Pandora

.... 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)

For many reasons, I love it. First, off course, for Ava Gardner and James Mason. Second, for seductive perspective about the legend of the Flying Dutchman. In same measure, for the true romance, old fashion, dramatic, gentle, softy, powerful, magical. For the painting, reminding so much the art of de Chirico , for Rubayyat and for the flavor of tauromachia in very inspired manner. For delicate poetry and for all the flavors, from sea to blood. A beautiful, in real profound sense, film.

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.

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.

The mystical romance between a society girl (AVA GARDNER) and a man condemned to roam the seas and only hit port every seven years (JAMES MASON) is brought to the screen with handsome production values and gorgeous Technicolor. But the story itself, while it has many original touches, never really brings the characters or their motivations to life. The explanations are there, but they ring hollow for the sort of outrageous behavior committed by the principals, including peripheral characters such as the swaggering bullfighter and a racing car driver who's impulsive enough to crash his car into the ocean to prove his devotion to Pandora. NIGEL PATRICK is excellent in the pivotal role of the man who loves Pandora unwisely.

Albert Lewin, the director, seems drawn to these kind of other world stories, having done some of his best work in the fantasy genre, as for example with THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. Aspects of that tale are present here, with Mason as an artist who at the film's start is painting a portrait of Pandora, a woman he's not yet met but is fated to encounter very shortly.

The mystical elements aren't drawn together too convincingly but seem more like pieces of a puzzle that are missing and will never be found.

Ava Gardner was at the peak of her beauty and is well cast as Pandora in a role that might have easily been played by another star of that era, Rita Hayworth. Mason manages to look grimly determined on cue and gives an effortless performance as the Flying Dutchman, but this is a film that is not likely to have wide appeal outside of patrons who can appreciate its artistic leanings.

Nevertheless, it's a "must see" for fans of either Ava Gardner or James Mason even though their characters are not as strongly realized by the scriptwriter as one could wish. Fortunately, the chemistry between them does click.