Film

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1950)

Director: Albert Lewin

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Lewin's extraordinary film is based on the story of the unfortunate sailor doomed to travel the oceans for all time until he finds a woman who loves him so much that she will sacrifice her own life for his salvation. The legend is updated to a Spanish village in the '30s where various men compete for the affections of Pandora, a beautiful young American (Gardner), and where Mason's mysterious yacht puts into harbour. Lewin combines a script of exuberant literacy with a visual splendour often bordering on the surreal. Mason is his usual impeccable self, while Gardner is gloriously believable as a woman for whom any man would be prepared to suffer eternal damnation. Occasionally absurd, always bold, the film tells a lushly romantic story so skilfully that it possesses the inevitability of myth.

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