‘Hold Back the Dawn’ or — Leisen’s Leniency?
‘Hold Back the Dawn’ (1941) has a fantastic and startlingly ‘modern’ and meta opening as the film doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as simply barge straight into itself, into its own movie, and directly address its own director. Or, to be precise, into the movie director, Mitchell Leisen, was directing before this one which starred Brian Donlevy and Veronica Lake. Wow!
And what we’re watching is Charles Boyer, a desperate man hunted by federal agents, appeal to the director, or ‘god’, of his life for help and if he’ll listen to his remarkable, yet terrible, story. Stories are Leisen’s job so, obviously, he can’t resist, and neither can we. But will Leisen prove a vengeful deity or a merciful one? Let’s find out.
Turns out old Charles has been a bit of a cad down in South America as he’d tricked a sweet and naive schoolteacher, Olivia de Havilland, into marrying him in Mexican border town so that he could obtain legal entry into the United States. Olivia loves Charles with all her heart. This is because she’s either a hopeless romantic or a total idiot. Either way, it means we can laugh at her expense and gear ourselves up for Boyer’s inevitable comeuppance.
Or is it inevitable?
I was convinced I wasn’t going to tear-up at ‘Hold Back the Dawn’ because the central relationship seemed so explicitly transactional — Boyer wants de Havilland for a green card and de Havilland is there to provide us with our laughs. Besides, Boyer’s beyond redemption so the film feels like a delicious exercise in watching a manipulative playboy squirm. After all, the script was written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and Boyer seems as much a dead man walking (or should that be ‘floating’?) as Holden in Wilder’s later ‘Sunset Blvd.’ (1950).
And this is a wonderfully funny movie with Boyer perfect as two-timing schemer whilst de Havilland plays her role as Emmy Brown with such gusto, relish and comedic panache that we never come close to pitying her, even if (and sometimes especially when) she’s treated to horribly.
Our first hint of compassion (would Wilder even have known what that word meant?) comes during a rainy car ride when de Havilland observes how the windscreen wipers move in unison and make the same noise “together… together”. It’s a supremely touching and tender line yet when Boyer resurrects it towards the end I almost burst into tears!
That lurking emotional impact in ‘Hold Back the Dawn’ is down to several elements, not least of which is the film’s remarkable emotional and psychological poise. Nothing feels forced, no element overplayed, zero histrionics, nothing leaned into too heavily meaning the balance of tone is perfect. The characters and their feelings are handled so beautifully, are so lovingly placed within this world and powered by such humanity that you don’t quite realise the heart-breaking hit-job Leisen is pulling on us until it’s too late.
Yet it’s not just emotionally but also visually that Leisen demonstrates incredible flare, something that’s less of a surprise when you discover the director use to be an architect, then a set designer and was even responsible for the spectacular costumes for Raoul Walsh and Douglas Fairbanks’ ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ (1924). So there’s a real sense of visual intelligence running throughout the entire movie (notice how Lake is shown at the beginning inside a screen within a screen which emphasises we’re watching a film about moving pictures invading themselves). The film’s final emotional punch is also represented visually which highlights a difference between that of Leisen and Wilder’s directing style because I suspect Wilder would’ve wanted to end on a verbal gag, a sharp joke or acidic zinger. Leisen, instead, focuses on the characters and the heart-gasping possibility of their redemption.
‘Hold Back the Dawn’ is the only Mitchell Leisen film I’ve seen but now I’ve witnessed just what he could do I’m ravenous for more, if not for everything he did. This is a funny, touching, beautiful, humane piece of work with a strong social message (the dawn that cannot be held back is that of immigrants bringing new light to a nation) and even manages to fit in a short, and very fun, car chase.
I won’t spoil the ending except to say that it flirts with ambiguity but in a completely disingenuous manner because even if the letter of the script suggests various interpretations the overwhelming emotional stance is one of care, love and tenderness. The film might’ve delighted in watching these people squirm but it doesn’t want to see them suffer and it’s that refusal to put the knife in that hit me so hard.
Sure, technically the ending shouldn’t work because it doesn’t obey the rules of believability or the “real world”, but this isn’t the real world but Leisen’s and that’s why Boyer came to the director of his life for help and salvation at the beginning. And wouldn’t you want to be remembered and a loving and benevolent god?
