You can see a lot of pretty bad pictures these days without half trying. But almost any one of them, no matter how atrocious, contains some little twist of plot, a line or two, or some bit character perhaps, that goes against the general grain of inanity. All this is usually true, but Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer this week has made it all too clear that the exception proves the rule. For, no matter how hard you may try, you can't possibly find anything about "Desire Mc" that merits praise of any sort.

Certainly first on a long list of totally impossible features (which includes acting, plot, direction, and even the title) is Greer Garson, an old Hollywood warhorse who still seems to be trading on her "Mrs. Miniver" Oscar. Miss Garson in "Desire Me" gives one of the finest exhibitions on record of the old, or Smithfield variety of acting. She uses all the ancient tricks of the trade the mobile eyebrows; the long, significant pauses; the staring eyes; the mighty gasps of emotion. In fact, she can't even stand still and listen without overacting.

As the arena for this performance, an aged novel has been unearthed from the shelves of some bankrupt circulating library, its cover has been dusted, and its plot has been transmitted to celluloid. The utterly fantastic doings somehow involve the wife of a Breton fisherman (Garson), who takes up with a nasty friend of her supposedly dead husband. But of course, just as she is about to marry the friend, (after four reels of indecision), the husband shows up and the two men have the customary brawl on the customary cliff-top. You have but one guess who it is that falls into the briny deep. And that, in toto, is all there is to it. Just to make things a bit easier for the duller cinema-goer a convenient cue to the action has been supplied whenever anything important is about to happen the weather always produces a windstorm or a fog or a thunderstorm. When nothing important is going on the weather clears off, naturally. Garson's back and you can have her.