Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Plot

In September 1930, fishermen in the fictional Spanish port of Esperanza find the bodies of a man and a woman in their nets. The church bells bring the police and archaeologist Geoffrey Fielding to the beach. Geoffrey returns to his villa and, breaking the fourth wall, retells the story of these two people, beginning the previous March. All the men love her, but she cannot love anyone.

When admirer Reggie Demarest commits suicide by drinking poisoned wine, Pandora shows indifference and says she is relieved by his death. She tests her admirers by demanding they give up something they value. She agrees to marry land-speed record holder Stephen Cameron after he sends his racing car into the sea at her request. That night, Dutch captain Hendrik van der Zee arrives.

Swimming out to his yacht, Pandora finds him painting her as her namesake, Pandora. Hendrik falls in love with her and moves into the same hotel complex. Geoffrey and Hendrik collaborate on archaeological finds, including a notebook in Old Dutch that confirms Geoffrey's suspicion that Hendrik is the Flying Dutchman, a 17th-century captain who murdered his wife and blasphemed at his trial. Before his execution, a mysterious force freed him, and a dream revealed he was doomed to sail eternally unless he found a woman who loved him enough to die for him. Every seven years, he can go ashore for six months to search.

Production

Albert Lewin, an MGM producer, was able to produce Pandora due to the postponement of Quo Vadis in 1949. The film was co-financed by Romulus Films and was an early picture from the Woolf brothers, James and John. It was primarily filmed in Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava in Catalonia, Spain, though the land speed record scenes were shot at Pendine Sands in Wales. A statue of Gardner was erected in Tossa de Mar in 1996.

Most dialogue is in English, but some characters speak Catalan and Spanish. Artist Man Ray, a friend of Lewin, produced sets including cubist-style chess pieces and several paintings. In the United States, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer delayed the film until after the release of Gardner's star-making performance in Show Boat (1951). A digitally restored version was released in February 2020, with the Cohen Media Group funding a 4K version involving over 700 hours of digital restoration on 177,120 frames.

Reception

MGM records show Pandora and the Flying Dutchman brought in $1,247,000 in the US and Canada and $354,000 internationally. Other figures put its cost at £308,800, with producer income reaching £225,000. Kinematograph Weekly named it a notable performer at British cinemas in 1951. Howard Thompson of The New York Times gave a mixed review, calling it a serious, complex but unexciting exploration of passions and sublime love, while praising Jack Cardiff's inventive cinematography for capturing ghostly qualities and Spanish settings. On Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of 34 critics' reviews are positive.