Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (2020)

You won't be disappointed!

Masterful Movie

A lot of fun.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

I've always liked both Ava Gardner and James Mason, who, together, form a memorable duo. However, the movie wastes their considerable talent and star quality. "Pandora" is a singularly overheated take on the Flying Dutchman legend, overflowing with colour ! passion ! thrills ! romance ! music ! exotic scenery ! (I'm adding the exclamation marks because, basically, this is what the movie itself does, all of the time.) "Pandora" is not only overheated, it is also deeply confused. You get large dollops of Christian religion and theology, ancient myth, musings about Feminity, famous poetry and so on : it is all thrown together without much taste or discernment.Some suspense, or some sense of suspense, might have helped, but sadly the title and the first ten minutes or so give away most of both plot AND ending. (Who makes this kind of weird decisions ? It's pretty much like making a movie about a blind and shy heiress who finds true love in the arms of a lesbian war veteran, and then calling your movie "The story of a blind and shy heiress who finds true love in the arms of a lesbian war veteran".)There is a lot of colour in the movie, both in a factual and in a "couleur locale" sense. As befits a nicely overheated movie shot in Spain, the viewer is treated to a full collection of clichés about Spain : bull fighting, matadors, Catholicism, knives, fiery tempers, gypsies, ominous predictions above cards announcing "Death". It's somewhat like Bizet's "Carmen", minus the wit, imagination and relevance.I'm still throwing the movie five stars - but this is mainly because I like both Gardner and Mason. We've all got our weaknesses...A small cultural note : here in Belgium too we are familiar with the "Flying Dutchman" legend. However, the version I've heard was quite different from the one shown in the movie. In this version, the captain of a ship was punished for sailing (meaning working) on a Good Friday, which should be a universally respected day of rest and meditation. He is now doomed to navigate his impious ship for all eternity...

A British fantasy-drama draws inspiration from the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost-ship can never approach port and is doomed to sail forever in the sea, and revamped by writer/director Albert Lewin into a lachrymose romance between a Dutch captain, the selfsame Flying Dutchman, Hendrick van der Zee (Mason), and a drop-dead gorgeous Pandora Reynolds (Gardner), in a fictitious port town Esperanza, Spain.Pandora is surrounded by admirers, some of them are expatriate Britons, one of them even gulps a poisoned wine and kills himself in the occasion of the first anniversary their acquaintance, to the dismay of her indifference, and she doesn't even care to raise an eyebrow. However, an unremitting British racing driver Stephen Cameron (Patrick) almost wins her over by pushing his state-of-the- art racing car over the cliff just to prove his undying love, because Pandora calculates the measurement of love by how much a man can give up for loving her (soon she will discover what she has to give up for love as well). They are engaged! But there is an "almost", it is clear as day that she doesn't love Stephen, or any other man, including the spunky torero Juan Montalvo (Cabré).Can she ever love somebody after being created as a perfect specimen of female desirability? Only in the fantasy, maybe, so one night, beckoned by a mysterious ship anchored near the beach, Pandora swims to the ship and finds Hendrick, the sole being on board, is uncannily drawing a painting (a work made by Lewin's friend Man Ray) with exact her image, there are connections between them far beyond this life, as it will reveal, Hendrick is a perpetual wandering soul on the sea, under the curse that only a woman who is willing to die for him because of uncontaminated, unconditional love, can he be set free from the eternity of exile for his blasphemy and spur-of-the- moment sin. Here, the whole foolish and intrinsically jaundiced perspective of treating beautiful women as the ultimate sacrifice to assuage men's guilty over their own idiotic wrongdoings, is ghastly behind our times, which tolls the death knell for this otherwise handsomely and picturesquely shot piece of supernatural romance in Technicolor by cinematographer Jack Cardiff, its close cousin should be William Dieterle's PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948).The opening, has already given away the forbidding end, and the film is mostly narrated by Pandora's friend, a British archaeologist Geoffrey Fielding (Warrender), who is in the safe age range to stay as a bystander with a morally superior eye, and sometimes by Hendrick himself, to cursorily introduce his past to viewers, those orations are ornate and over-literary, James Mason has been ill-fitted for the role, dour, ponderous and a complete misfit for Ms. Gardner's glamour turn, but as it always the case, whether it is Clark Gable in John Ford's MOGAMBO (1953), or Richard Burton in John Huston's THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964), Gardner can hardly find an equal worth her divine beauty and unrestrained candour, she is Pandora in real life, that's a tailor- made role of her no doubt, but the movie only resounds with a disappointing meh, no torrid flamenco, record-breaking car-racing, or corrida extravaganza can save the damp squib.

I had heard that this was another exquisitely filmed fantasy by Jack Cardiff. Indeed it is. I saw the TCM version with restored color; some of the color was off. but the color overall was great. The Technicolor was fantastic in spots. It was often moody, eerie. bright, strange contrasts….wow! There were compositions that were quite striking. Some of the costumes, mainly Gardner's clothing, was also eye catching. Thus, I was quite happy with this movie as a visual experience.This was meant to be an ethereal, supernatural, great love fantasy. This gave Cardiff the freedom to stray from the ordinary to weave in his great shots. A far away fantasy is compatible with experimental photography, especially with color: a realistic story would be hindered by such photography. This is the advantage of this film to me. However, it is also a disadvantage; I do not particularly appreciate ethereal, supernatural, romantic fantasy I did like the over-the-top beginning with men throwing themselves at a disinterested Ava Gardner. While I realize that this was to set up her great sacrifice at the end, it was almost comedy. She was testing out the idea that love can be measured by what one was willing to give up for it. Apparently the numerous men in her life did not give up enough (including their lives) to interest her.. Yet, the men just kept coming begging her to marry them. It didn't seem to bother them that she was a very high maintenance gal to begin with and that she didn't disguise the contempt in which she held them. Oh, well. Gardner is pretty and has some unusual "come hither" looks, but why she was such a femme fatale escapes me.She falls for James Mason. Why him? Well, he was immortal. This is ordinarily an advantage, but it is a disadvantage in this movie. She has to die so that he can die (and finds salvation). There is a lot of yadda yadda about this at the end. Talking about love never works well in the movies, but it works least well when the love is ethereal, supernatural, and not photographed in any special way in these scenes. On and on. Boring.Still, this is well worth seeing if color and photography interest you.

A beautiful 1951 fantasy. James Mason plays the Flying Dutchman-Hendrik van der Zee--who is doomed to sail the seas until he finds a woman who will die for him. He meets gorgeous Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner) who happens to look just like his dead wife...but he won't tell her he's a ghost. Naturally she falls for him.The plot is predictable and silly (even for a fantasy) and the dialogue is terrible--people make speeches and verbalize ALL their feelings. The pace is also way too slow and they throw in a silly subplot about bullfighter Juan Motalvo (badly played by Mario Cabre). But the film is absolutely beautiful to watch. The colors are deep and rich and every frame is like a beautiful picture. Gardner and Mason were young and look impossibly beautiful. Some of their shots took my breath away! It was shot in Spain and the settings were gorgeous. Also it's beautifully directed and has a wonderful score. Gardner and Mason are as good as anyone can be in this and everybody else--save for Cabre--are very good. So it's beautiful to watch but the silly dialogue (no one talks like the people here) and slow pace made this hard to sit through.