PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951)

Cast

Plot

Hendrik van der Zee has been cursed to sail the seas for the murder of his wife. The only way to break the curse is to find a woman willing to die for him. After 300 years in purgatory, Fredrik sails into a Spanish port and encounters the beautiful Pandora, a woman whose elegant wasted life consists of enthralling men and treating them with a diffidence that is easily mistaken for cruelty. As both protagonists fall for each other we are left wondering if Pandora could be the one to secure the mariner's salvation? With its mythological themes, literary and classical references and a Hemingway-esque atmosphere of a lost generation of idle rich, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman exudes a strange feeling of otherness. Add to this Jack Cardiff's vivid Technicolor cinematography and it is easy to see why Martin Scorsese said that 'watching this film is like entering a strange wonderful dream'. Enchanting!