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(There are Spoilers) Strange to say the least this movie is known more for it's behind the camera's action then the movie itself with Greer Garson almost drowning when she was suddenly gobbled up by an ocean wave during filming. Robert Mitchum so turned off by the studio big-wigs micro managing , in a movie where no one wanted to take any credit for directing it, that it more then helped him developed his lifelong resentment for the suits that run Hollywood with a scene. The director had Greer Garson just saying one word "No", that took no less then 125 takes, which had Mitchum just about call it quits, to being a big time Hollywood movie star, and go back to driving a truck.
We see Marise Aubert, Greer Garson, in Dr. Leciair's, Cecil Humphreys, office at the beginning of the movie "Desire Me" very upset about her health and well being even though Dr. Leciair can find nothing wrong with her of the psychical nature. The movie then goes into a long flashback were we see just what brought poor Marise into this depressive frame of mind.
Marise husband Paul, Robert Mitchum, had been in a German POW camp since the spring of 1940 and after carrying a torch for Paul all these years, and hoping to see him after the war is over, she get's the sad news that he was killed by the Germans while trying to escape. It's then when this drifter Jean Renavd, Richard Hart, drops into her, and Paul's, large seafront house in Brittany. Jean starts by telling a cock and bull story to the confused and befuddled Marise about how he and Paul were the best of friends, as POW's, in the German prison camp. He also brings out the fact that he was there when Paul got it, right between the eyes, by the Germans sentries as he tried to escape. All this hogwash from Jean has Marise finally give up any hope for Paul ever coming back and with the sneaky Jean using every trick in the book to get Marise to let him stay in her home, rent-free, she quirky fell under his spell.
Living it up and having the best of both worlds as Paul's replacement in being Marise's new boyfriend and with the prospect of taking over Paul's very lucrative fishing business Jean, who disliked working with a passion, can now make a very good living for himself by having others work for him not the other, God forbid, way around. There's also the fact that Marise is an excellent cook where Jean, instead of eating in flop houses and soup kitchens, can now have an home cooked meal of shrimp and oysters, his favorite dish, almost every day and night of the week.
Thinking that this good deal that he fell into, living like a king in Marise's place, will never end Jean gets the shock of his life when he intercepts a letter, from the nosy mailman Alex( David Hoffman), from non other then Paul himself. In the letter Paul tells Marise that he's alive and well and will be back home very soon to continue his happily married life with her! Jaen not only took Paul's wife and business away from him while he was recovering in a French Military Hospital but it was the double-crossing Jaen himself who set up Paul, who he thought was dead, to get shot by the Germans back in the POW camp!
The movie gets really dopey with Jean instead of checking out knowing that the sh*t is going to hit the fan, as soon Paul shows up in town, tries to get the unsuspecting Marise to sell the house and Paul's fish business. Jean then plans to move back to Paris, his and Marise's home town, with him and the money from the sales and continue his lifestyle of the rich and sleazy with Marise being totally kept in the dark to the fact that her long dead husband has come back from the dead.
Jean selfish and ridicules scheme falls apart when a happy go lucky Paul comes strolling, and whistling, into town expecting everything to be the same as he left it when he enlisted into the French Army. When Paul finds out what some rotten and back-stabbing rat Jean did by taking away his wife Marise and fishing business his good natured demeanor quickly changes. Instead of being mad at the person who did this to him, Paul didn't yet know that it was that rat Jean. Paul instead takes out his hatred and frustrations on the innocent as the morning snow Marise who by now is so confused and bewildered that she's just about had it with the whole business of missing and dead husbands and con artists boyfriends! you almost expected her to take a walk down by the high cliffs overlooking the Engish Channel and end it all by jumping off.
We then have this idiotic duel between Paul, with a pocket knife, and Jean, with a gun that hasn't been shot or cleaned in years, in a thick as pea soup fog. There's also the added attraction of dull and annoying ship foghorns constantly blowing in the background, The outcome of this battle between the two nitwits is never in doubt since we have a very good idea about who won this brainless duel from what we already saw at beginning of the movie. The ending with Marise coming back to the present, from the over an hour long flashback, is about the best thing to happen in "Desire Me" by knowing that the film is just about over and with that so is the pain and suffering of those still left watching it.
score 5/10
sol-kay 27 June 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1404533/ |
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21-2-2021 12:05:02