Desire

Desire is a 1936 American romantic crime comedy-drama film directed by Frank Borzage, starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, and produced by Borzage and Ernst Lubitsch. The picture is a remake of the 1933 German film Happy Days in Aranjuez. The screenplay was written by Samuel Hoffenstein, Edwin Justus Mayer, and Waldemar Young, based on the play Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez by Hans Székely and Robert A. Stemmle. The music score was composed by Frederick Hollander and the cinematography was shot by Charles Lang and Victor Milner. Marlene Dietrich's wardrobe was designed by Travis Banton. The supporting cast features John Halliday, William Frawley, Akim Tamiroff, and Alan Mowbray. Plot In Paris, Madeleine de Beaupre cons jeweler Aristide Duvalle and psychiatrist Maurice Pauquet by telling each man that she is married to the other. Duvalle delivers a string of pearls worth millions of francs to Pauquet's office, expecting to be paid, but Pauquet thinks he is a new patient who has delusions of needing to collect debts. Madeleine is there to introduce them to each other, and departs with the pearls before they figure out what she has done. While driving to the Spanish border, Madeleine splashes mud onto Tom Bradley, an American automotive engineer vacationing in Europe. Then as they approach the border, her car's horn control sticks "on", to the annoyance of the customs officers. Tom fixes it and they go into the office together. Luggage and purses are being inspected, so she decides to hide the pearls in his jacket pocket. On the road, she pulls ahead of Tom, then disables her own car so that he will have to give her a lift. But he has changed jackets. She says she is going to San Sebastián, and he offers to drive her there. En route she seizes an opportunity to steal his car, leaving him standing in the road—along with the suitcase his other jacket is in. She then crashes the car while evading police.