Desire Me (1947)

MGM
No director credited
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Richard Hart returns to the hometown of an Army buddy in Brittany after escaping from a prison camp. He uses the intimate details of his life, learned in the camp, to seduce his friend's wife, who believes he is dead. Greer Garson is the confused woman, who lets herself fall in love with the man. The husband, Robert Mitchum, unexpectedly returns home, leading to an explosive confrontation with Hart on a foggy cliff. There is a good film buried in here somewhere, but post-production tampering by the studio led to the removal of the director's name from the credits. The result is a mess, including the only example of a four-level flashback I have ever seen on film: Greer Garson narrates a framing device from a doctor's office during which she recalls her husband; Mitchum is seen talking to his buddy on the battlefield telling him about his wife; the buddy arrives at the husband's home town; he has at least one flashback to the battlefield. A flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback!