Of Love and Desire

Merle Oberon became a legend for her beauty that never faded. She just went one remaining beautiful decade after decade, from the 30s and into the 60s, and somehow, in this film, which she made when she was 52, she is still more beautiful than ever, besides being a very good and perfectly convincing actress. This film is particularly romantic, set in a gorgeously lush Acapulco with some dominating scenes set in her own actual garden, drowning in gorgeous flowers. It's a film of people living in exaggerated opulence, they can do what they want and buy whatever they desire, so Merle Oberon bought this marvellous villa of unlimited space of rooms and floors, where one lover after another leave their bathing suits behind, unintentionally because of refuted love, because she never gets the one she wants, who is a ghost of the past lost in the war, apparently by suicide for having been refuted by her, the first of many. It's a great story of significant psychological interest, since her half brother (Curt Jürgens) is equally passionate but in a different direction, of jealousy for her. In all this the blank businessman and engineer Steve Cochran stumbles in and, like all the others, can't find his way out. The colours and the music add considerable lustre to the film, nothing is wrong, everything is beauty and love and passion, while, as usual, only the passion goes wrong, but things get sorted out.

I love these types of movies. Merle Oberon playing a middle aged nymphomaniac. Curt Jurguns is her half brother. I swear there is some underlying incest issues going on. In any case she falls in love with the Steve Cochern character. Brother doesn't like it and sets her up.

What I like about this movie other then the trashy plot is that the principles are all played by age appropriate people. We do not have a bunch of middle aged men chasing after young woman half their age. We have a middle aged John Agar and Steve Cochran playing middle aged Oberons other suitors. And the scenery is breathtaking. This is not Cukor but it is trashy enough to make it so bad it is good. And something good has to be said about a movie that actually has middle aged men lusting after a middle aged woman. How refreshing. Plus I am a big fan of Curt Jurguns.

Merle Oberon's performance is good in this, some scenes are better than others, but she worked hard at finding some nuances. One of my favorite scenes is what I call the "church bells scene" where they profess their love, "for 400 years. At least." This is a well-acted and staged scene with much better dialogue than other parts of the film, as if someone else wrote it (?) I would rate this scene pretty high among other similar movie romance scenes.

Beautiful photography and wonderful atmospherics of early 60's Mexico as it was back then. It was a good era to visit Mexico as I remember, having been there for the first time in 1961 (yes I'm old). Merle Oberon looks beautiful and displays real star power. Steve Cochran strolls through the film portraying an engineer stuck in Mexico, loafing around waiting for equipment to arrive. Cochran is well cast since he was apparently a world-class loafer at times in his life. He would die amid mystery and sleaze a mere 2 years after the film's release, his rotting and putrid corpse found on a derelict boat in the Pacific Ocean, accompanied by two surviving female "attendants".

Oberon's acting is good, but the role makes you wonder why anyone would care about the affairs of silly, spoiled rich woman "Katherine", her character in this film. Katherine, you need to see a shrink.

Featuring good scenery and atmospherics vs. a shallow plot that drags especially toward the ending, this film will probably entertain Merle Oberon's fans. Other viewers must choose whether they have the time to invest watching this to experience Ms. Oberon's undeniable star power, or just skip it.

I came to this film because of Steve Cochran. Surprisingly, it is lovely to look at, has an over the top love story, and though a bit of editing would have helped in the last half hour, It is well acted for this genre. Katherine is a middle aged woman, whose self esteem is determined by the number of men who desire her. She meets Steve and something happens--they fall in love against all odds. With a half brother whose intentions are a bit bent, you wonder if the lovers will wind up with each other or go their separate ways. Oberon and Cochran in real life did both--a RL romance that ended with the film, but a connection that caused Oberon to ask the Los Angeles police to further investigate the cause of death for Steve on his boat 2 years later.They refused but she cared enough to risk headlines for him. Life IS sometimes stranger than fiction.