Desire Me

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Desire Me
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1947
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director George Cukor (no naming) ,
Mervyn LeRoy (no naming) ,
Jack Conway (no naming) ,
Victor Saville (no naming)
script Zoë Akins ,
Marguerite Roberts ,
Casey Robinson
production Arthur Hornblow Jr.
music Herbert Stothart
camera Joseph Ruttenberg
cut Joseph Dervin
occupation

Desire Me is an American film drama with Greer Garson and Robert Mitchum from 1947. Leonhard Frank's novella Karl and Anna (1927) served as a literary model . The film is one of the few major productions in Hollywood that does not feature a director in the opening and closing credits.

action

Marise Aubert studied in Paris the psychiatrist Dr. Andre Leclair called on to have him analyze her marital problems. She and her husband Paul once loved each other very much. However, their marriage is now threatened with failure. Dr. Leclair asks Marise to report what led to the estrangement between her and Paul:

Paul is captured by the Nazis during World War II and taken to a camp. There he befriends another prisoner named Jean Renaud. He tells him in detail about his lovable wife, who is eagerly waiting for his return in Kergat, a coastal town in Normandy . One day when Paul and Jean try to escape from the camp, Paul is gunned down by Nazi guards. Jean, however, manages to escape. Convinced that Paul lost his life trying to escape, Jean travels to Kergat to meet the woman Paul raved about.

When Jean arrives in the small fishing village in front of Marise's Cottage , Marise is very surprised at his appearance and his detailed knowledge of her private life. He tells her that Paul is dead, which shakes Marise deeply. When Jean makes her advances, she rejects him. Nevertheless, she takes him in her house when a violent storm makes his departure impossible. The next day, Jean apologizes for his advances, and Marise offers him to stay with her. The budding friendship between them soon turns into a tender romance. However, Jean's hope for a future together fades when he finds a letter from Paul who, contrary to all expectations, is still alive. Paul's letter indicates that he is recovering from his gunshot wounds at an Allied military hospital and will be returning home shortly.

Determined to continue his relationship with Marise, Jean hides the letter from her and tries to persuade her to leave Kergat before Paul returns home. At first Marise is reluctant to give up her house. However, she agrees and prepares her departure. When Marise visits father Donnard, Paul arrives in Kergat. While he is walking through the streets, he is recognized by a resident who immediately informs Marise of Paul's return. Marise hurries to her cottage full of anticipation. When Jean also learns that Paul is back, he gets a gun and also rushes to the cottage.

Marise and Paul happily embrace when they meet again. She confesses to him that after many years of waiting and believing that he is dead, she has come closer to Jean. Then Paul and his rival meet on a mist-shrouded cliff. Jean fires several shots at his former comrade; but every shot misses its target. A hand-to-hand fight ensues on the edge of the cliff. Marise, who hears the shots from afar, reaches the scene at the moment when Jean loses his balance and falls into the depths ...

Back in the present, Marise ends her story and explains to Dr. Leclair that she has felt intense guilt since that tragedy and that this has prevented her from being a good wife to Paul. On the advice of her psychiatrist, Marise tries to let the past rest and start a new life with Paul.

background

Desire Me is based on Leonhard Frank's novella Karl and Anna (1927), which Joe May filmed in 1928 under the title Heimkehr . The filming of the 1947 film turned out to be difficult and lengthy. They began under director George Cukor , who was then replaced by a number of other directors, including Mervyn LeRoy and Jack Conway . The result was that none of the filmmakers wanted to be named as the film's official director. The main problem was that the script had to be rewritten several times because of the censorship, as the original plot played down the adultery too much. Furthermore, Cukor and lead actor Robert Mitchum did not get along. Mitchum later said that he stopped taking Hollywood seriously the moment Greer Garson allegedly had to repeat a scene 125 times before Cukor was satisfied with her performance.

There were further delays in production when shooting a scene by the sea. When a big wave caught Garson and co-star Richard Hart and washed over sharp rocks, Garson nearly drowned. In addition to bruises and cuts, she was plagued by severe back pain, which resulted in several hospital stays and operations in the years that followed.

For MGM , the film was a huge disappointment with a loss of $ 2,440,000 and the reviews were also rather poor.

Reviews

Variety found that Greer Garson's role "always required great emotions", "which is not an easy task", but the actress is "capable of". Robert Mitchum is "hardly to be seen as a husband", but makes "each of his scenes worth seeing". For the New York Times , Desire Me was "a cumbersome, very constructed and somehow not very intelligent film".

Craig Butler of the All Movie Guide pointed out that the flashbacks were meant to "create dramatic tension and interest," but they wore out "after a while," and the ending wasn't convincing either. The actors are still "good in their roles". The film itself "stumbles" and "the cast just saves it". The film critic Leonard Maltin spoke in retrospect of a “weak melodramatic romance”, the “familiar story” of which is based on a “lax script”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Michael Troyan: A Rose for Mrs. Miniver. The Life of Greer Garson . The University Press of Kentucky, 1999, pp. 196-207.
  2. ^ “Greer Garson's role requires continual emotional stress that makes for a heavy job but she is capable. Robert Mitchum has too little footage as the husband but he makes every scene count. ” See Desire Me . In: Variety . 1947.
  3. ↑ " Desire Me is a ponderous, obviously contrived and somewhat less than intelligent take-off." See At the Capitol . In: The New York Times . September 26, 1947.
  4. ↑ “The flashback sequences are intended to create dramatic tension and interest, but they wear after a while, and the ending […] doesn't convince. […] The actors all do well with what they have to work with […]. The film flounders, leaving the cast to pull it all together. " Craig Butler, cf. omovie.com
  5. ↑ “Weak melodramatic romance […]. Familiar story not helped by limp script. " Leonard Maltin , cf. tcm.com