Albert Lewin (1951)
D V D
We are based in South London near Croydon, UK, and if preferred this item can be picked up by appointment. Just e-mail here. I also welcome the old fashioned cheque and po as it is cheaper to process and all orders are sent off same day as cheque received.
This official Spanish release of the film is probaly the least expensive edition to obtain of the film. It comes with optional Spanish subtitles so can be watched in English. Bear in mind that it is the same print as all editions of this release so in some of the dark scenes the darkness is too dark and there are marks and spots in some scenes of this print. Shame for such a classic film but the same is true of the recent supposedly 'restored' edition
- PAUL PAGE, 2011
The blinding light of Heaven
Bathed in the bright ethereal colours of some kind of Heaven on Earth, this is a dreamlike film thanks to the director of photography, Jack Cardiff. This, for me, is his lost masterpiece considering it was not available for home entertainment for so many years. It comes at the tail end of the golden years of his work: after the Powell & Pressburger classics and just after the equally dreamlike Scott of the Antarctic. It's arguable and many would disagree but through his use of colour and the way he transformed, frame by frame, a moving picture into a work of art I would say that Cardiff is the most important person in the history of British cinema. It is unsurprising he was heavily influenced by the paintings of Vermeer and that quality of light and stillness is something your eyes cannot quite believe.
Watching this film is like entering a strange and wonderful dream
- MARTIN SCORSESE
Above the bay there is a dreamhouse. We look down and there are questons, questions, questions
Has Ava Gardner ever looked so beautiful? Has James Mason ever been so enigmatic? Has Marius Goring ever had a shorter part? Has Lord Attenborough's missus ever been in a bad film? Has Nigel Patrick ever kept still long enough not to be shifty?All these aside, it is Harold Warrender who holds the film together like glue just as he did with Scott of the Antarctic. He has an odd quality about him that is slightly off-centre. It is magnificent. He tends to slightly underact and there is a stillness about him that is unsettling. As the narrator here you kind of sense that his message is from another place, another time, from an ethereal place far far away. British to the core and yet behind that there seems to be a doorway to another world. A bit like that Magritte painting with the man in the business jacket and bowler hat and next to him is his outline with a blue sky & white clouds filling his form.
Strange and wonderful, it is one of those fantasy movies that for the most part doesn't stray over the thin line which seperates the sublime from the ridiculous. There are odd moments when the script tries to be too clever and the James Mason narration of his life sometimes, just a little, stretches beyond what is brilliant. But these are just minor quibbles when you consider visually this is the landscape of a beautiful dream.
Beyond superb. Words can't do it justice.
© - Paul Page, 2011
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Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
E N G L I S H
THE CAPTAIN OF A GHOSTLY CREW
Ava Gardner stars as Pandora Reynolds, a predatory creature who destroys the lives of all men who've been unfortunate enough to fall in love with her. Enter Hendrick van der Zee (James Mason), a mystical figure who proves to be Pandora's match. It turns out that van der Zee is the legendary 17th Flying Dutchman, whose spirit is doomed to wander the earth until he is able to find a woman willing to love him with all her heart -- and thereby sacrifice her own life.
Pandora y et Holandes Errante
S P A N I S H
DVD: ENGLISH WITH OPTIONAL SPANISH SUBTITLES
Un pescador encuentra los cadaveres de un hombre y una mujer. Tras estos cuerpos sin vida se esconde un fantastico relato que empieza cuando una bellisima mujer conoce a un extrano hombre surgido de los mares:En el puerto pesquero de Esperenza, en la costa mediterranea espanola en los anos 30, vive Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner), una cantante norteamericana que, sin querer, arrastra a la perdicion a todos los hombres que se enamoran de ella. Tras rechazar et amor del piloto de automoviles britanico Stephen Cameron (Nigel Patrick) y del torero espanol Juan Montalvo (Mario Cabre), Pandora se enamora de un marino holandes Ilamado Hendrick Van der Zee (James Mason), de quien todos se van interesando debido a su extrano comportamiento. No en vano, a este holandes le persigue una antigua maldicion.
Rodada en el ano 1951 en la localidad catalana de Tosa de Mar, la peculia fue en verdadero acontecimiento en Espana, en espanal por la profunda amistad que surgio entre Ava Gardner y el torero Mario Cabre.
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