Hold Back the Dawn

Mitchell Leisen's 1941 film is about a man waiting at the Mexican border. Georges Iscovescu has fled Europe and wants to enter America; learning that the quota system means years of waiting, he sees his only way out in marrying an American woman and then abandoning her. The hotel in the border town is a world of waiting, full of people who have done the same. He deceives and marries Emmy, a schoolteacher, and her goodness breaks his plan apart. The film describes immigration bureaucracy and waiting in detail, building the town as an in-between zone nobody can leave. The screenplay is by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and the story is framed as being told to a film director. Olivia de Havilland was nominated for an Academy Award. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Hollywood melodrama. Who it's not for: anyone wanting to avoid an emotional resolution; the film chooses one towards the end.