Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is a 1951 British drama film made by Romulus Films and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States. The film was directed by Albert Lewin and produced by Lewin and Joe Kaufmann from his own screenplay, based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman. It was filmed mainly on the Costa Brava. The land record speed scenes were shot at Pendine Sands in Wales.
The film starred Ava Gardner and James Mason, featuring Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Mario Cabré and Marius Goring. The cinematographer was Jack Cardiff. Most of the movie was shot on location in Tossa de Mar, Catalonia, Spain, where a statue of Gardner has been erected on the hill overlooking the town's main beach.
In 1930, fishermen in the small Catalan port of Esperanza make a grim discovery in their nets, the bodies of a man and a woman. The resultant ringing of church bells in the village brings the local police and the resident archaeologist, Geoffrey Fielding (Harold Warrender), to the beach. Fielding returns to his villa, and, breaking the "fourth wall", retells the story of these two people to the audience.
Esperanza's small group of English expatriates revolves around Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner), an American nightclub singer and femme fatale. All the men love her (or believe that they do), but Pandora is unable to love anyone.
She tests her admirers by demanding they give up something they value, citing Geoffrey Fielding's quote that the "measure of love is how much you are willing to sacrifice for it." One of her admirers (Marius Goring) even commits suicide in front of Pandora and her friends by drinking wine that he has laced with poison, but Pandora apparently shows indifference.
Clasificación [ CM DVD 00849 ] Disponible en DVD, 4 Piso BJB)