I'd somehow missed this 1941 melodrama from screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and director Mitch Leisen, and it was something of a revelation. A clear-eyed, still-relevant look at the problems of immigrants at the Mexican border, it's also an intriguing romantic triangle, laced with ample Brackett-Wilder wit. A needless flashback structure, offering a generous glimpse of Leisen himself playing a Paramount director, frames the story of an experienced gigolo (Charles Boyer) with a faithful girlfriend/partner-in-crime (Paulette Goddard, relishing an unsympathetic part), who marries a naive schoolteacher (Olivia de Havilland) to cross into the States. Some flaws: Boyer is a hard-to-root-for rotter for most of it, though the screenwriters nimbly turn him into a hero (via a slightly contrived third-act crisis); his character narrates too much; Goddard's denouement is too convenient; the ending's rushed. But de Havilland is just aces, there are some beautiful sequences, and a number of subplots involving a number of good character actors keep us interested. Walter Abel is a splendid crafty government agent, and Rosemary de Camp consistently compelling as a very pregnant would-be immigrant determined to cross over and deliver her baby in the U. S. The pro-American attitude isn't over-peddled, and we're convinced by the end that this couple was, indeed, made for each other. I had a lovely time.
Review of Hold Back the Dawn
