Summer holidays and another visit to the Portuguese Cinematheque in Lisbon provide the opportunity to write about another “classic” or, as in the preferred MacMahonian taxonomy, an oldie.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman was the 4th feature film directed by Albert Lewin, Hollywood eccentric extraordinaire whose sporadic (6 films in 15 years) but fascinating output was very much in fashion back in the 80s, when all things flamboyant/kitsch/camp/fake for their own sake were sort of in critic favour, having subsequently slightly undeservedly resubmerged into relative oblivion.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, as the title sort of lets on, incongruously mixes both myths, Ava Gardner playing the latter and James Mason the former, set in Thirties Spain, with bullfights, Flamenco dancers and Gypsy-looking Spaniards (btw the art direction, reproducing 30s fashions from a early 50s standpoint is one of the film's delights). Ava's Pandora has more than a bit of the Messalina in her and her wanton lust for life never fails to destroy all the men who meet and fall for her till she herself falls for the Dutchman with predictably tragic consequences.
Pandora is the type of film the reputation of which 80s camp hype did no favours to once the fad passed and it could be accused of having more style than substance, its ponderous style sometimes verging on the farcical, but (by this order) Ava Gardner's Olympian appeal, Jack Cardiff's dreamy photography and Nigel Richards (playing one of Pandora's not-so-secret admirers) off-narration assist Lewin in conjuring an atmosphere of eerie ominousness throughout.
Pandora is a weird hybrid, a major production with a B-movie feeling, part minor gem part silly mess, but intriguing and ultimately alluring.