MovieChat Forums > Desire Me (1947) Discussion > Who *should* have directed this?

Who should have directed this?

posted 12 years ago by eebyo
2 replies | jump to latest

I'm enjoying this on TCM now, not for the first time, and astounded at the parroting of 1948's conventional Hollywood wisdom by 21st century commenters. It's a strong story, albeit with a couple of creaky joints. I'd give it a 7 or 8 of 10. If George Cukor begs to differ, fine.

Robert Osborne just ran through the 4 director names attached to one or more shooting days - now, about 1 hour in, I'm surprised Jacques Tourneur wasn't among them. The setting (full of local customs, deeply felt), the noir tones, the emotional fragility overmatched by practical deviousness - these were his bread & butter. A Tourneur[?] joint would've been more languorous, perhaps, but at least as suspenseful, maybe more so. Anyway, that's tonight's parlor/den game. If you could go back in time to prevent all the off-camera drama, who would you ask to direct this film?
Optional fragility

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] dr-g-m-paterson 10 years ago

It seems to have taken two years before anyone has bothered to reply to an interesting question. At least five directors could have done a distinctive and impressive job, I think:
1) Joseph H Lewis, but perhaps it was too big budget for him. He'd have got the mood of the house by the sea, though, and the twisted identities, as he did in My Name is Julia Ross.
2) Jean Renoir, for the poetry and sense of loss, as in The Woman on the Beach
3) Anthony Mann, based on the splendid and thematically similar, Strangers in the Night
4) Otto Preminger, because cool intelligence and distance might have enhanced the themes of guilt, memory and loneliness: a stepping stone between Laura and Angel Face
5) Ideally, though, I'd go for John Brahm, who had just worked with Mitchum to great effect on The Locket, which is structurally and thematically similar.

Naturally, Robert Siodmak or Alfred Hitchcock could have transformed the movie, but then it would have been utterly different. Lang, too, perhaps...