236. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

Directed by Albert Lewin

Synopsis

Pandora is a bar singer spending her holidays on the Spanish coast with a bunch of friends, most of whom are in love with her, there is a yacht on the coast, and they jokingly start talking about the Flying Dutchman living there. Well it is true, and he must find a woman who loves him and is willing to die for him, the very aloof Pandora does, and is more than willing to die for him.

Review

This was a strange film, it doesn't really fit into any of the categories of the time it was made in. It is a film which seems to be in the tradition of Magical Realism, but there was no Magical Realism at the time.

It is also somewhat strange in that, at the time, it was called pretentious, but after the swathes of Merchant-Ivory films that have been made since then it really doesn't look like it to our eyes. Well, doesn't look any more pretentious than most of those films.

It is also an extremely literate film without being based on any printed work of fiction. It defies most categorisation but it ultimately works as a great piece of cinematic art. It is beautifully shot in Technicolor, and pretty well acted, but it kind of needs to be seen to be understood, and I would strongly advise you to do so.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From IMDB:

* The first feature film in color for Ava Gardner.

* For still photography of Ava Gardner, producer Albert Lewin hired his friend, the famous surrealist artist Man Ray.

* The tavern "Las Dos Tortugas" shares the same name (but in a different language) as the tavern "The Two Turtles" in Albert Lewin's earlier The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).

* Man Ray also painted the paintings and designed the chess set.

Tribute to Ava Gardner, the opening scene and the song she is singing is actually form Pandora and The Flying Dutchman: