Opposites attract in Frank Borzage's 1936 soufflé when European glamor meets All-American charm. Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper proved a winning team in Joseph von Sternberg's 1930 Morocco, and sparks reignite in Desire as Cooper's Detroit automotive engineer collides with Dietrich's Parisian jewel thief.
A vacation brings Tom Bradley to Spain just as Madeleine de Beaupre has convinced jeweler Monsieur Duvalle (Ernest Cossart) that her nerve specialist husband, Monsieur Pauquet (Alan Mowbray), will write a check for the string of $2.2 million pearls on which she has her heart set, so she arranges for the two to meet, goods in tow.
While the bachelors try to figure out what's going on, Madeleine absconds with the gems and sets off in her sports car to fence them in Spain. As she's zipping along, she passes Tom, who has stopped to take a self-portrait with his tripod-mounted camera. Paying no mind, she speeds through a puddle, splashing him from head to toe. When they next meet, Madeleine has run into car trouble, so he fixes her blaring horn and she zips off again.
Perturbed by these encounters, he re-engages her horn during their subsequent meeting but turns it off again when she asks nicely. Madeleine introduces herself as a countess, and he's gullible enough to believe it. Then, while going through customs, she secretly slips the pearls into his coat pocket as the agents scold him for the cigarette packs hidden in his rolled-up socks. When Tom puts the jacket in his suitcase, she has to figure out a way to retrieve the pearls without arousing suspicion. She starts by pretending she needs a ride due to a broken-down car, but the second he steps out of his vehicle, she speeds away only to find that she left him with the suitcase containing the pearls.
When Madeleine arrives in San Sebastian, she and her wily accomplice scheme to get them back, but after Tom catches up with the crew, the warm feelings between him and Madeleine heat up to the extent that she finally succumbs to his goofy charms (like his terrible singing), sets things right, and bids the criminal life adieu. Borzage adroitly avoids any moralizing or heavy-handedness, even reuniting the lovebirds with the hoodwinked jeweler and psychoanalyst, who have become the best of friends--and possibly more. Ernst Lubitsch, the head of Paramount at the time, reportedly directed a few scenes, which may explain why the film has a certain fizz not normally associated with sweeping Borzage melodramas like 1927's 7th Heaven.
Separate commentary tracks from film historians Samm Deighan and David Del Valle and Nathaniel Bell detail the production, the filmmakers, the stars, and the sparkling supporting cast—including John Halliday (replacing the ailing John Gilbert) and Zeffie Tilbury as Madeleine's associates Carlos and Olga. Desire is a delight in the vein of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night as two unlikely lovers find true romance during their prickly travels together. Highly recommended.