Sick Product of a Sick System

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

As was the pattern of her career at this point Olivia DeHavilland was getting her best roles away from her home studio of Warner Brothers. No matter what she accomplished away from Warner be it an Oscar nomination for Gone With The Wind and for this film, Jack Warner resolutely refused to see her any heavy dramatic parts. His view of DeHavilland as the leading lady waiting patiently for her man to accomplish his mission remained transfixed throughout her tenure at Warner Brothers.I'm sure that given what she accomplished in Gone With The Wind, Warner got quite a sum from Paramount for her services for Hold Back The Dawn. In it Olivia plays a schoolteacher on holiday in Mexico with some boys from her class. But depending on your point of view she's unlucky enough or lucky enough to meet Charles Boyer who is a Romanian refugee wanting really bad to get to this country.Boyer is a part time tango dancer and full time gigolo and his partner Paulette Goddard has already gotten US citizenship by marrying a jockey from Agua Caliente racetrack and later divorcing him. She wants to resume her association with Boyer professionally and personally and Goddard urges him to romance some American tourist and do what he does best and get married.Which is when Olivia falls into Boyer's life. She's young and naive and full of illusions and he really starts to hate himself, romancing some worldly dowager for money is one thing, but Olivia's trust gets to him. He actually commits a sacrifice of sort in this relationship.Although DeHavilland got the Oscar nomination for me Boyer makes the film. The change that comes in his character come subtly and gradually and the tools to do it and the guidance come from script writers Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and director Mitchell Leisen. Boyer gives a very subtle performance that should have received more recognition.Not to say Olivia didn't deserve her recognition coming in the form of that Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In fact she was the betting favorite to win, but her sister Joan Fontaine beat her out with her performance in Suspicion. As is part of movie legend these two sisters were quite competitive and this didn't help the relationship.In fact Hold Back The Dawn got six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, but came up short for Paramount. Still it's an impressive piece of work even seventy years after it was first released.Also note the performances of Walter Abel as the immigration official and Rosemary DeCamp another refugee who finds her own method of entrée into the good old USA.I hope it comes out on DVD at some point.

Charles Boyer (Iscovescu) is a Romanian gigolo who applies to enter the US and is told that he will have to wait 8 years, so he rents a room in a Mexican border town and waits. In to the town comes Paulette Goddard (Anita) who is his ex-partner in both romance and pulling scams across Europe by preying on the wealthy. She has got herself American citizenship and points Boyer in the right direction. All he has to do is marry an American citizen and he can gain his entry in about a month. Thus begins the search for an American bride who Boyer can marry, gain access into the US, get a quick divorce and then team up with Anita once again to fleece the rich. Enter school-teacher Olivia de Havilland (Emmy). However, immigration officer Walter Abel (Hammock) is wise to the plan and does not intend to let Boyer get away with things.The film is overlong with certain scenes that stretch proceedings a little tiresomely, eg, the schoolchildren, the visit to a Mexican village and the rather painful reciting of some nonsense on a plaque that supports the Statue of Liberty.....oh for goodness sake.....get on with the film....! However, set against this, Boyer and Goddard are good in their roles and their performances elevate this film to the score I have given as the story alone isn't fast-moving enough to maintain interest. I found de Havilland a bit too soppy and so not as interesting a character, although she has her moments towards the end. Walter Abel does a good job as the immigration officer but the rest of the supporting cast at the hotel are all quite irritating. We didn't need any of them for the story.Boyer does everything with such smoothness that I'm sure he could have slept with the whole cast if he chose to. After all, it's what French people like to do. That and performing mime routines.

As good a script as Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett ever wrote! Mitchell Leisen directs with some flair too. This film drove Wilder to become a director after Charles boyer had a sequence cut - from then on, Wilder was able to protect his screenplays from such treatment. But any trouble behind the scenes doesn't really harm the film itself, which is a joy. An even more abrasive protagonist than usual, Charles Boyer's gigolo nevertheless builds up colossal sympathy - it's an approach Wilder would replicate in THE LOST WEEKEND to Oscar-winning effect. But EVERYBODY in this film is marvelous, as is the inventive story, inspired by Wilder's own time in mexico awaiting a visa to allow him into the States.

A fabulous film with an all star cast of Charles Boyer, Olivia De Havilland and Paulette Goddard. Boyer plays a man who is trying to get US citizenship, the only way by which turns out to be, marrying De Havilland's character. There is a sweet scene between the two when they set off on honeymoon and they play beautifully together throughout. Paulette Goddard is wonderful as the scheming other half and it's nice to see at the end that she gets what she's after!! Clever start to the film too - look out for Veronica Lake making a movie - and a lovely ending that really couldn't get any better.