IMDb user comments for
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

advertisement

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Index

14 comments in total

---

9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Outstanding timeless classic of a story of genuine love beyond the powers of imagination., 9 aprile 2005
Author: grafspee da Ballard Queensland Australia

This tragic legendary story of the Flying Dutchman is expertly woven into a wonderful drama about the tale of a beautiful but spoiled destructive lover, night club singer Pandora Reynolds, the beautiful femme fatal played by Ava Gardner. Already giving her hand in marriage to racing car driver Stephen Cameron played by Nigel Patrick she meets the mystical owner of a strange yacht, played outstandingly by James Mason, which is anchored in the port off Esperanza Spain. She is immediately attracted to him and finds a new meaning to her life abandoning her selfish, spiteful deceit with her past life and her other suitors including jealous bull fighter Mario Cabre who kills Mason not knowing he has immortality and where Mason then shows up at a bullfight shocking the performing Cabre, and distracting him so, that he mortally wounded by an attacking bull.

Harold Warrender as archaeologist Geoffrey Fielding provides a brilliant narration of this story throughout the movie and holds it together with gentleman expertise.

The final part of this movie is absolutely moving with the fatal love scene between Mason and Gardner culminating in the cracked hour glass in which they succumb to their mortal qualities in a storm where their lives are consumed and he is released from his imposed curse of wandering the seven seas for an eternity until he could find a woman who was prepared to die for him. This movie was too far ahead of it's time to be fully appreciated by the audiences of the day.

This superb story and direction by Albert Lewin makes it a lost classic. Bring it back.

---

10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Real cinematic voyage, 13 agosto 2003

Author: casablancan da Bournemouth, England

You must make your own mind up here. This a rare movie but classic discovery. James Mason will disturb you as the Flying Dutchman. Ava Gardnar tries to be the star but Mason will remove you into the make believe world, that is the quality of this movie.

We don't see Mason for a while and we see Gardner a lot but this is a treat for the reasons that movies were made for. Its just beautiful and other comments like 'sentimental' or 'pretentious' are really stupid here.

This is great cinema like it should be. Of course nonesense but this is a world created successfully by the celluloid which is the whole purpose. Brilliant.

---

10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
See it for its visual qualities and forgive the melodrama and pretentiousness, 13 agosto 2001
Author: Geofbob da London, England

Albert Lewin's 1951 movie injects the Flying Dutchman legend into an upper-class English-speaking community in a small port in 1930s Spain. Ava Gardner, never more beautiful and just about to emerge as a star, is the Pandora of the title, a night-club singer and femme fatale, engaged to be married to a gentlemanly racing car driver (Nigel Patrick), but with a hotheaded bullfighter (Mario Cabré) eager to win her.

Enter the Flying Dutchman, Hendrick van der Zee, trying to find a woman willing to give up her life for him so he can gain release from his eternal roving of the seas. James Mason's performance as Hendrick is one of the main salvations of the movie. With his grace, good looks and wonderfully expressive voice, he is able to give credibility to situations and lines that would be fatal for other actors.

But the film's prime asset is its visual richness. At a straightforward level there is lovely Mediterranean scenery, and some great action sequences, notably the flamenco dancing, land-speed record, and bullfight scenes. Then there are quite a few references to surreal art, matching the surreal nature of the film, such as Hendrick's Chirico-like painting of Pandora, and a remarkable shot of her, lying on her back with the profile of her face in close-up, like a Dali painting. (The film is set on the Costa Brava, near Dali's home town of Cadaques.) And throughout, there is Jack Cardiff's creative camerawork in beautiful technicolor. These visual qualities outweigh such flaws as an intrusive voice-over, and the stress laid on the - for me - irrelevant "Moving Finger" quatrain from the Rubaiyat.

---

5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Do not be afraid to open the box...., 6 maggio 2006
Author: dbdumonteil

.... cause ,though a bit too long,"Pandora" is an unique film .It is part of those movies in which love refutes everything ,including space and time.It is continuously constructed and when it's over we have the strange feeling of having come full circle.

"Pandora" is wrapped in mystery and it renewed the genre which "Peter Ibbetson "and "portrait of Jennie" had pioneered in the thirties and late forties which "Somewhere in Time" (based on a Richard Matheson novel) would continue in the eighties.

Ava Gardner,the most beautiful woman of that era (and for me the most beautiful woman of all time) is ideally cast as the female lead.Who else could play such a gorgeous creature ?James Mason gives a tormented heartrending performance.

Albert Lewin made few movies but the best of them (the picture of Dorian Gray" "the private Affairs of Bel-Ami" ) are worth seeking out.The only real horror is "Saadia" which even Michel Simon could not redeem.

Ava Gardner and James Mason would play another legendary couple (real this time):Francis-Joseph and Elisabeth of Austria.("Mayerling",Terence Young,1968)

---

4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
A must-see for Gardner and Mason fans, 7 agosto 2001

Author: Malc-13 da Basingstoke England

There is much to enjoy in this legendary tale. The story is well told and quickly grabs the viewer. I thought the Spanish setting was perfect and the land speed record and bullfighting scenes in the main convincingly shot. The extraordinary use of Technicolor gives the whole picture an almost dream like ethereal look and many scenes have an almost surreal quality. The whole cast are splendid with Ava Gardner particularly spellbinding - I can't think of any actress today who could carry her role as convincingly.

---

4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Old style direction, but a timeless tale, 14 ottobre 2000

Author: stang4 da Los Angeles

For viewers from the age of the rock video, this movie is slow, and the direction is poor. But it's worth hanging with it. It will catch you up in a story that is gripping and ethereal. Ava Gardner, one of the sexiest stars in the history of Hollywood, is at her sexiest, and a young James Mason is at his best.

---

5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Melodramatic Fantasy, 27 agosto 2006

Author: bkoganbing da Buffalo, New York

Many a man might give up just about anything for a tumble with Ava Gardner. But what would Ava give up, would she give it all up for a man she truly loved?

That questioned is answered if not to everyone's complete satisfaction in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Ava's character of Pandora Reynolds, cabaret singer and jet-setter is a trial run for her later role of Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises.

She's a cool one Ava, one guy commits suicide over her, Nigel Patrick trashes a perfectly good car to prove something to her, even Harrold Warrender who has a sort of Van Helsing like role is not immune to her beauty and charm.

But the guy who's really taken with her is James Mason, the legendary Flying Dutchman. He's been cursed for about 300 years to sail the seas in search of a woman who would lay her life down for him. He gets to port once every seven years to search and he's put in on the northern coast of Spain this time.

The color photography by Jack Cardiff is nice, the scenery is almost as beautiful as Ava. But I think for this film to work, a more innocent type rather than the worldly Ms. Gardner would have to have been written into the story.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Absorbing, intense, and beautiful, 17 giugno 2008

Author: AdnanZ da Canada

Albert Lewin's work as director had not impressed me prior to seeing "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" I found myself frankly quite bored by his version of Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence" as well as "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami". "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has quite the reputation, but I unfortunately haven't seen it yet.

'Exceeded expectations' cannot begin to describe how surprised I was at how absorbing, intense, captivating, and utterly gorgeous "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" is. Sure, there are flaws, mostly in the script which occasionally seems to think it's smarter than it actually is and goes for the sort of intrusive voice-over narration that never fails to annoy, but also in scenes where Lewin's decisions as director become frustrating and in the score which is generally quite good but often overbearing.

Regardless of its flaws, "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" is a literate, creative, fairly original, and exceptionally well-acted film, with the exceptional feature of being photographed by Jack Cardiff OBE, who was on quite a run going into this film having photographed the three Powell/Pressburger classics from the 40's: "A Matter of Life and Death", "Black Narcissus", and "The Red Shoes" as well as the underrated if not exactly great 1949 Hitchcock offering "Under Capricorn". James Mason and Ava Gardner are really excellent here in the lead roles.

I was not looking forward to "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" but I found myself very pleasantly surprised by it. It's far from a perfect film but I did find it to be quite excellent; even the melodrama that tends to bother me in romances from this era of film worked in the context of this film. A surprisingly good film, overall.

8/10

---

2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Aspirational exploration of the best of what people can be., 17 ottobre 2005

Author: pat-attridge da United Kingdom

Ave Gardener and James Mason are perfectly cast for this epic unfolding and exploration of pure love. The love which is realised contrasts with and exceeds the self centred manifestations demonstrated by the other characters (who are colourful and vivid) and in its nobility and apparent brevity proves that context is what lends meaning to life. The final scenes are wonderfully free from restraining causes and effects with a judgement of love from....?* validating us all. The colours of the production is as intense as the mythic setting for the story and helps the suspension of disbelief. The setting is not of the same importance to the story as Shangri-la to the plot of 'Beyond the Blue Horizon' which explores similar issues of a man exploring a context to give meaning to what he is or could be. These are both aspects of the question we all eventually ask ourselves. * Insert your own conceptualisation of the divine here.

---

3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Ava at her peak, 26 novembre 2002
Author: denis-38 da Hoboken, nj

High 40's, high-camp talky surrealism and fantasy. Hypnotic and silly at the same time. Ava Gardner, as the heartless wanton playgirl made "good" by a supernatural love, is gasp-makingly beautiful. Jack Cardiff's cinematography captures this most gorgeous of all stars at the lush height of her looks. (But hey, even thirty years later, blousy and ravaged, Gardner was still a stunner--those bones!)

Especially recommended for Gardner fans and devotee's (sp?) of rich, artifical movie color. If only nature had so compelling a palette.

---

---

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Voti
Premi	External reviews	Plot keywords
Dettagli principali	Your user comments	Your vote history