Produced by Ernst Lubitsch and directed by Frank Borzage, Desire mixes their styles and temperaments. Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper are in rare comic form, his underplayed antics being a perfect foil for her satiny wit. They meet on the road from Paris to the Spanish border, she on the run with a stolen necklace, he on a leisurely holiday. Dropping the baubles into his coat pocket at customs, she is compelled to retrieve them by flirting her way into his graces--not a bad place to be, as she discovers. Typically of Lubitsch, Dietrich's “desire” is entirely for the precious pearls (known as “the tears of the Mermaid”) throughout the film's sleek, cynical first half. But the intimacy and emotional conviction of the love story that develops between Cooper and Dietrich are pure Borzage.