La porta d'oro

It 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.

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 ****

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'.

As 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.

This 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.