As You Desire Me

Pirandello's play is brilliant, but this script, and story, bears only a passing resemblance.

Lena is NOT a servant, she is the woman's aunt, who brought her up. The woman does NOT hang around in the play, she leaves them all with the mad woman, who, in my opinion, DOES turn out to be the long-lost Maria.

Why change the names? They were perfectly suitable for the screen.

This was a case of scriptwriting for its own sake, not a screen adaptation.

Performances were typical of all really, but the faithless destruction of the original material lets this down terribly.

AS YOU DESIRE ME (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932), directed by George Fitzmaurice, taken from the play by Luigi Pirandello, stars Greta Garbo in what may be considered atypical role from her formula material. Aside from this being her shortest Hollywood feature film (70 minutes), and the only one where, early into the story, sports a short platinum haircut, here she plays an amnesic woman searching for her identity. Another interesting aspect to this nearly forgotten melodrama is the casting of the youthful Melvyn Douglas and veteran actor/ director Erich Von Stroheim as her co-stars.

The plot opens in Budapest (Hungary), 1925, in a café where the sultry Zara (Greta Garbo) sings (off screen dubbing) to the beer drinking patrons. As Zara entertains her guests, Albert (Roland Varno), a college student; The Baron (Albert Conti) and a Captain (Warburton Gamble) in her dressing room with a drinking party, she is soon approached by a man (Owen Moore) calling out to her by the name of "Maria." After closing the door on him, Zara later returns home, accompanied by her male admirers where they make the acquaintance with her live-in lover, famous novelist Carl Salter (Erich Von Stroheim). Moments following their departure, Tony reappears, explaining the reason for his visit. He tells Zara and Carl of being an artist who painted a portrait of Maria, whom he recognizes as Zara. Maria is said to be an Italian countess and wife of his very best friend, Count Bruno Varelli, who, ten years ago during the World War, mysteriously disappeared following an invasion and destruction of her home by drunken Austrian soldiers. Having no recollection of those missing years and being amnesic herself, Zara, thinking she could be that woman, leaves with Tony against the protests of the possessive Carl, trying to hold her at gunpoint . Upon her arrival with Tony by train to Florence (Italy), Zara, having transformed herself to physically resemble the missing countess, is reunited with her grief-stricken husband, Bruno (Melvyn Douglas), now an officer in the Italian Army, and her loyal servants (Rafaela Ottiano and William Riccardi). Aside from having restored their home to the way it was, Bruno makes every effort in helping "Maria" regain her memory. Though "Maria" strongly doubts herself being the countess, her strong resemblance and happy greeting the great dane, Rex, a family dog, proves otherwise. Things become more complex upon the arrival of Carl Salter, a psychiatrist (Reginald Barlow) and an amnesic veiled woman who's been a patient at his sanitarium since the time of Countess Maria's disappearance, causing more doubt for all.

Following the pattern of Garbo's romantic sounding movie titles as LOVE (1927), ROMANCE (1930) and INSPIRATION (1931), AS YOU DESIRE ME (lifted from the Garbo line, "Take me and make me as you desire me") is less a love story and more of a mix of riddle and mystery. Appearing more theatrical mostly towards the end, it proved more interesting through spoken words rather than by its actions. The basic premise of AS YOU DESIRE ME was used to better advantage in ANASTASIA (20th Century-Fox, 1956) that earned Ingrid Bergman an Academy Award as Best Actress. Though not a remake, themes of this nature where amnesic victim becomes someone else, makes good storytelling, and guessing from the viewer's part all worth while.

Garbo's initial entrance dressed in black tight slacks and blonde wig is somewhat unbecoming to her screen personality but makes up for it during its second half, looking more like the traditional Garbo, a woman of mystery. Von Stroheim, quite menacing, as usual, nearly steals the show from his leading players, while Melvyn Douglas, early in his career, makes a satisfactory husband, though far from convincing as an Italian. Douglas would work with Garbo again in comedies, NINOTCHKA (1939) and TWO-FACED WOMAN (1941), the latter which marked the end to Garbo's movie career.

Though AS YOU DESIRE ME could have been a little longer by developing its characters to a little further extent, as it appears, it's fine the way it is, even with limited underscoring. Among the members of the cast is Hedda Hopper, future Hollywood columnist, playing Maria's sister, Ines, and Edmund Breese as the Friar. Distributed to video cassette in 1990, AS YOU DESIRE ME turns up from time to time on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (***)

Since I don't like Greta Garbo films, I had very low expectations of 'As You Desire Me'. But I was actually quite surprised at how entertained I was at this ludicrous tale of amnesia and the power of love overcoming it! Melvyn Douglas stars here as a Prince whose inheritance of a missing wife's estate will go to his sister, unless his missing wife is found, pronto. Because of this, he sends out his best friend to search for her, ending up in a sleazy bar trying to fend Garbo off from plenty of amorous suitors. Oh, and Erich Von Streinheim.. After convincing her to go off with him and re-meet her husband she honestly can't remember (she's had amnesia you see), she's off to the estate of Melvyn Douglas, who's simply thrilled with the reunion, and willing to forget little things that don't quite add up, like Garbo not remembering a thing, or how her eye color has changed. Garbo isn't convinced either, but she falls in love with him anyways.

Ahh, but Eric Von Stronheim isn't too easily fooled, she knows where the actual missing wife is! Which is somewhat hilarious, I mean, why would he know that? Pretty soon, they all gather for one hooty finale which doesn't really resolve anything, but at the end, I didn't care, because I was guffawing at just how OUT THERE this was.

Mevyn Douglas and Greta Garbo were okay I suppose, with Garbo still doing her mad theatrical hand gestures all over the place. But the performance here goes to Eric Von Stronheim, who's just great as Garbo's past companion willing to fight to bring her back.

And get a load of those costumes! Whoa! What was Adrian smoking on the set? Love the little Cap without a lid number Garbo is wearing at the outset..

Garbo puts in a strong lead performance but this film suffered with poor support from Douglas and Von Stroheim. Douglas was a particularly bad choice and Bruno comes across as absurd.

Garbo shows great range deftly transforming from drunken diva to redeemed believer in the power of love, even if she can't remember who she is.

Interesting... Garbo appears to flub a line in the last scene at approx 1:07

"oooh Lena, help me! You must know? The others, the other woman women who were here that night. Who were they?"

This film is almost forgotten but remains one of the most unusual in Garbo's career. It was daring to use a Pirandello play (what remains of it) and the stylistic inconsistencies are actually absolutely right for the theme that nothing is what it seems (but could be, if we so desired it). Compare it to "Two faced Woman" ten years later, also with Douglas and also about confusions of identity. You will see how much better is the earlier film and how much more beautiful Garbo was, even in a fright wig. George Fitzmaurice was a talented director with a great sense of style. Like most early sound films you have to see a good copy. Much of what we see now is just a travesty of the original and makes it very hard to appreciate its real quality.