vincentlynch-moonoi Thomas Muther's earlier review here hits the issues with this film right on the head. So I won't recount all of the things he brings up, but just add a bit.I think the issue that bothered me most about the film is that in the early scenes it is just "creepy". Even the title rubbed me the wrong way! "Desire Me"...it gets the film off to such a bad start. And then this man from the POW camp shows up and tries to take the place of Garson's supposedly dead husband. Goosebumps...and not the kind you want to have. Of course you have a pretty good idea where this is going -- that Garson's husband (played by Robert Mitchum) isn't dead at all. Fortunately, as the film progresses it gets less creepy, and more the story of a man who is desperate. The supposedly dead husband doesn't show up until the final third of the film, so if you're a Mitchum fan, you may feel disappointed. A problem with the film is the setting -- France; it probably would have worked better had the setting been England, which would have worked just as well and made more sense. The climax, where the two men are stalking each other in the fog is almost Hitchcockian, and very well done.The performances here are quite good. Garson seems more Garson as the film progresses, and that helps, and her acting while telling Mitchum what's happened is as good as it gets in acting. Richard Hart -- the intruder -- is an actor you're not likely to know. He died of a heart attack at age 35, so his film career is short...but he is fairly good here after the creepy phase of the story. I liked Robert Mitchum's performance here -- short though it is -- because he doesn't seem so much like Robert Mitchum...in other words, he acted the part. The only supporting actor that has a very significant role here is George Zucco as the local priest. Even though you may not know the name, he will be a familiar and prolific British character actor, and he plays his role well.So this is a film you have to stick with for a while, but if you do you will be rewarded. This scene -- Garson's second flop in a row -- was a decline from which her career never quite recovered. But I still think of her as one of Hollywood's finest actresses.

Robert J. Maxwell I kept wondering about the referent in the movie's title: "Desire Me." Who's supposed to be desired, and who to do the desiring? I finally decided that it didn't matter who desired whom, as long as the imperative statement fit the title melody. And it did. I think it became a pop song with appropriately deranged lyrics. The theme SOUNDS like a nascent pop song, just waiting for the right words to make adolescents of 1947 swoon and weep.But the only sobs in the audience would come from the young girls, not the boys who would be grinding their teeth with impatience and wondering when something was going to happen.It's the end of the war and Greer Garson lives in a rather splendid house overlooking the French coast. She's waiting for her husband, Robert Mitchum, to return from the German reprisal camp where he's supposedly being held. A man in a ragged uniform hurries along the beach and climbs to the house, throws open the door, and enters with a big smile, finding everything as familiar as he'd hoped. He sits at the piano and begins to play Garson's and Mitchum's love song, called "Desire Me." It's not Mitchum though. Mitchum gets second billing but I don't know why. He only shows up for the last few minutes of the movie. This guy we're watching now is an intruder, Richard Hart, a handsome young man with whom Mitchum shared all his memories of home while both were confined to the reprisal camp.Hart explains all this to Garson, and adds that he himself saw Mitchum shot to death while trying to escape. Upon hearing this, Garson, who was mooning over Mitchum, thinking he was still alive, is nonplussed. Out of loneliness and because Hart seems as familiar with the place as Mitchum had been, almost his Doppelganger, she invites Hart to stick around. Eventually, she becomes plussed, and the two melt into an embrace. Fade to the ocean crashing on the rocks, an electrical storm whipping the pine trees into a fury of motion, an atomic explosion, a covey of quail taking frantic flight, a locomotive rushing into a tunnel, a laser display in Las Vegas, an anamorphic tornado destroying a village in Indiana, a hypodermic syringe insinuating itself into a vein, the shriek of a shoat being swallowed whole by a python, the levitating ecstacy of St. Teresa.It's a small French town and gossip is the chief means of social control. Soon there is a visit from the estimable George Zucco as the local padre. "My dear child, you must realize the unseemly nature of this...." It develops that Hart isn't quite the desperately lonely ex-prisoner he seems to be. Ex-prisoner, yes, but also rootless psychopath and arrogant ex-delinquent. And, oh, yes, liar too. Mitchum wasn't killed after all. He returns home just in time to find that his wife is about to run away with Hart. He's a little bitter about that. There is a climactic fight, followed by a tearful resolution amid the fields of swaying wildflowers.The story is told from Garson's point of view, almost entirely. We know as much as she knows. We may sense she's being taken advantage of by John Hart but it isn't until later that we realize how deliberately manipulative he's been. And when Mitchum finally shows up and is irritated by finding her in her new arrangement, she is able to rearrange the emotional array and blame HIM for sharing the secrets of his home life with a stranger! Here she is, putting out for some guy she doesn't even know, because she's lonesome and horny -- and it's all Mitchum's fault for not writing more often. Whew! She's a victim no matter how you look at it.If you enjoy this kind of movie -- and it's not badly done of it's type -- then you'll enjoy this movie.

dbdumonteil Why didn't they transpose the action to the USA? That said,George Cukor's vision of Britanny is not this false:this is a place in France where religion plays a prominent part and Maryse feeling guilt and attending the Pardons ceremony make sense ;besides ,one of the supporting characters is a priest ,Maryse 's confidant (and confessor).He preaches a fatalistic moral,claiming that anyway Renaud was born a loser and it was meant to be ! "Desire me " is a story with an atmosphere of mystery ;in Cukor's filmography,it's close to "gaslight" "keeper of the flame" (a character who is not what he seems to be,just like in "desire")or " a woman's face ".And ,as Britanny is a French region the culture of which is full of legends ,it's not a bad choice after all;Paul is a male Rebecca whose presence can be felt everywhere ,on the shadow of a wall,in a tune played on the piano (it's an old French classic called "Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir" = you who pass by without seeing me),or in the boathouse .The ball ,on the other hand ,features music which doesn't sound Breton folk at all,in spite of the costumes.Like this?try these..." Les Louves" Luis Saslavsky "Carrefour" (Bernard,1938) remade as "Le Retour De Martin Guerre" (Vigne ,1983) remade as "Sommersby" (Amiel,1992)

wes-connors Frenchwoman Greer Garson (as Marise) tells her psychiatrist about her complicated relationship with two men. In flashback, her story begins (mostly) with the arrival of handsome Richard Hart (as Jean) at her coastal cottage, in Normandy. Mr. Hart has some bad news and some good news for Ms. Garson.The bad news is that he informs her that handsome husband Robert Mitchum (as Paul) has been killed by Nazis. The good news is that he, Hart, has fallen in love with Garson, through the stories told by buddy Mitchum. Lonely, Garson catches Hart bathing, and invites him to stay. Of course, Mitchum returns… An old storyline, updated for war and psychiatry. This was supposed to be George Cukor's picture, but he left; and, nobody received director's credit. Still, there are some nicely shot scenes, thanks to a nice, albeit too foggy as the film progresses, location. Joseph Ruttenberg photographs Garson and the coast with love.**** Desire Me (10/31/47) George Cukor ~ Greer Garson, Richard Hart, Robert Mitchum