90 Days of Oscar Nominees #70 – Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

In my attempt to have a more prolific repertoire of Oscar Nominated Films, I have taken it upon myself to watch 90 new Best Picture Nominees that I’ve never seen before between 5 Dec 2017 and The 90th Annual Oscars on 4 Mar 2018.

Here is my 70th review of the 90 chosen Films…

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“I’ll be the doggonedest dog to end all doggoned dogs! Maybe I’m just dumb. ” – Inspector Hammock

Number of Times Seen – 1 (11 Feb 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A Romanian living on Mexico tries to find a scheme in order to get across the border into the US.

My Take on it – This is a film that I was quite interested to see because it was written by Billy Wilder who always does a great job with his scripts.

The story itself is quite interesting  despite the fact that it isn’t all that an original idea and it has been made and remade so many times both prior to this film and lots afterwards.

The difference here is that the characters are quite sympathetic here and we get the chance to see them grow during the film.

This film’s story is quite predictable yet due to the characters it still remains enjoyable to watch unfold.

The cast is great with Charles Boyer, Olivia deHavilland and Paulette Goddard all doing amazing jobs with their characters eventhough they all feel very stereotypical .

This film was nominated for 6 Oscars that year yet didn’t manage to win any of them

Bottom Line – Interesting story that has been redone so many times before and after this film was made. The characters are quite good and despite it all being pretty predictable what will happen, it generally works. Boyer, deHavilland and Goddard are all interesting eventhough they all play very stereotypical characters. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – This marked the first time a pair of siblings were nominated for Academy Awards in the same category with both Olivia de Havilland and her younger sister Joan Fontaine making the cut for Best Actress. Fontaine won for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941). This wouldn’t happen again until 1966 when Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave found themselves both competing for Best Actress, though in that instance neither won.(From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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