Hold Back the Dawn

Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back the Dawn opens with a bit of fourth wall breakage, perhaps not a surprise with Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder as the film's writers. In an attempt to earn some quick money, Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer) tries to sell his story to film director Dwight Saxon (Leisen). But what is his story?

Stuck in a Mexican hotel full of fellow immigrants, Georges waits impatiently for the paperwork needed to get into the United States legally. He learns from his former dancing partner Anita Dixon (Paulette Goddard) that she found a quicker solution; she simply married and quickly divorced an American to citizenship. Inspired by this, he finds a potential mark in visiting schoolteacher Emmy Brown (Olivia de Havilland). Will he succeed?

This being a work penned by Brackett and Wilder, there is cynicism all over the place in Hold Back the Dawn. (Certainly a stark contrast to some of Leisen's previous films.) Like their later works The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, the only reason their embittered protagonist is still existing is that of an idealistic woman in their life.

And much like what she would later do for Leisen with To Each His Own, de Havilland enters into an atmosphere that would test her usual bright-eyed image. Having her in a project that makes her character fully aware the world she's a part of isn't made for someone like her shows audiences that there's more to de Havilland than being swept up by Errol Flynn's roguish charm. (Thankfully the years to come would continue to bolster this.)

Hold Back the Dawn is one of the overlooked titles from the 1940s, which says a lot since the decade is chock full of noted films. The trio of leads are solid (has Goddard done similar roles?), and Leisen is one of the more underappreciated directors of Hollywood's Golden Age. (Only a matter of time before he gets his due.)

My Rating: ****1/2

To Each His Own

"The most mysterious mysteries are people, and usually people who don't seem mysterious at all." So opens Mitchell Leisen's To Each His Own. It's a story of  a woman who tries to escape her past indiscretion but has it gnawing away at her for years.

The woman in question is Jody Norris, played in top tier form by Olivia de Havilland. Bear in mind that To Each His Own was made following the legal woes de Havilland faced with Warner Bros. and the contract she was under with them. After two years of not working, she signed on to this film.

And it's her work in To Each His Own was her defiantly telling off Jack L. Warner for giving her nothing but ingénue roles for years. In Leisen's hands (whom de Havilland specifically chose to direct this), she tackles the role with utter aplomb. (It doesn't take much to see how she got her first of two Oscars for this.)

As she would do in her later performances like The Snake Pit and The Heiress, de Havilland shows how layered a character Jody is. When we first see her, she's a bitter middle-aged woman and through flashbacks we see what made her jaded and broken.

To Each His Own is a heartbreaking piece of filmmaking. In anyone else's hands, Charles Brackett's script could've turned into an overwrought melodrama reminiscent of Douglas Sirk's films the following decade. But thanks to Leisen and de Havilland, that is far from the case.

My Rating: ****1/2