PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

Year: 1950
UK: Park Circus
Cast: James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Mario Cabre, Marius Goring, John Laurie, Pamela Kellino, Patricia Raine, Margarita D'Alvarez, La Pillina
Director: Albert Lewin
Country: UK
UK: 124 mins
UK Certificate: PG contains mild violence and references to suicide
UK Release Date: 14 May 2010 (Limited Release)


Synopsis

Originally released in 1951, PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN is iconoclastic filmmaker Albert Lewin’s deliriously romantic and contemporary Technicolor™ visualisation of the often told legend of the sea, starring two of Hollywood’s most popular performers. Ava Gardner, in a thinly veiled portrait of herself, is Pandora, who falls hard for James Mason as Hendrik, a 17th century seaman eternally condemned to sail the oceans.

This classic Lewin film, PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN was a production made independently of the Hollywood studios, and its original camera negative has been presumed lost for several decades. Working from a nitrate separation positive and other sources, George Eastman House has supervised a painstaking 35mm restoration of the film, bringing back the rich palette of deep, sensuous colours utilised by renowned cinematographer Jack Cardiff.