Showing posts with label Marlene Dietrich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marlene Dietrich. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Desire (1936)



Car engineer Tom Bradley (Gary Cooper) is a Detroit transplant working at the Bronson 8 plant in Paris. He's dreamt of visiting Spain ever since he was a child and when he finally gets some time off for vacation, he takes a new Bronson 8 model car on a roadtrip to the Spanish countryside. There he meets Madeleine de Beaupre (Marlene Dietrich), a fake Countess and professional jewel thief who just successfully swindled a very expensive pearl necklace from jeweler Aristide Duvalle (Ernest Cossart). Unbeknownst to Tom, Madeleine is part of a network of thieves, including Carlos Margoli (John Halliday) and Aunt Olga (Zeffie Tilbury) who traipse across Europe preying on the wealthy elite. When Madeleine steals Tom's Bronson 8, and then wrecks it, he tracks her down. Both Madeleine and Tom develop an attraction to each other. But what will happen if Tom finally learns about Madeleine's criminal exploits?

Directed by Frank Borzage and produced by Ernst Lubitsch for Paramount, Desire (1936) is a dazzling romantic drama bolstered by its two magnetic leads. The film certainly has the Lubitsch Touch with plenty of wit, charm, humor and sophistication. There are plenty of very subtle sexual connotations which makes for enjoyable repeat viewings. While I don't feel like Cooper and Dietrich quite matched the chemistry they had in Morocco (1930), they still make for a captivating duo. Desire is perfect escapist fare offering viewers a highly romanticized vision of Europe and a tantalizing story of an all-American man falling in love with an exotic European woman. And as an added bonus, Akim Tamiroff, one of my favorite character actors, has a small role in the film as a Spanish police official.

Desire (1936) is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. The quality is absolutely stunning. Marlene Dietrich sparkles, especially in her Travis Banton designed wardrobe, and overall the film feels so fresh and new. The Blu-ray edition is from a new 2K master and the disc includes English language subtitles and a variety of related Kino Lorber trailers. Also included are two audio commentaries. I'll be honest, I was frustrated listening to both of them. One track features two film historians and one of them continually talks over the other. The second one just has the one historian but the pronunciation of Frank Borzage's name (as well as Akim Tamiroff's) kept throwing me off. However, there are lots of great insights to take away from both commentaries and I do recommend listening to both of them. I was particularly interested in the discussion about John Gilbert, who was originally set to play the Carlos Margoli character. Dietrich, who was in a relationship with Gilbert at the time, helped get him the part. But poor health kept him away and John Halliday was cast instead. The observation was that had Gilbert been in the film the Madeleine—Tom—Carlos triangle would have been more sexually charged. Gilbert died in early 1936 before the film was released. 




Thank you to Kino Lorber for sending me a copy of Desire (1936) for review.


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Stars & Their Hobbies ~ Marlene Dietrich


Marlene Dietrich, Astrology
"Astrology! Of course. After all, everyone knows that the moon pulls the sea away from the land, and farmers don't plant when the moon is wrong. "Why should humans escape?"- Marlene Dietrich


Marlene Dietrich was influenced by astrology. She followed her own horoscope closely (she was a Capricorn) and prepared horoscopes for her friends. Dietrich was very vocal about her belief in the legitimacy of astrology. In her book Marlee Dietrich’s ABC: Wit, Wisdom & Recipes, she denounced the skeptics who called astrology a psuedoscience and made the case that:

“the human being is not made of such different matter that it can remain untouched, uninfluenced by those same forces that exercise their power day and night on bodies far stronger than the human being.” 

Thanks to J.P. of Comet Over Hollywood  for the tip about this one!



My series Stars & Their Hobbies explores how notable actors and actresses from Hollywood history spent their free time. Click here to view a complete list of entries.

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