Charles Boyer, stuck in Mexico due to immigration problems, plans to get into the United States by way of marriage to schoolteacher Olivia de Havilland, who is under the impression that Boyer really loves her. Beautifully-made romantic drama from director Mitchell Leisen has a complicated scenario which sometimes falls prey to its uneven tone (the linchpin of the plot has Boyer deceiving de Havilland as long as possible, which undermines their courtship sequences with a bit of sourness). Still, the look of the picture is fascinating, the art direction and cinematography vivid and memorable...and, as always, Olivia plays a simple, goodhearted woman like nobody's business; she simply glows in roles such as this. Boyer is also fine--though, because of the mechanics of the plot, he isn't terribly sympathetic. Adapted from Ketti Frings' (then-unsold) novel, "Memo to a Movie Producer" by Oscar-nominated screenwriters Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder; de Havilland also received a nomination, as did the film as Best Picture. A gem. *** from ****
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Star528 November 2002A 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.
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kijii7 November 2016This movie was nominated for six Oscars including, Best Picture, Best Actress (de Havilland). This is the movie that supposedly started De Havilland's life-long feud with her sister, Joan Fontaine, who in 1941, ran against her and won for Best Actress in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941), which had been proceeded, the previous year for a Best Actress nomination in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and followed by a nomination in 1944 for The Constant Nymph (1943). One might well imagine that the sisters were in constant competition during the 40s.
Hold Back the Dawn (1941) is a nicely told romance about a young and vulnerable young school teacher, Emmy (Olivia de Havilland), with a busload of kids, traveling in a Mexican border town during an Independence Day side trip. However, on the Mexican side of the border, there are several European refugees desperately trying to enter the US, no doubt because of the unrest in Europe at the time.
While watching this movie, released before the Pearl Harbour Attack on the US, it is probably helpful to remember that Hollywood was not yet fully engaged with "going to war," even though Billy Wilder was one of the writers of the screen play for the movie.
So, European refugees waited--at the Hotel Espiranza--to get their green cards (for legally crossing the border into the US). Two of these waiters were a dance team, an Austrian woman, Anita Dixon (Paulette Goddard), and her former professional dance partner, Romanian Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer). Goddard meets Boyer in this border town to tell him how she was able to get her green card in record time by marrying an American and then divorcing him after successfully making it into America. Anita encourages George to do the same thing by taking advantage of the American school teacher's obvious attraction to him. He starts down this path, but with unsuspected results.
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Goddard makes an excellent vixen in this movie. One wonders---as we see scenes with her and de Havilland here---how well she would have played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind opposite de Havilland, since she was one of many women who did the screen test for the part. -
cairnsdavid9 March 2003As 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.
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vincentlynch-moonoi25 July 2016Overall I feel pretty positive about this film, although the first third or so of the film seemed a bit uneven -- some good aspects, some not so good. But the story is an interesting one -- which I'm sure our Republican friends would hate...because it's about illegal immigration from Mexico...but with a twist...apparently the immigration problem with Mexico in the mid-1900s was more of Europeans making their way to Mexico to cross the border into the United States. In this case, Charles Boyer is a bit of a shady character from eastern Europe; he is in Mexico and decides to marry an American woman only as a means to get into the United States. Along comes the somewhat prim teacher, Olivia de Havilland, who is taking some students on a field trip. Boyer seizes the opportunity, and within hours they are married. Boyer's plan is to dump de Havilland after becoming an American citizen, move east (she is from Azusa), and continue in his crooked ways with accomplice Paulette Goddard. Things take some unplanned turns, and Boyer begins to feel guilty about his plan, and eventually begins to fall in love with de Havilland (no big surprise there). Goddard rats on Boyer to de Havilland, but to an immigration official she stands up for him...and then leaves him. But on the way back to California, she is in a serious auto accident and lays apparently dying in the hospital. He comes to her side...illegally, and she pulls through and he gains his way into the country...with good intentions.
I've grown to enjoy Charles Boyer more in recent years, and while he was right for this part he seems too sedate here, almost as if his heart wasn't quite in it.
I recently watched another Olivia de Havilland film -- "The Heiress" -- and it occurred to me while watching it that Olivia de Havilland was the direct opposite of Bette Davis. Both were great actresses, but most of the roles that one starred in could not have been played by the other. And this film is another good example of that. Able to display a sense of nativity/innocence, but equally able to play the ability of be strong when required...and both in the same role. It's a very good performance.
Paulette Goddard seems to get the short end of the stick here as the self-described "tramp" in the film. It's not an impressive role for her.
Walter Abel, a very able character actor, is good here as the American immigration inspector. Rosemary DeCamp, an underrated actress, has a small, but good supporting role.
Be patient. The film strengthens as it goes on and has some fine moments and touching scenes, particularly on the part of Olivia de Havilland. -
dbdumonteil18 January 2007How can you be French and not love this film? First the lead is French;and in a small supporting part,there is Victor Francen,one of Julien Duvivier's ("La Fin Du Jour ",1939) and Abel Gance's ("J'accuse" 1918 and 1937) favorite actors.Plus "La Marseillaise " in the final sequences.Plus Olivia De Havilland who has been living in Paris for years.Except for Bertrand Tavernier,most of FRench critics do not speak highly of Mitchell Leisen's overlooked gem.
This is the kind of superior melodrama I love.Olivia De Havilland is one of the greatest actresses of all time,one of those who never think twice when it comes to playing demeaning parts.She is so moving,so tender and so endearing that beauty Paulette Goddard almost leaves me indifferent.And I wonder why Boyer...
The very structure of the film is highly original,being a long flashback,the hero telling his story (perhaps too much voice over) to a director to earn money (but we will know why in the last minutes )because he thinks all his trials can make a great film!Truth can be stranger than fiction cause he is in a film himself! The subject of the movie is still topical today when you see so many people leaving their country for the wealthy ones (not only America:in France ,Russians and others are actually fighting to get French citizenship).For that matter,one of the peaks is when Victor Francen declaims Emma Lazarus's poem which is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.There are subplots and Mitchell Leisen's talent manages to make them as interesting as the three leads .You may remember the lady who wants his baby to be an American and the way she makes her dream come true,maybe more than Boyer/Havilland's honeymoon.
A honeymoon that takes them to an old Mexican village where they go to mass,with a candle in their hand.A scene that recalls Murnau's "daybreak" .
Emmy (De Havilland) is a woman who has never known love.She really wants to hold back the dawn ,to make her dream longer than the night.She gave all she had and she 's so altruistic she even returns good for evil.When she realizes that she's through with her pursuit of happiness,she simply puts her glasses.
I had seen Leisen's film when I was still a child.I saw it last night.With the same pleasure. -
gbill-7487714 November 2020A shamelessly melodramatic tale of a Romanian man trying to get into America via Mexico by tricking a visiting school teacher into marrying him. Charles Boyer is the con man and Olivia de Havilland is the innocent teacher; both turn in excellent performances. It's hard not to get swept up in the romance as Boyer purrs "It is not this kiss I want. It is all your kisses. It's all your life," even though we know he's being disingenuous, and worse yet, has an old lover (Paulette Godard) waiting in the wings for him. You can probably guess how it's going to go, but some of the twists the story takes in getting there are less predictable, and there's also some pretty nice footage in a Mexican town and out on a beach. Early on we also get cameos of Veronica Lake and director Mitchell Leisen on a Hollywood film set, from which most of the story is told in a flashback.
As immigration is such a hot button issue in America these days, it was interesting to get the film's position on it, even if that position is not all that surprising. It holds America up as a virtuous land of immigrants and quotes the "tired, poor, huddled masses" line from the Statue of Liberty, but on the other hand, it doesn't want people cheating to get in (the immigration officer, played by Walter Abel, is a sympathetic character). Olivia de Havilland's characters points out how people criticizing immigrants were descended from immigrants too (unless they were related to Pocahontas, as she puts it), and the ideal of how every immigrant has a chance to be successful in America. On the other hand, it was a little tough to hear her say "scum" at the end of an exchange that started off so well:- It's like a lake, clear and fresh, and it'll never get stagnant while new streams are flowing in.
- Well, your people are building pretty high dams to stop those streams.
- Just to keep out the scum, Georges.
Make of that what you will, or maybe don't make too much of it. The film is a romance first and foremost with this as its backdrop, and like many romances, it's idealized and sentimental. If you like that sort of thing, and want to see 25-year-old Olivia de Havilland in part to honor her recent passing as I did, this could be your film. -
drogers-115 March 2005This movie is worth watching for the performances of Olivia deHavilland--unbelievably naive but Olivia has an internal sincerity that carries it off--and Charles Boyer--jaded and conniving but wonderful and romantic, a much better actor than is remembered. And Paulette Goddard too. Just watching these 3 actors in a movie is great fun. It's also an interesting and sympathetic view of a group of immigrants fleeing the war in Europe who had made it to Mexico with the hope of getting into the US. (The film came out in 1941--probably before the US had entered the war.) Boyer is Romanian, a dancer and gigolo who is broke and feeling hopeless by the time he meets Olivia, a teacher who has brought her students on a field trip to Mexico for the 4th of July (which seems like rather an odd choice when you think about it). And, there is some really tiresome interactions between the teacher and her quite incorrigible students--but hang on, it passes. Then we get to watch Boyer's insincere seduction of her and then her authentic seduction of him, the discovery of his trick and potential paradise lost. The ending? Boy, I'd love to know the story of that ending--was it the original as written? Please Paramount, put it out on DVD with commentary. Somebody must know. Anyway, despite its flaws, the performances are wonderful and it's a viewing pleasure. (Yes, a 10 is a little high for a rating--in quality, it's probably more like an 8, but in fun- value, I still give it 10, and maybe it will help get it DVDed.)
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evanston_dad4 February 2018"Hold Back the Dawn" is the kind of film that would have been labeled as a "women's picture" back in 1941, the year of release. I hate that term, though, because it condescendingly assumes that there's nothing in a movie like this for men to enjoy. On the contrary, there's plenty to enjoy for everyone, including a story that has taken on renewed urgency and relevancy considering the debate swirling around illegal immigration at this moment in our country.
Charles Boyer plays a playboy fleeing war-torn Europe and stranded in Mexico awaiting an opportunity to get into America. Olivia de Havilland plays a plain Jane school teacher who falls for his false claims of love and accepts his proposal of marriage, not realizing that he's only using her to get into the country. But of course there wouldn't be a movie if he didn't eventually fall in love with her for real and have compunction about his actions.
It's interesting to see how immigration was handled in 1941, and how lax border security was. The film is also sympathetic to the plights of those trying to gain entry, something many people now would benefit from being reminded of.
Poor de Havilland was always getting cast as dowdy, naive spinsters, which is a shame given how luminous she can be as an actress. No matter. Let the Oscar nomination she received for this film be her consolation. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay (penned by famous screenwriting team Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder), Best Art Direction (B&W), Best Cinematography (B&W), and Best Dramatic Score, a puzzling nomination since the film's only music is that heard during the opening and end credits.
Grade: B+ -
dougandwin22 July 2004It is a sad reflection that many of the movies made so long ago still compare brilliantly with the best of today. "Hold Back the Dawn" is one of those - superbly put together by Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett, and with some of the finest acting of 1941. Outtanding are Charles Boyer, in what I feel is his best acting, and Olivia de Havilland who apparently had to go to Paramount to be appreciated (her two Oscar films were made there, and she was nominated also for this one!) is a standout. Paulette Goddard in a role almost written for her was very good, and the supporting cast was excellent. Migrants trying to get into the United States has always been a hot topic, but here it is treated sympathetically in a very informative way. I have to say the ending was not well done, and one gets the feeling all was not well somewhere.
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AAdaSC21 May 2011Charles 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. -
jotix10019 April 2004It is curious how times change. More than 60 years ago, people fleeing Europe went to Mexico to try to gain access to the United States. Today, instead of going the legal route, they would probably hire a coyote to take them to the other side of the border! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This film is interesting because of the screen play by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, although the IMDB only lists the latter one as the writer. It is a mistake to bypass the great Billy Wilder, when we see his imprint everywhere in the movie.
The movie begins with a disheveled Charles Boyer going to the Paramount lot to talk to the director, Mitchell Leisen. Boyer's character, George Iscovescu, has met the director in the Riviera and comes to beg for a loan of $500, a tidy sum in those days. From there the story unfolds.
George quickly learns after arriving in the border town, that because being Rumanian he must wait about 8 years to enter the United States because of immigration quotas. He quickly learns the only way to make it across the border is if he would marry an American woman, and voila!, Emmy Brown, just happens to come to spend the 4th of July holiday with her students, thus his chance to make it in a legal way.
The cast of the film is excellent. Charles Boyer, in spite of not being upfront with the naive Emmy, doesn't make us hate him. He redeems himself at the end. Olivia de Havilland was perfect for the immature Emmy. She falls in love with a man that is trying to use her as his ticket to the promised land. Paulette Goddard, as Anita was very good. Walter Abel is the despised Inspector Hammock, the immigration officer everyone in town hates.
Don't miss it either on tape or DVD format. -
howardmorley21 October 2010I voted this film 6/10 and saw it with a mixture of enjoyment and disappointment, so felt rather ambivalent about it.First the enjoyment, my prime purpose was to see the beautiful Paulette Goddard (who was about second in the running to play "Scarlet O'Hara" in 1939 - she did have a passing resemblance to Viv.)There were good location beach shots on the Mexican border with the USA and environs of Los Angeles.The studio got away from the claustrophobic 100% studio scenes which for reason of economy were often prevalent in Hollywood at the time.The screenplay had occasional flashes of intelligence in its writing and the scriptwriter remembered to add a line that sea water had to be flushed out of the car's cooling system (which I thought at the time was stupid when Charles Boyer is seen to put it into the car's radiator when the engine overheats).
Now for the criticisms, first the dreadful stock interpretations and racist stereotype portrayals of Mexicans (and other foreign nationals) as rather childlike, indolent and rather stupid.I notice that even humble Mexicans doing manual jobs in US films always speak enough English to make themselves understood.Conversely how many American characters in US financed films are seen conversing in Spanish to Mexicans on their home soil?As I am married to a retired 63 year old school teacher, I can assure IMDb.com readers that no single teacher would be permitted to go on a school trip abroad especially without a TA to help.Teachers, far from the irritating stereotypes portrayed by film producers, are usually worldly characters and would be very unlikely to fall for the glib charms of a gigolo.They are kept busy doing lesson planning, meeting Government targets and other bureaucratic requirements,They certainly would not have enough time supervising a school trip to engage in personal romantic dalliances.Just interview any modern school teacher!I did not believe in Olivia de Havilland's character, especially the sickly sentimental final scene when she speaks to the immigration officer expunging all the moral guilt from Charles Boyer.Nevertheless my retired school teacher wife was engrossed throughout the film so I suppose for her it was mere escapism.P.S. she knows about my weakness for beautiful raven haired 1940s film actresses! -
evening17 September 2021Yup, that's what we're supposed to believe in this apparent screen test for Charles Boyer, who's auditioning for the part of an even more evil husband in "Gaslight" some three years later.
This movie starts out promisingly, but quickly bogs down in dumb plot twists. Who cares about those expats in a hotel room, and the silly man who cuts their hair? Or the schoolboys who torment a local mechanic? I tired of Paulette Goddard's forever throwing herself at Boyer's icy Georges. However, I will say that Olivia de Havilland excels as a lovely schoolteacher. But is she, or anybody, charming enough to change a psychopath's spots?
This movie's immigration theme seems particularly quaint today. It takes us to a time of ironclad controls on crossing the US southern border. Imagine that! -
Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland and Paulette Goddard deserve high praise for their performances in this poignant and touching slice of Americana from Mitchell Leisen (who later directed de Havilland in 'To Each His Own'). Basically the story of a European gigolo (Boyer) who wants to get into the United States without a long wait in Mexico. His girlfriend and ex-dancing partner (Paulette Goddard) convinces him to marry an unsuspecting American schoolteacher (de Havilland)in order to gain fast entry before ditching her. Colorful supporting characters come to life--most notably Walter Abel as an immigration officer and Rosemary de Camp as a pregnant woman who wants her child born in the U.S. Boyer narrates the story to a film director (Mitchell Leisen) and we see the story unfold in flashback from his point of view. Excellent work by all concerned. My only complaint is the abrupt ending--which I understand was a result of trouble with Boyer who wanted certain scenes rewritten--a final scene between him and de Havilland would have been preferable to what seems like a letdown for the finale. As it is, it looks like choppy editing before "The End" flashes on the screen. Still, a romantic drama with an abundant amount of dry humor and some crackling dialogue by Paulette Goddard who sparkles in her role as "the other woman". Her confrontation scene with the schoolteacher is one of the highlights of the film. De Havilland was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for this, but lost to her sister, Joan Fontaine, for 'Suspicion'.
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tugquarles31 January 2021Well written with superb acting yet typical Hollywood with their "virtue signaling" agendas.
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theowinthrop7 February 2007Billy Wilder knew first hand what it was to be a refugee in the 1930s - he was one of the lucky ones. He came from Austria, originally, and fled in a timely manner before the Nazis' Anschluss in 1938. His family still suffered - many perished in the camps. But he was able, due to his stage and film work in Europe, to find employment in Hollywood. This enabled him to avoid the savage pitfalls of the American immigration quota system set up in the 1920s. You normally had to wait for an opening in the number of immigrants coming from each country to pass into the U.S.A., unless of course you were guaranteed a job or career in the U.S.A. That's why Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi had no problems showing up in the U.S. with their physics backgrounds and reputations. But how many people were like them, or like the creative film personality Wilder? Taking Kitti Frings' original story of European refugees in Mexico, Wilder and his partner Charles Brackett constructed the script for HOLD BACK THE DAWN. George Iscovescu (Charles Boyer)is a Rumanian gigolo who has ended up on the Mexican/American border. We see he has sneaked into the U.S., and is in Hollywood at Paramount Studios. He approaches a director a friend told him about, Dwight Saxon (Mitchel Leisin - the director of this film). The film we watch is the story that Iscovescu wants to interest Saxon in producing as a film.
Iscovescu is a pretty rotten individual - he uses his good looks and charm on women and lives off them. Only one woman (Anita Dixon - Paulette Goddard) is aware of his heel's personality, as she is an opportunist as well. She and George were an item together as dancing partners in Europe. Both are trying to get into America, but the quota is keeping George out. This is a relief to Inspector Hammock (Walter Abel) who is an astute member of the immigration service, and fully aware of how "desireable" both these people are as potential U.S. citizens. However, in 1941 there was a way to get into the U.S. if you could not fit a quota, or if you had no guaranteed job. The method (which was legal until about five years ago) was that you could marry an American citizen and become one. This method was misused, so the immigration service made sure that the marriages were truly love matches and then decided they were not good enough anymore. But that was long after 1941.
George looks for someone he can quickly marry, gain citizenship through, and then discard in a year or so. He finds an American school teacher named Emmy Brown (Olivia De Haviland), who is a little naive. He romances very quickly, and within a few weeks George and Emmy are married. Hammock is observing all this, and tries to warn Emmy, but she won't hear anything about George. The problem though is that Emmy is so in love with George that (despite his man-of-the-world shell) he starts responding to it. Anita keeps reminding him to go across the border, and send for her, but instead (to her growing dismay) she finds that George is spending all of his time getting to know Emmy better - and actually falling in love with her. Jealous and angry, Anita decides to reveal George and her past to Emmy - and the crisis of the film comes out of this revelation.
Frankly from my description one can say that HOLD BACK THE DAWN is superior soap opera. But in fact Wilder and Brackett took a serious look at the problem of immigration. Besides the antics of George and Anita and Emmy, they look at Professor Van den Leuken (Victor Francen, in one of his nicer parts), a minor-Fermi or Einstein, waiting for a college position promised him to be cleared: Bonbois (Curt Bois), a French hairdresser, hoping for an opening in the quota - who happens (thanks to Van den Leuken) to discover he has a secret historical weapon that will open his way into America; and - possibly the most touching figure in the film - Berta Kurz (Rosemary De Camp) a German (probably German Jewish) refugee with her husband, who is pregnant and really determined that her child is going to be an American citizen come hell or high water. And she achieves her goal.
The acting was of high order, and really Olivia De Haviland's best part after GONE WITH THE WIND two years earlier. If Melanie Wilkes was a decent, brave example of southern womanhood, Emmy is a woman who gradually finds she is an adult woman with sexual feelings. As a result of her performance, De Haviland got her first nomination for a best actress Oscar, but (ironically - and bitterly) she would lose to her own sister Joan Fontaine for SUSPICION.
Boyer played one of his darker figures, like Pepi Le Moko, who one could sympathize with after a fact - especially after he reveals he has a finer self than we thought. As for Goddard, this film and the earlier THE WOMAN demonstrated that she was a highly capable actress - not just a good reactor to her first husband Charlie Chaplin in two movies.
Wilder and Bracket had clashed with Leisin on other joint projects, just as Preston Sturgis had. This would prove to be the last screenplay by them that he (or any other director) would direct. Well enough for Wilder perhaps (and even his then partner Charles Brackett). But despite their complaints, Leisin's work was quite above average in this movie. -
st-shot11 May 2022Charles Boyer reverts to his gigolo playbook and use of his bedroom eyes in order to get across the US border by seducing school mom Olivia DeHavilland in Hold Back the Dawn. While the chaotic mess that is the border these days may only require good aquatic abilities, the more orderly 1941, could leave folks at bay waiting to get in for years.
Rumanian Georges Iscovescu is jolted by the fact it will take 8 years for him to gain asylum in the US due to a quota system. Taking up residence in a Tijuana hotel he impatiently waits his turn when he finds out an American wife will gain him entry. On July 4th he sets out in search of a wife and after a comically failed first attempt comes upon schoolteacher Emmy Brown, turns on the charm and soon hitched. Georges has no intention of staying with her once over the border and an American agent (Walter Abel) sees through the scheme.
Boyer is an ideal suave sleaze as he manipulates the naive Olivia, a sweet comic innocent that is almost too gullible. The romantic close-ups the two share are moments of incredible pang and passion given edge by Boyer's craven exploitation of the doe eyed sap. Paulette Goddard as a gold digging former dance partner adds a fine supporting performance as she deviously works all matters to her advantage.
Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder with their noted cynical sense of humor it projects a type of screwball melodrama that brings a touch of unevenness to some moments, necessary, however, to pave the way to Boyer's redemption, along with a dig or two about US immigration laws. -
There is a peculiar story connected with "Hold Back the Dawn." Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett wrote a short scene in which Charles Boyer's character soliloquizes to a cockroach, to express his sense of being trapped like a bug in a dismal place. It was cut. That so upset Wilder that he resolved to become a director, presumably so that henceforth his scripts would remain intact. He also resolved to cut out Boyer's lines in the final scenes of "Hold Back the Dawn" ("If he won't talk to a roach he won't talk to anyone"). I find all this hard to believe, although I have seen the video clip in which Wilder relates it. Billy Wilder knew how Hollywood worked. Why should he be so incensed at the loss of one short monologue? Probably, he already contemplated becoming a director. This made a good story. I find it even harder to believe that he would sabotage his own script, mute a major character just to indulge a fit of pique. That made a good story too. It explained a noticeable imbalance. "Hold Back the Dawn" juxtaposes two themes: the story of desperate emigrants unable to reach a new homeland, and the story of an improbable love between mismatched people. In the end, as Billy Wilder must have seen, the second plot dominates the first (so let's blame the missing cockroach).
Notwithstanding all this, "Hold Back the Dawn" is a wonderful film. Olivia de Havilland's Emmy Brown is a memorable character, and Olivia de Havilland gives a memorable performance. She lost the Oscar to her sister but, in my opinion, she deserved to win. She faced an incredibly difficult role. She first has to make believable how she could be so dazzled by a gigolo like Boyer's Georges Iscovescu, so dazzled as to marry him after a few hours' acquaintance. Emmy is naïve but she's not born yesterday. Olivia does it. We really can believe that, in her dull life, she has been searching for something exotic, something exciting. Then she must make believable how, even after being cruelly undeceived, she can continue to love him. Olivia does it. Boyer too must make believable his character's transformation, from heartlessness to sincerity. He does it, even without the dialogue Billy Wilder supposedly maliciously withheld. We see the transformation grow in his looks, in his eyes, during the scenes at the village fair. By the time Paulette Goddard betrays him we know he's in love. Actresses said they loved to play opposite Boyer - Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight," Bette Davis in "All This and Heaven Too," Garbo in "Conquest" - because he was genuinely a nice guy and because, I think, he never upstaged them. He complemented them. He complements Olivia de Havilland. He feeds her lines perfectly. He gives her the foundation for her reactions, and he lets her shine.
"Hold Back the Dawn" displays a collection of Hollywood's expatriate French actors. There's Boyer, of course, and Boyer's friend Victor Francen - actually, he was Belgian, but he made his stage and screen career in France. Boyer had urged him to get out and come to Hollywood. He's better known to classic film fans here than he is in France. I mention to friends there Julien Duvivier's "La Fin du Jour." "Who's in it?" I name Louis Jouvet and Michel Simon. Eyes light up. Victor Francen. "Connais pas" (never heard of him). "Hold Back the Dawn" also brings in Micheline Cheirel, who later married the great Paul Meurisse. She was terrific in one of my favorites, "So Dark the Night." There's Madeleine Lebeau, who had fled with her Jewish husband Marcel Dalio and got to Hollywood in time for them both to be immortalized in "Casablanca." Victor Francen, reciting Emma Lazarus' poem, is striking, reminiscent of Charles Laughton in "Ruggles of Red Gap" reciting the Gettysburg Address. I have never heard the words better spoken. To that extent, the first aim of Billy Wilder's story comes through: a plea for compassion. Open the doors. Let desperate people enter. Relevant today? No need to comment. -
SAMTHEBESTEST18 February 2022Hold Back The Dawn (1941) : Brief Review -
When melodramas used to have solid sentiments. Simply beautiful. I would have preferred a tragic end, though. Let me tell you a formula, and I think most of you have read or seen it somewhere in some film. A handsome man honey traps a girl and marries her only for his own benefit, while the girl truly loves him. Soon, he realises his mistake and finds himself deeply in love with her, but she's already known the truth by the time. I can't name all of the movies based on this formula, but I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. Hold Back The Dawn is about Georges Iscovescu, a young, handsome, but cold-blooded guy, who is stopped in Mexico by U. S. Immigration. He hopes to get into the country by marrying a girl, Emmy, and plans to ditch her later. But he instead falls in love with her. What happens when the girl knows the truth? There is one more character named Anita, a dame with no heart for anyone but Georges. They are both dirt, so they belong together, as she says. I liked that part when she makes it all clear to Emmy. That schoolteacher and schoolgirl dialogue was lit. So meaningful, yet disturbing. I think the film should have had a tragic ending, and that would have looked better. This happy ending kept it way far from the burning climax. The other reason I felt plausible was the way Georges' character is shown from the start. I mean, he's a womaniser and all that stuff, so I think he deserved some punishment at the end. Physical, spiritual, or mental, I don't care which one, but he deserved it. That's the tragic end I'm talking about. In the same way, we saw Scarlet lose Rhett in the climax of 'Gone With The Wind' (1939), because she deserved it. Rest assured, it's a beautiful film filled with the beautiful performance of beautiful Olivia De Havilland, the legend. Overall, not a classic (it could have been), but certainly another nice drama from Mitchell Leisen. And yes, it's puissant.
RATING - 7/10* -
JohnHowardReid21 April 2018Copyright 26 September 1941 by Paramount Pictures Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 1 October 1941. U.S. release: 26 September 1941. Australian release: 30 October 1941. Sydney opening at the Prince Edward: 22 October 1941 (ran four weeks). 10,565 feet. 115 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: An illegal immigrant, Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer), tells his story in flashback to a Hollywood film director (Mitchell Leisen). Stranded in a Mexican border town and desperate to enter the U.S.A., Iscovescu romances an American schoolteacher (Olivia de Havilland), and with practiced ease quickly wins her heart. They are married. The schoolteacher thinks she has found true romance, but her illusions are shattered when Iscovescu's former dance partner (Paulette Goddard) tells her it was all a sham.
NOTES: Although nominated for no less than six Academy Awards, the film won none.
COMMENT: I remember when I first saw "Hold Back the Dawn", I was entranced with Charles Boyer. I loved the way he romanced the girl and was determined to adopt the same successful technique. For hours I rehearsed his little spiel-the one about how you can't stop romance and falling in love "any more than you can hold back the dawn"-until I had it off pat. But somehow it didn't work for me.
Anyway, seen fifty years later, the picture still comes over as an original, poignant and marvelously effective romantic drama. The seed, depressing atmosphere of the Mexican border town is drawn to realistic perfection, while the principals (Boyer, de Havilland and Goddard) bring the story across with remarkable verisimilitude.
Unfortunately, whilst the principals are perfect, the support players let us down (and that's a switch)! Walter Abel gives us a very peculiar account of the sneaky immigration inspector (though the writing is defective too), Curt Bois is allowed to ham up his part mightily, and even Nestor Paiva seems oddly ill at ease in a role he should have taken in a breeze.
However, we loved Mitch Leisen's impersonation of himself (plus the fleeting appearances of Lake and Donlevy whom Leisen was actually directing on the set of "I Wanted Wings").
All told, Hold Back the Dawn still holds the interest and packs a fair punch. It remains an interesting by-way of U.S. immigration history (actually based on Ketti Frings' own experience and her struggle to get her husband, Kurt, into the U.S. via Mexico), superbly photographed, set, and produced. -
kirbylee70-599-5261794 August 2019I'd never heard of HOLD BACK THE DAWN until this new release from Arrow Video came out. I'd never heard of the director of the film Mitchell Leisen before either though in looking through his resume on imdb I found I was familiar with several of his films. In watching the extras with this release they discuss his importance in film and the amount of respect he garnered and yet I still wonder how many would recognize the name or his films.
With HOLD BACK THE DAWN Leisen and writers Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (yes that Billy Wilder) have brought to life a compelling story of change in a man with a location and tale that is seldom used. Made in 1941 the film revolves around European refugees attempting to enter the United States through Mexico. How strange that a movie made all those years ago revolves around a situation that continues to this day.
The film opens with Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer) finding his way onto the Paramount Studios lot in search of director Dwight Saxon, a man he met years ago in Europe. He's come searching for him with the hopes of selling him a story for $500, money he needs for a reason that can't be explained without telling him that story.
Iscovescu found years ago when leaving Europe that he couldn't come directly into the US. Making his way to Mexico in the hopes of an easy crossing into the country, he's told that it will take 5-8 years due to the number of refugees coming from his home. He finds accommodations in a hotel near the border where he sits and waits for his time, hoping that his money doesn't run out.
While waiting he sees a familiar face, Anita Dixon (Paulette Goddard). The two were a professional dancing couple when they were together in Europe. They spend some time together and Anita tells him there is a way to circumvent the wait to enter the country, one that she employed: find someone to marry and once across the border seek a divorce.
Iscovescu agrees to use this method and begins searching for a woman to romance and lure into his plan with the intent of rejoining Dixon once he's in the US. After a few failed attempts he sets his sights on Miss Emmy Brown (Olivia de Havilland), a school teacher on holiday with some of her young students for the Fourth of July. In no time at all she falls for his romantic tactics and they get married before she heads back home. Returning with the children it will take a few months for Iscovescu's papers to be processed and then they will be reunited.
With things going as planned now all he has to do is wait. Dixon returns and the couple room next door to one another getting cozy without fear of being recognized as a pair. But immigration Inspector Hammock (Walter Abel) knows the methods Dixon used in the past and is suspicious. When Emmy returns for an unexpected visit, Iscovescu sneaks her out of town for a romantic getaway.
During this trip the couple find themselves lost and ending up in a quaint village where the townspeople are celebrating an upcoming marriage. As Iscovescu watches Emmy he begins to develop a fondness for her. The slow change of Iscovescu from roguish gigolo to a man quite possibly in love makes for the most fascinating portion of the film.
But with the potential for happiness comes the matter of conflict in the story. As Iscovescu has fallen for Emmy his partner Dixon only seeks what is good for her. An inevitable clash between characters is set in motion and the end result is not quite what you would expect.
In a world where the topic of the southern border between the US and Mexico is in the daily news to find a movie made all those years ago discussing the same topic is interesting. The refugees on display here are coming not for jobs but for the freedoms that they hold up as something to be treasured. Their willingness to wait for the opportunity is a far cry from the flooding of the border today.
In addition to that the story here while focused around the three main characters is surrounded by the other cast members as well as the location the story takes place in. The various guests in the hotel Iscovescu is staying in round out the story and make it more believable. Their tale is just as important as his. It all comes together to make an interesting film that will hold your attention from start to finish.
Once more Arrow Video has done an amazing job of resurrecting a film that might otherwise have been lost. It's presented in a 1080p from original film elements and includes a number of extras as well. Those include a new audio commentary track by film scholar Adrian Martin, "Love Knows No Borders" a newly filmed appreciation of the film by critic Geoff Andrew, "The Guardian Lecture: Olivia de Havilland" a career spanning onstage interview with Olivia de Havilland at the National Film Theater in 1971, a rare hour long radio adaptation of HOLD BACK THE DAWN starring Charles Boyer, Paulette Goddard and Susan Hayward, a gallery of original stills and promotional images, the original film trailer, a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio, and for the first pressing only an illustrated collector's booklet with new writing on the film by writer and critic Farran Smith Nehme. -
blanche-224 February 2013Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland star in "Hold Back the Dawn," a 1941 film also starring Paulette Goddard, Walter Abel, and Rosemary de Camp.
This film is an A all the way - the cast, the script by Wilder and Brackett, and direction by Mitchell Liesen, all great.
The story is about immigrants stuck in Mexico as they wait to get into the United States, most of them living at the Hotel Esperanza. There's a quota, and depending on what country you're from, the quota can mean a long wait.
"Hold Back the Dawn" is told in flashback, beginning with Boyer, as Roumanian Georges Iscovescu, approaching someone at Paramount, trying to sell his story. It begins with Iscovescu, a gigolo, in Mexico, hoping to get into the U.S. and being told by the immigration consul (Walter Abel) that he has to wait.
His old partner in crime, Anita (Paulette Goddard) shows up -- the two have quite a love 'em or leave 'em operation going. When schoolteacher Emmy Brown shows up with some students on a tour, he sweeps her off her feet and marries her so he can have citizenship. The idea is to then dump Emmy and meet Anita back in New York where they can take up their scam again.
Georges can't return to the states with Emmy immediately, there's a waiting period, and Georges plans to go to her home town and let her down easy before going to New York. But she shows up on a school break to spend the week with him.
De Havilland is wonderful as a the pretty, naive Emmy, who falls in love with Georges. As the cold Georges, Boyer is very convincing as a man who turns the charm on and off like a faucet, but as he gets to know Emmy, he starts to thaw. Goddard is vivacious and beautiful as Anita, in love with Georges herself and not wanting anyone else in the way.
In a supporting role, Rosemary Camp is Bertha Kurz, a pregnant woman determined that her child will be born in the United States. An underrated actress, DeCamp was a TV mainstay through the '70s and did many appearances in the '80s as well. Accents were her specialty. She turns in a lovely performance here. Walter Abel is good as the harried counsel.
The Mexican town and beat-up hotel make for a perfect atmosphere where people exist while waiting to begin their lives in the U.S. A beautiful film with a script by a man who knew well what it meant to be an immigrant, Billy Wilder. A little off the beaten track from his more usual fare, but no less brilliant. -
SnoopyStyle7 November 2021Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer) walks onto the Paramount lot and tells his story to the director for cash. He was a refugee stuck in Mexico waiting to immigrate to the United States. After some months, he's out of money and hope. His former flame Anita Dixon is marrying to get her citizenship and a quickie divorce soon afterwards. He intends to do the same and starts pursuing visiting American teacher Emmy Brown (Olivia de Havilland).
De Havilland is always luminous. I'm not sure Boyer is a great match. The character's initial motive is awkward for a romance. It does turn much better as it approaches the ending. This romance concerned me at first but it did grow on me. It's fine melodrama. -
cdlistguy18 August 2021Overlong melodrama with characters that are either unlikeable or bland. This easily could have been a half-an-hour shorter, but I'm not sure that would have helped. The scenes away from the little town (where most of the "action" takes place) are the best. Boyer is actually too good as the scoundrel; I was uncomfortable watching many of the scenes in which he pretended to be honorable. Finally, the ending is contrived in a way that subverts the overall big-budget style of the film. With a good scriptwriter, the elements that highlighted the immigration issues and longing for a better life would have lifted this movie into a more rarified stratosphere, but alas, that was not to be.