Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is a 1951 British Technicolor romantic fantasy drama film written and directed by Albert Lewin.

The film stars James Mason and Ava Gardner in the title roles, with Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Mario Cabré and Marius Goring supporting.

In autumn 1930, fishermen in the fictitious small Spanish 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, to the beach.

Esperanza's small group of English expatriates revolves around Pandora Reynolds, an alluring American nightclub singer and femme fatale.

Pandora agrees to marry a land-speed record holder, Stephen Cameron, after he sends his racing car tumbling into the sea at her request.

One of these relics is a notebook written in Old Dutch, which confirms Geoffrey's suspicion that Hendrik van der Zee is the Flying Dutchman, a 16th-century ship captain who murdered his wife, believing her to be unfaithful.

The evening before his execution, a mysterious force opened the Dutchman's prison doors and allowed him to escape to his waiting ship, where in a dream it was revealed to him that his wife was innocent and he was doomed to sail the seas for eternity unless he could find a woman who loved him enough to die for him.

Despite her impending wedding to Stephen, Pandora declares her love for Hendrik, but he is unwilling to have her die for his sake, and tries to provoke her into hating him.

He attends the bullfight the next day, and when Montalvo sees him in the audience, he becomes petrified with fear and is fatally gored by the bull.

He created particular cubist-style chess pieces and several paintings seen in the film, notably the surrealist scene in the De Chirico fashion.