Of Love and Desire

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.

Merle Oberon was a great beauty often tabbed the 8th wonder of the World so striking was La Oberon in person and on film. In a career that started in London in the 30's Oberon worked with Laughton, Wayler, Hopkins, Brando, Olivier in a long and great career. A good actress her lavish lifestyle got more attention than her ability as an actress.

Of Love And Desire is a vanity production produced by Oberon's then fabulously wealthy Mexican husband Bruno Paglai, and many of the settings are in the various Mexican homes ( palaces really) that the Paglai's owned in Mexico. A sight to behold is then 53 year old Merle Oberon in a bikini in a scene with an equally daring Steve Cochran also in a bikini who despite the fact that Mr. Paglai was financing this film was said to be Merle's off camera lover as well. No horror roles for Merle like her peers Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis and Ann Sothern, no way! It was glamor all the way with Merle Oberon looking fantastic in this film.

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.

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.

Although you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. It is an odd, strange, quirky film but I've seen it at least a dozen times if not more and don't tire of it. Ronald Stein's score is terrific, and there was a soundtrack album for this that was fairly faithful to the film's soundtrack. Of course there is more music in the film, but the soundtrack album is worth buying if you like this score (but it is hard to find). This was Merle Oberon's baby, she was behind the production of it and the homes seen in the film were hers.