Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett wrote it at the time of their legendary partnership. Ketti Frings wrote the novel on which story, the dynamic duo have much improved it. Boyer tries to make it his own, especially as a Foreigner with a lovely accent (his own, which he kept all his life !). For Romanians it's a blast, cos' he is a crook / gigolo from Bucharest named George(s) Iscovescu !!! 

Studio man Mitchell Leisen directed it professionally. The year was 1941 and immigration was at its WW2 boom. Iscovescu wants to get in the USA and he needs a passport and a citizenship and in order to get those he needs to marry an American. The film premiered on September 11th 1941, just three months before Pearl Harbor !

The two women in the film are opposites, each with its role, Paulette Goddard as the femme fatalish Anita and Olivia de Havilland the innocent Ingenue Mrs. Brown. 

Supporting characters, from Curt Bois as Bonbois, to Walter Abel's  Inspector Hammock, Victor Francen as Vander Lucken and Nestor Faiva as hotellier Flores, the story is told in a flashback from the stage / set of a film at Paramount, on which Iscovescu/ Boyer went to see to director Dwight Saxon, played by none other than director Mitchell Leisen in order to see this story (maybe the most modern aspect of the film, predicting Sunset Boulevard ?) !!!

Very long for those day's standards (116 mins.) and heavilly plotted, it has a bleaker tone for a romantic  melodrama and a downbeat immigration angle. And a small dose of film noir (esp. for the self-person narration). The dialogue is sharp and some witty and cynical one-liners are already trademark Wilder.  Brackett and Wilder were very dissapointed with the result and Boyer's refusal do do a dialogue with a cockroach, they cut off most of his lines, giving them to Paulette Goddard. Also  I read this was the last film Wilder wrote without directing it (even though Ball of Fire for Hawks opened in December 1941...).

Hold Back the Dawn was nominated for 6 Oscars back in 1941, including best film, best screenplay and best cinematography (in Black&White, Leo Tovar). 

3 1/2 out of 5 ! 7 out of 10 !!! (loses steam due to the duration, otherwise would've been an Eight!)