Which 1951 film pairs the name Pandora with the legendary Flying Dutchman?

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is the 1951 film that pairs Pandora with the legendary Flying Dutchman.

The British romantic fantasy film was directed by Albert Lewin and stars Ava Gardner as Pandora Reynolds. James Mason plays Hendrik van der Zee, the mysterious sailor connected with the Flying Dutchman legend. The story is set largely in the Spanish coastal town of Esperanza and combines doomed romance with supernatural folklore.

The title’s Pandora is a character’s name, not a direct screen adaptation of Hesiod’s myth about the sealed container. The film borrows the evocative mythic name while building a different narrative around the curse of the Flying Dutchman, a sailor condemned to remain at sea.

This distinction helps separate the film from Pandora’s Box, the 1929 silent film directed by G. W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks. Both titles use Pandora, but they belong to different productions, periods, casts, and stories.