Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Only one demerit might be charged against the picture and that is its dalliance, either with beautiful scenery, or mood, or special situation. Off and on the story is halted for peculiar and eccentric excursions of this kind. These sequences are peculiarly interesting and individual in themselves, even though Pandora and the Flying Dutchman might be a stronger film without them.

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.

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.

This strange, neglected Technicolor fable, with photography that’s edibly lush even by Jack Cardiff’s standards, wasn’t made by Powell and Pressburger, but feels as if it might have been.

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.

One of the epic star vehicles of Ava Gardner‘s career earned a nice restoration a couple of years back. So if nothing else, Ava at her peak in glorious Technicolor should be lure enough to draw one to “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.”