Hold Back The Dawn

A touching and memorable film, this brilliant romance offers evocative performances by Boyer and de Havilland. It opens with a typical Wilder twist: Leisen, shown on the set of I WANTED WINGS, directing a scene with Brian Donlevy and Veronica Lake, is approached by Romanian gigolo Boyer, a one-time European dancer and ladies' escort. Boyer wants to sell movie director Leisen a story for $500. He then fascinates the director with the tale that is HOLD BACK THE DAWN, played out in flashback.

Boyer, stranded in a Mexican border town, lives in a rundown hotel, the Esperanza, which houses all manner of human driftwood from Europe, refugees from Nazi oppression, not t...