](https://www.notcoming.com/reviews/diaryofalostgirl/)
8. [Louise Brooks Tells All, The New Yorker (1979)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1979/06/11/louise-brooks-tells-all)
9. [Diary of a Lost Girl, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1196072/diary-of-a-lost-girl)
10. [Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, Deutsches Filminstitut archive](https://difarchiv.deutsches-filminstitut.de/filme/f000189.htm)
11. [HK Film Archive Restored Treasures press release (2012)](https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201210/22/P201210190445_print.htm)
12. [Film distribution DCP silent films, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/sites/default/files/pdf/Film%20Distributions%20DCP%20Silent%20films_Murnau-Stiftung%20dated%2001-2026.pdf)
13. [Diary of a Lost Girl streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/diary-of-a-lost-girl)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › European national silent cinemas*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license