Desire (1920 film)

Lore & Background

George Edwardes-Hall, born in 1872 in Brooklyn, New York, relocated to England later in life and then moved to California, where he died in 1922. He did more screenwriting than directing during his career and also wrote plays and short stories. The film was known in England as The Magic Skin.

Reader's Guide

Desire is notable as one of three film adaptations of Balzac's Le Peau de Chagrin released in 1920, the others being The Dream Cheater and Narayama. Directed by George Edwardes-Hall, who was primarily a screenwriter, the film represents a British silent fantasy entry in a year that saw multiple takes on the same literary source. Its plot follows a man named Valentin who obtains a magic shagreen that grants wishes at the cost of his immortal soul. The film's cast includes Dennis Neilson-Terry as Raphael Valentin, Yvonne Arnaud as Pauline, and Christine Maitland as Fedora. The film is preserved in historical records such as Rachael Low's 1971 book History of the British Film, 1918-1929.

Did You Know?

• It is based on the 1831 Honoré de Balzac novel Le Peau de Chagrin.
• Three different film adaptations of the novel were released in 1920 alone.
• Director George Edwardes-Hall did more screenwriting than directing during his career.
• In Balzac's novel, the magic shagreen shortens the owner's life rather than costing his immortal soul.

The Balzac Legacy and a Remarkable Year of Adaptation

Honoré de Balzac's 1831 novel Le Peau de Chagrin proved to be an inexhaustible wellspring for early filmmakers, and the year 1920 stands as a particularly extraordinary testament to that fact. In a single calendar year, the literary work was brought to the silver screen no fewer than three separate times. The British entry in that trio, released under the title Desire in some markets and The Magic Skin in England, was helmed by George Edwardes-Hall and produced by Edward Godal. Its two contemporaries that same year were The Dream Cheater and Narayama, each offering a distinct cinematic interpretation of Balzac's dark fairy-tale. This burst of simultaneous adaptation underscores how deeply the novel's central conceit—a wish-granting object that devours the owner's life force—resonated with audiences and producers navigating the silent era. For a story more than eighty years old at the time of its first screen life, the fact that it generated three competing film versions within twelve months speaks to the universal, almost mythic quality of its premise and the hungry appetite of the nascent film industry for fresh, dramatic material drawn from the literary canon.

A Transatlantic Auteur: George Edwardes-Hall

The man who brought Balzac's shagreen to the British screen in 1920 was himself a figure of transatlantic restlessness and literary breadth. George Edwardes-Hall was born in 1872 in Brooklyn, New York, but his professional life carried him across the Atlantic to England, where he built much of his film career before ultimately settling in California. His death there in 1922, barely two years after the release of Desire, gave his body of work an abrupt, unfinished quality. What makes Hall particularly interesting to students of early cinema is that directing was not, in fact, his primary craft. Across his career he produced more screenwriting than he did directing, and he also penned a number of stage plays and short stories. This multi-disciplinary literary background likely informed the way he approached the Balzac adaptation, treating the screenplay not as a mere translation of the novel but as a vehicle for the kind of dramatic storytelling he had honed in other media. His brief but varied career—spanning American birth, English filmmaking, and a Californian death—mirrors the restless, borderless nature of the early film industry itself.

The Shagreen and Its Faustian Price

At the heart of Desire lies a premise that has echoed through centuries of fantasy and gothic literature: a man named Valentin comes into possession of a magic shagreen, a leather hide fashioned from the skin of a wild jackass. The object operates under a seductive but terrible contract. It will grant its owner every wish he dares to make, fulfilling desires with what appears to be effortless power. Yet the currency demanded in return is nothing less than Valentin's immortal soul. This Faustian bargain—wonder in exchange for eternal life—gives the 1920 silent film its central dramatic tension. The shagreen is not merely a plot device but a character in its own right, a living object that shrinks and devours as wishes are spent, turning the protagonist's every triumph into a step closer to annihilation. In the context of a British silent fantasy, the visual potential of a leather hide that visibly diminishes while its owner's ambitions grow was a compelling proposition for audiences who had not yet grown accustomed to the supernatural imagery that would become routine in later decades. The film's dual titles—Desire and The Magic Skin—both point directly to this object and the temptation it embodies.

Cast, Production, and the Silent-Era British Stage

Desire assembled a cast that reflected the intersection of British theatre and the emerging film industry of the early 1920s. Dennis Neilson-Terry took the lead role of Raphael Valentin, the man who acquires the fateful shagreen, while Yvonne Arnaud played Pauline and Christine Maitland appeared as Fedora. Supporting roles were filled by George W. Anson as Duval, Chris Walker as Jonathan, Pardoe Woodman as Emile, Austin Leigh as Andre Valentin, and Saba Raleigh as Mother. The production was overseen by Edward Godal, whose name as producer anchors the film within the broader ecosystem of British independent filmmaking during the silent period. The movie's dual titling—Desire for international audiences and The Magic Skin for the English-speaking home market—suggests a deliberate effort to position the film for different theatrical contexts, perhaps emphasizing the romantic or fantastical element depending on the audience. As a silent fantasy, the film relied entirely on visual storytelling and title cards to convey the supernatural mechanics of the shagreen, making the cast's physical expressiveness and the production's design choices all the more critical to the narrative's impact.

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