Desire Me (1947)
[6]
Greer Garson, Richard Hart, and Robert Mitchum star in this twisted romantic drama about a woman who learns of her husband’s death from his visiting WWII buddy. She and the man then strike up their own romantic relationship, but everything unravels when the deceased husband shows up in town still very much alive.
Desire Me was plagued with production problems, not the least of which included Garson and Hart nearly drowning when a freakish wave pulled them out to sea during an oceanside shoot. Desire Me is also noteworthy or being one of the only films ever made with no director credit. Since its release, we now know George Cukor, Jack Conway, Mervyn Leroy, and Victor Saville, all had a hand in directing the movie… which might explain it’s structural and tonal problems. The first half of the film is an unabashed romance, with barely a hint of how disturbing and dark the final act will become when the two men come face to face. It also relies on an absurd and pointless wraparound story featuring Garson talking to a shrink, and is littered with so many flashbacks within flashbacks, you might get whiplash.
My biggest complaint is that Garson’s character freely welcomes Hart’s into her life, when he is so clearly a disturbed individual. When he was with her husband (Mitchum) in the trenches, they read her letters together. He became obsessed, and when the war was over, he wanted the comfort of a home and a wife — and just decided he’d take Mitchum’s! It’s hard to take her character seriously for this indiscretion, but apart from a few moments of potential over-acting, she does a commendable job with her performance. Hart, on the other hand, should have played the character more convincingly — make us believe Garson would betray the memory of her dead husband to suck face with you, buddy! And Mitchum really has very little to do in the movie. He’s in a few flashbacks, and then a few scenes at the end.
From all I’ve written above, you’d think I didn’t like this movie. But I happen to like a lot of flawed movies, and I enjoyed this one, warts and all. First of all, I could watch Greer Garson read shampoo bottles. Second of all, the rocky, oceanside setting is gorgeous. This is one of those movies I’d rewatch or have on in the background just to be in that time and place again. And third — and most substantially — Desire Me features some of the most stunning cinematography I’ve ever seen.
The film was shot by four-time Oscar winner Joseph Ruttenberg (Gigi, Gaslight, Mrs. Miniver, The Philadelphia Story). Ruttenberg gives this film more grandeur than it really deserves with his striking lighting during a storm at Garson’s clifftop cottage, during an expressionistic flashback of the WWII battlefield, and in Mitchum’s boathouse at night, where the moonlight bounces off the water and dances on the actors’ faces. But the most stunning cinematography is during the climactic showdown between Mitchum and Hart during a heavy fog on the rocky hillside. Controlling the fog levels and exposures must have been a big challenge, and the sequence is simply stunning.
