Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Starring Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Walter Abel, Victor Francen, Rosemary DeCamp, Curt Bois, Eva Puig, Nestor Paiva, Eric Feldary.

Stuck in a Mexican border town waiting for entry into the U.S., Romanian immigrant Boyer decides to expedite the process by charming a visiting American schoolteacher (De Havilland) and marrying her, but before he has the chance to cross into the States, a dubious immigration agent (Abel) comes sniffing around. Overlong melodrama sets up roost in the dignified class, but it’s slow to start and suffers from structural issues that put the spotlight on some scarcely credible plot turns. Minor production values and flat photography don’t help either, but screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett took issue on different grounds than meager attention to aesthetic; they scripted a scene where Boyer would be having a “conversation” with a hotel cockroach, but Boyer refused to do it and the producers backed him (after that, Wilder started directing his own movies). Though Goddard flounders in a supporting role as a jealous co-conspirator, Boyer and De Havilland are tender and finespun. Director Leisen plays the onscreen Hollywood director to whom Boyer tells his story.

59/100