Pandora and the Flying Dulchman

Moonlight slithered down through the cool breeze that came off the Mediterranean to toy with Pandora's the small yacht which nestled at anchor in the cove below.

"Reggic," she purred, "would you do anything in the world I asked you to; would Reggie?"

"Anything," swore Reggie,

"Would you push your brand new racing car that could win you the world's speed record over the cliff for me Reggie?"

Reggie gasped, struggled for a moment, then--"Yes."

"Do it Reggie," she breathed.

And Reggie pushed his brand new racing car that could win him the world's speed record over the cliff. All for Pandora.

But men would do anything for Pandora, that Witch of Esperanto, that dare-all and do-all of Las Dos Tortugas. A rich playboy killed himself for her. A famous bullfighter killed someone else, or tried to, for her. But these mere men were not for her.

Only the flying Dutchman, whom fate told her was waiting on that strange yacht in the cove, was for Pandora, "the darling of the gods." He'd been alive and roaming the seven seas with a ghost crew for seven times seven years. So she stripped and swam out to his yacht. And a tidal wave swept over the yacht and killed Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, which, our narrator assured us, was a good thing. Our narrator was a man of consumate wisdom, a Greek scholar and bearded, and his word on affairs of this sort cannot be questioned.

Between these highlights occurs a bullfight where the matador is gored to death, an auto race against time in which Reggie zooms, at 250 miles an hour, across the sands of Esperanta with his engine on fire and crashes it into the sea, an inquisition trial which took place several centuries before, a wild gypsy dance, and a circus stunt in which a girl in an evening gown walks on her hands and giggles all at the same time.

Our narrator kept the stray bits of Greek, Chinese, Persian, Nietzscheian, Freudian, and existentialist philosophy together, and still appeared on the screen long enough to keep the picture together.

The Pandora and Flying Dutchman legends are merely fantasies. When interwoven, somewhat crudely, yet credibly, with a collection of themes like Greek ideas of tragedy, and masochist thoughts of self torture and sadism, they make a fantastic and thoroughly fascinating picture.

Ava Gardner portrays the epitome of seductresses with the slight imperfection of a North Chicago accent. James Mason tends to play Oedipus into the role of the Dutchman, but these two minor defects are more than atoned for by the alluring, but not lurid color, the exotic setting, and the originality of the cameraman. The Basques are genuine and speak real Basque. The Spaniards are real, too. Only the plot is unbelievable--after the screen goes white and the lights go up.