Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Pandora Reynolds is a beautiful American singer living in a Spanish coastal town, where several men vie for her attention and are willing to sacrifice everything for her. She seems unable to return any of their feelings, and one admirer takes his own life when he realizes she will never choose him. A race driver and a bullfighter continue to pursue her, but her attention shifts to a mysterious captain, Hendrik van der Zee, who arrives aboard a yacht anchored offshore. He is drawn to Pandora as well, yet he carries a curse that allows him only a brief span of ordinary life before he must return to the sea. Whether their connection can free him depends on how far she is willing to go for love.

Albert Lewin wrote and directed the film, which followed his adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray six years earlier and was his second feature as director. Ava Gardner stars as Pandora alongside James Mason as van der Zee, with Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender and Mario Cabré in supporting roles, part of a credited cast of twenty-eight. Shot in the United Kingdom on a budget of two million dollars, the film was released in April 1951. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from roughly 5,400 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.8 from a much smaller pool of 126 votes.