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United Kingdom · 1951
2h 2m
Director Albert Lewin
Starring James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim
Genre Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
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Albert Lewin's interpretation of the legend of the Flying Dutchman. In Esperanza, a little Spanish seaport, a mysterious man appears aboard an otherwise empty ship. This is captain Hendrick van der Zee. He begins a torrid love affair with Pandora, a beautiful woman who men would kill for, but he has his own deadly secret.
Lewin brings off the near-impossible task of positing a transcendent love in a sceptical age, succeeding through his own conviction, and indeed because Gardner, in the role of a lifetime, seems as much screen goddess as mere mortal – an apotheosis rendered by cameraman Jack Cardiff in Technicolor so heady it’s the stuff of legend.
Paste Magazine by Andrew Crump
Gardner’s a timeless actress, and it’s through her that Pandora and the Flying Dutchman gains its own timelessness. She’s so cool and controlled that any time the film starts tipping over the edge from fantasy to absurdity, her mere presence grounds it.
It's set on the suitably exotic locale of a Spanish fishing village – shortly before its obliteration by hotel development, you have to assume – and although everyone moves and speaks at about half normal pace, it all works wonderfully well: Gardner, especially, just glows on the screen.
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