James Mason played the legendary Flying Dutchman in the 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Ava Gardner co-starred as Pandora Reynolds, the woman whose relationship with him drives the story.
The Flying Dutchman is a maritime legend about a captain condemned to sail indefinitely, usually because of an act of defiance or blasphemy. Different versions give the curse different conditions, but the film uses the familiar idea that only a woman’s self-sacrificing love can end it.
Mason was an English actor celebrated for his controlled voice and intense screen presence. In this film, he plays Hendrik van der Zee, a wealthy and enigmatic man whose identity is gradually connected to the supernatural legend. The character is not the Greek mythological Pandora’s husband; the film combines the name Pandora with a separate European seafaring tradition.