Alex da Silva Charles Boyer (Iscovescu) is a Romanian gigolo who applies to enter the US and is told that he will have to wait 8 years, so he rents a room in a Mexican border town and waits. In to the town comes Paulette Goddard (Anita) who is his ex-partner in both romance and pulling scams across Europe by preying on the wealthy. She has got herself American citizenship and points Boyer in the right direction. All he has to do is marry an American citizen and he can gain his entry in about a month. Thus begins the search for an American bride who Boyer can marry, gain access into the US, get a quick divorce and then team up with Anita once again to fleece the rich. Enter school-teacher Olivia de Havilland (Emmy). However, immigration officer Walter Abel (Hammock) is wise to the plan and does not intend to let Boyer get away with things.The film is overlong with certain scenes that stretch proceedings a little tiresomely, eg, the schoolchildren, the visit to a Mexican village and the rather painful reciting of some nonsense on a plaque that supports the Statue of Liberty.....oh for goodness sake.....get on with the film....! However, set against this, Boyer and Goddard are good in their roles and their performances elevate this film to the score I have given as the story alone isn't fast-moving enough to maintain interest. I found de Havilland a bit too soppy and so not as interesting a character, although she has her moments towards the end. Walter Abel does a good job as the immigration officer but the rest of the supporting cast at the hotel are all quite irritating. We didn't need any of them for the story.Boyer does everything with such smoothness that I'm sure he could have slept with the whole cast if he chose to. After all, it's what French people like to do. That and performing mime routines.

howardmorley I voted this film 6/10 and saw it with a mixture of enjoyment and disappointment, so felt rather ambivalent about it.First the enjoyment, my prime purpose was to see the beautiful Paulette Goddard (who was about second in the running to play "Scarlet O'Hara" in 1939 - she did have a passing resemblance to Viv.)There were good location beach shots on the Mexican border with the USA and environs of Los Angeles.The studio got away from the claustrophobic 100% studio scenes which for reason of economy were often prevalent in Hollywood at the time.The screenplay had occasional flashes of intelligence in its writing and the scriptwriter remembered to add a line that sea water had to be flushed out of the car's cooling system (which I thought at the time was stupid when Charles Boyer is seen to put it into the car's radiator when the engine overheats).Now for the criticisms, first the dreadful stock interpretations and racist stereotype portrayals of Mexicans (and other foreign nationals) as rather childlike, indolent and rather stupid.I notice that even humble Mexicans doing manual jobs in US films always speak enough English to make themselves understood.Conversely how many American characters in US financed films are seen conversing in Spanish to Mexicans on their home soil?As I am married to a retired 63 year old school teacher, I can assure IMDb.com readers that no single teacher would be permitted to go on a school trip abroad especially without a TA to help.Teachers, far from the irritating stereotypes portrayed by film producers, are usually worldly characters and would be very unlikely to fall for the glib charms of a gigolo.They are kept busy doing lesson planning, meeting Government targets and other bureaucratic requirements,They certainly would not have enough time supervising a school trip to engage in personal romantic dalliances.Just interview any modern school teacher!I did not believe in Olivia de Havilland's character, especially the sickly sentimental final scene when she speaks to the immigration officer expunging all the moral guilt from Charles Boyer.Nevertheless my retired school teacher wife was engrossed throughout the film so I suppose for her it was mere escapism.P.S. she knows about my weakness for beautiful raven haired 1940s film actresses!

dbdumonteil How can you be French and not love this film? First the lead is French;and in a small supporting part,there is Victor Francen,one of Julien Duvivier's ("La Fin Du Jour ",1939) and Abel Gance's ("J'accuse" 1918 and 1937) favorite actors.Plus "La Marseillaise " in the final sequences.Plus Olivia De Havilland who has been living in Paris for years.Except for Bertrand Tavernier,most of FRench critics do not speak highly of Mitchell Leisen's overlooked gem.This is the kind of superior melodrama I love.Olivia De Havilland is one of the greatest actresses of all time,one of those who never think twice when it comes to playing demeaning parts.She is so moving,so tender and so endearing that beauty Paulette Goddard almost leaves me indifferent.And I wonder why Boyer...The very structure of the film is highly original,being a long flashback,the hero telling his story (perhaps too much voice over) to a director to earn money (but we will know why in the last minutes )because he thinks all his trials can make a great film!Truth can be stranger than fiction cause he is in a film himself! The subject of the movie is still topical today when you see so many people leaving their country for the wealthy ones (not only America:in France ,Russians and others are actually fighting to get French citizenship).For that matter,one of the peaks is when Victor Francen declaims Emma Lazarus's poem which is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.There are subplots and Mitchell Leisen's talent manages to make them as interesting as the three leads .You may remember the lady who wants his baby to be an American and the way she makes her dream come true,maybe more than Boyer/Havilland's honeymoon.A honeymoon that takes them to an old Mexican village where they go to mass,with a candle in their hand.A scene that recalls Murnau's "daybreak" .Emmy (De Havilland) is a woman who has never known love.She really wants to hold back the dawn ,to make her dream longer than the night.She gave all she had and she 's so altruistic she even returns good for evil.When she realizes that she's through with her pursuit of happiness,she simply puts her glasses.I had seen Leisen's film when I was still a child.I saw it last night.With the same pleasure.

moonspinner55 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 ****