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Movie 1951 |
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
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Geoffrey Fielding: [about Pandora and the Dutchman] I know now that they were in love. But I have a feeling that they never spoke of it.
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Pandora Reynolds: [looking at Hendrik's painting of her] It's not like I am at all. But it's who I'd like to be.
[looking at Hendrik]
Pandora Reynolds: Why am I not like that?
Hendrik: Perhaps you haven't found what you want yet, perhaps you're unfulfilled. Perhaps you don't even know what you want, perhaps you're discontented. Discontentment often finds vent through malice and destruction.
Pandora Reynolds: [suddenly angry] Malice and destruction, is that what you think? Well perhaps I can find something here to destroy.
Hendrik: I'm quite certain you will.
Pandora Reynolds: Your painting of me perhaps. Would you like me to destroy your painting?
Hendrik: [calmly] If it would help to quiet your soul.
Pandora Reynolds: How long have you worked on it?
Hendrik: [still perfectly calm] Does it matter?
Pandora Reynolds: [picks up a palette knife] Shall I do it then?
Hendrik: By all means.
Pandora Reynolds: [Pandora uses the knife to scratch out the face of the painted Pandora. Hendrik watches then calmly and wordlessly comes over to inspect the damage]
[stunned by his calmness]
Pandora Reynolds: Aren't you angry?
Hendrik: I was angry once before. I can never be angry again.
Pandora Reynolds: [pause, then quietly] You've made me feel quite ashamed of myself. It's a new emotion, I'm not sure I like it.
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Geoffrey Fielding: To understand one human soul is like trying to empty the sea with a cup.
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Hendrik: [after saying there is no such thing as a faithful woman] If this be folly, and upon me proved, then let the Divinity which I reject, make what sport He will of my immortal soul!
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Geoffrey Fielding: The measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it.
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Judge: I pity you not MY doom, but GOD'S!
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Amazon.com
There are few films that can be acclaimed as truly mad, but Pandora and the Flying Dutchman stands rather wonderfully in this category. Its combination of lust and erudition is inspired by mythology but seems peopled by characters from some hybrid novel co-authored by Somerset Maugham and Ernest Hemingway. Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner) is a singer in a coastal town in Spain, where her hobby is attracting the devoted love of powerful men made helpless in her presence. (A race-car driver blithely pushes his one-of-a-kind vehicle over a cliff, just to earn her trust.) While fending off other suitors, including a bullfighter, she becomes intrigued by the mystery man (James Mason) whose yacht is moored offshore. Since he is Dutch, perhaps he is related to the mythical, immortal Flying Dutchman? Don't think it can't happen in this overheated affair. Gardner and Mason are not at their best (she looks ultra-glamorous, of course), but their movie-star wattage is high. The real star is the Technicolor cinematography by the great Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes); the throbbing colors are just right for the unreal scenario playing out before us. Writer-director Albert Lewin, probably best known for his Picture of Dorian Gray, had a literary bent, and in this movie that means people are constantly planting their feet and reciting snippets of poetry toward the moonlit sea. Somehow this fits in perfectly with the rest of the delirium. --Robert Horton
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