Stills of the day

Irene Dunne and Cary in THE AWFUL TRUTH, 1937 - I just love them, they also did MY FAVOURTE WIFE and PENNY SERENADE, as per Cary & Irene labels. 

Thanks to Colin for this shot of Antonioni and Vitti during THE RED DESERT in 1964. We love Monica as a blonde but she looks great here too ..... Richard Harris at his most monotonous disliked working with them and walked off the picture. No loss. Lots more at Antonioni, Vitti labels ....

We always like another look at THE BIRDS here, I like this particular scene, where socialite Melanie Daniels meets Mitch's mother for the first time in the cafe, after that gull swoops down to peck her ... See Hitch, Rod & Tippi labels for lots more.

The previous year, 1962, Jessica Tandy had played another controlling mother in HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN, driving son Richard Beymer away and her husband, Arthur Kennedy, to suicide - to get away from her. We will be re-viewing that again soon. 

I loved her in the movies

Another enjoyable addtion to the Christmas gift list is Robert Wagner's new book I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES, his recollections of all the great actresses he knew and worked with, decade by decade, starting with the 1930s.

Whatever one thinks of Wagner as an actor, he is fairly lightweight and agreeable (insufferable movie snob Martin will probably think he should be a shoe salesman too, like his judgement on Kerwin Matthews) and, like Dirk Bogarde in England, Wagner knew everyone (he and Natalie visited the Bogardes in the South of France on one of their European trips). Unlike his contemporaries Jeff or Tab Hunter, Wagner was a Hollywood kid, growing up there - he went to school with Norma Shearer's son, so knew Norma well in her later retired years, and he dated Gloria Swanson's daughter, and writes affectionately about Gloria, she was not like Norma Desmond at all.

We also get affectionate tributes and stories on Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Crawford, Davis (Natalie played her young daughter in THE STAR and she and Wagner were friends for a long time), Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Katharine Hepburn (whom he knew through friendship with Spencer Tracy with whom he co-starred twice), Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur. He certainly moved in the right circles! 

There's also Lana Turner, Greer Garson, Susan Hayward (very helpful to the novice actor on WITH A SONG IN MY HEART, left), Ida Lupino, Jennifer Jones, Claire Trevor, Betty Grable, Ann Sheridan, Joan Blondell, Lucille Ball, Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney, the impossible Betty Hutton, as well as characters like Thelma Ritter, Maureen Stapleton and Eve Arden. Wagner knows too how difficult it was for actresses to maintain long careers ...

The 1950s saw him pals with Doris and Debbie, the young Marilyn, Janet Leigh, June Allyson, Jean Peters, Joan Collins, Angie Dickinson, Debra Paget. He was at Romanoffs that famous 1957 night when Jayne Mansfield usurped Sophia Loren's debut (left) - he later played Loren's husband in De Sica's THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA in 1962 and writes very affectionately about her, and also Capucine (Cappy) from THE PINK PANTHER, There were some difficult ladies too - Shelley Winters for one! 
Joanne Woodward and Glenn Close also come in for some respectful praise, and of course there's Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews and Natalie. 

Wagner, now in his mid-80s parlayed his looks into a long career on film and television. He was good enough for Olivier for his TV CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF in '76. Its always fun seeing him as PRINCE VALIANT in that wig! His first memoir PIECES OF MY HEART is an agreeable read about it all too. 
He was a 20th Century Fox boy and Natalie was a Warner Bros girl, so he got to know Jack Warner well too - and is hilarious about the abuse Warner heaped on Judy Garland (who would have been so ideal for GYPSY in 62 with Natalie), and he also recounts Vittorio De Sica's hilariously rude comment on Raquel Welch who was driving them mad with her delays on THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL .... Star gossip does not get much better. As he says: "Movies and TV go on forever - only the delivery system changes ...".

Summer re-views: Errol and Ty swash and buckle ...

Another look at the 1935 CAPTAIN BLOOD, Errol Flynn's first starrer and he looks spectacular here, not even in his prime yet (that would be ROBIN HOOD, ELIZABETH & ESSEX and THE SEA HAWK); and its Olivia De Havilland's fourth movie .... she was certainly busy throughout the 1930s. Curtiz's actioner is still  joy now, 81 years later - and its 44 years since I saw Olivia in person at London's BFI, back in 1972 - its fantastic she is still here at 100. as per label. 

Falsely convicted of treason, Dr. Peter Blood is banished to the West Indies and sold into slavery. In Jamaica the Governor's daughter Arabella Bishop buys him for £10 to spite her uncle, Col. Bishop who owns a major plantation. Life is hard for the men and for Blood as well. By chance he treats the Governor's gout and is soon part of the medical service. He dreams of freedom and when the opportunity strikes, he and his friends rebel taking over a Spanish ship that has attacked the city. Soon, they are the most feared pirates on the seas, men without a country attacking all ships. When Arabella is prisoner, Blood decides to return her to Port Royal only to find that it is under the control of England's new enemy, France. All of them must decide if they are to fight for their new King.

As with many pictures from the 1930s, the film is chock-filled with corny characters who provide colour. Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill are hissably evil, and Olivia - 19 here - is delightful.
This is a stunning and very likable action film--and head and shoulders above all other Hollywood pirate movies - apart from Errol's THE SEA HAWK in 1941. It also has a rousing Erich Wolfgang Korngold score. 

We also love the 1942 SON OF FURY, a Tyrone Power costumer at 20th Century Fox, with the young Gene Tierney making an impression as that South Seas girl.  I first saw this as a kid, in the late Fifties, at a Sunday afternoon matinee revival and loved it then. George Sanders is marvellous too as the hissable villain (he and Ty duelled again in 1958 when filming SOLOMON AN SHEBA, when Ty had his fatal heart attack, at age 44). 

Cheated out of his estate by his sadistic uncle, young Benjamin Blake goes to the South Seas to make his fortune so he can return to claim his birthright. 

This is simply a great actioner, Ty and Sanders are perfectly cast, as is Elsa Lanchester in that small role as the streetwalker who helps our hero. Directed by John Cromwell, and it looks as lush (even in black and white) as those great Fox movies. 

Summer re-views: 1930s: Garbo, Marlene, Loretta

Another look at Garbo as MATA HARI (we love Greta as Mata, one of her lesser known roles), Marlene on that SHANGHAI EXPRESS (it was either that or BLONDE VENUS or THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN), and Loretta as one of those LADIES IN LOVE .....

The glamour of the 1930s for me means those two exotic European imports to Hollywood, as the talkies got underway - Garbo and Dietrich. A large part of their mystique of course is not just their looks but those fascinating voices.. Our Sky Arts channel repeated a Garbo programme, so one had to watch again - a whole hour of Garbo clips, they focus though on those best known ones: CAMILLE, QUEEN CHRISTINA, ANNA KARENINA, NINOTCHKA - I love them too, particularly CHRISTINA and NINOTCHKA, but they ignored THE PAINTED VEIL, from 1934, 

which I loved a year ago, as per my post here, see Garbo label, and I now think everything about MATA HARI in 1931 is utterly fantastic: the art design, her odd but mesmerising dance with the giant statue, Ramon Novarro, her stunning outfits, and that ending as she faces the execution squad ..... its amazing the number of different posters in various colours that are still around.  Jeanne Moreau's MATA HARI AGENT H21 in 1964 though very different is rather dull by comparison! 

I love that dialogue exchange between Lili and her stuffy officer ex--lover Clive Brook, when they meet again on the SHANGHAI EXPRESS in 1932 amid Von Sternberg's moody interiors, talk about light and shade! This is the one where Marlene delivers one of her most famous lines: "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lili". She is now the "notorious white flower of China", a "coaster" plying her trade on the rail line, along with fellow prostitute, the very slinky Anna May Wong.

"I wish you could tell me there'd been no other men" says Clive reproachfully .. "I wish I could, Doc" replies Marlene, "but five years in China is a long time". She is wearing his hat by this stage as he asks her if she has any regrets, to which she laconically replies "I wish I hadn't bobbed my hair".

The delirium increases as Wong uses a knife to dispose of the bandit chieftain who is holding up the Shanghai Express. Clive proves to be unworthy of Shanghai Lili who is prepared to sacrifice herself ... but you can guess the outcome. Its one of my favourite Von Sternbergs, almost as good as THE SCARLET EMPRESS or BLOND VENUS, or THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN. Marlene is again dressed by Travis Banton in furs and feathers and veils and shot in shadows praying ...
See Dietrich/Theatre labels for when I saw her in her 1973 concert tour in London ... 

Three working girls in Budapest pool their resources to get a better apartment and impress their dates (how  very HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE).

LADIES IN LOVE may not be Pre-Code as such, being 1936, but its one I like a lot now and is a great re-view now Probably the first of the Fox '3- girls-sharing-an-apartment-and-looking-for-love' movies it is set in Budapest and teams up Loretta Young, Constance Bennett and Janet Gaynor, with a young Tyrone Power and Paul Lukas in support, as well as Simone Simon. The others may look dated now, but Loretta is lovely and quite modern here, nicely dressed in black and white outfits, with interesting line readings and just being very appealing. [This was just after Loretta's CALL OF THE WILD with Clark Gable which resulted in her having his baby (on the rebound from her romance with Tracy) which she later adopted; Loretta was later one of Hollywood's most prominent Roman Catholics]. She and Tyrone look perfect here, they did several others together too then. I must dig out that Tyrone boxset ....
We must return to the 1930s for more of Katharine Hepburn, Crawford, Stanwyck, Margaret Sullavan, Irene Dunne, Norma Shearer ...

Theatre still of the day: Vivien Leigh ....

... as Tatiana in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in 1937, photograph by J B Debenham, (the image is advertising a current theatre exhibition at The British Library). This is one we would have liked to have seen, but before our time of course. I think Robert Helpmann played Oberon to her queen of the fairies. 

Vivien's THAT HAMILTON WOMAN (with Olivier) from 1941 and the 1945 CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA are both coming up this coming week on a cable channel here; not seen those, so will be factoring them in. The CLEOPATRA has a whole raft of British supporting players like Flora Robson and Stewart Granger, and one may spot newcomers like Kay Kendall and Roger Moore among the extras ...  More on Leigh at label. 

Bette as Jezebel, 1938

While movie fans were abuzz over who might play Scarlett O’Hara in the upcoming GONE WITH THE WIND, Bette Davis got another Southern belle role – and gave a fiery performance that won the 1938 Best Actress Academy Award. Davis plays Julie Marsden, a New Orleans beauty whose constant attempts to goad fiancé Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda) to jealousy backfire. Angry and disgraced, Pres breaks their engagement and leaves town. Julie endures a year of remorse until Pres comes home – married. Then her vengeance explodes.

JEZEBEL is also noted for its sumptuous sets and costumes, Fay Bainter’s Oscar-winning performance and William Wyler’s vivid direction, highlighted by a recreation of a yellow fever epidemic. But the film’s greatest strength is Davis. Whose titanic talent has never been better displayed than in JEZEBEL. So ran the dvd blurb. 

I saw some clips of it at the BFI in 1972 with Bette in attendance to discuss them, but had not actually seen it in full before. Its fascinating now, and surely Bette's most ferocious performance since her 1934 OF HUMAN BONDAGE. Her capricious Julie is certainly one of her greatest roles, Fay Bainter is marvellous too, but Henry Fonda seems a dull fellow here - what does Julie see in him and go to such lengths to look after him when the dreaded yellow fever strikes? Then there is George Brent, dull as ever; and of course all those happy slaves down on the plantation with all that hanging moss and antebellum gracious living ..... Bette has some powerful scenes during the first half, but the second half is rather turgid wth duels, plague and all that plot. Warners though were making films in colour that year (Erroll's ROBIN HOOD) so why wasn't this also in colour, to highlight that famous red dress ..... its a brilliant sequence though and Max Steiner contributes that great score and Orry-Kelly as usual costumed her. Davis of course had two more huge successes with Wyler with 1940's THE LETTER and THE LITTLE FOXES in '41. They may be her three greatest roles, apart from NOW VOYAGER and ALL ABOUT EVE. 

Can't help loving that Showboat - 1936

There is a new production of SHOWBOAT currently on in London, (which I may have to go and see now) but I only know it from the 1951 MGM film which I may have seen once or twice on television - it now looks like a cartoon compared to the 1936 original (despite valiant work from Ava Gardner - dubbed - and Marge & Gower Champion). The rare 1936 film by James Whale (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN etc) is the one to see and cherish, a film of such richness I want to see it again right away. Though I knew of Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan I had not somehow seen or heard them before, and I am bowled over.

Adaptation of the Broadway musical. Magnolia Hawks is the lovely daughter of Cap'n Andy Hawks, the genial proprietor of a show boat that cruises the Missisippi, and his nagging wife, Parthy. She is best friends with the show boat's star, Julie LaVerne, but Julie and her husband Steve are forced to leave when it is revealed that Julie has "Negro" blood in her, thereby breaking the state law by being married to the white Steve. Magnolia replaces Julie as the show boat's female star, and the show's new male star is the suave gambler Gaylord Ravenal. Magnolia and Gaylord fall in love and marry against Parthy's wishes. They and their young daughter lead the high life when Gaylord is lucky in gambling, but live like dirt when he's unlucky. During one such unlucky streak, a broken Gaylord leaves Magnolia and she is forced to start over by returning to the stage. Like Old Man River she just keeps rollin' along.

Jerome Kern's SHOWBOAT, from Edna Ferber's book, may well be the first great American musical, and possibly the greatest movie musical of all, this 1936 version of SHOWBOAT has Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel joining Helen Morgan and Charles Winninger from the original Broadway cast of 1927. So great that, when MGM made their own version in 1951, they tried to have all prints and copies of the original destroyed. Mercifully they weren't quite successful. Closer to the original stage version, this includes most of the classic songs by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, not least Robeson singing "Ol' Man River" and that's followed by Morgan's "Can't Help Loving That Man", brilliantly staged too, with Irene and Hattie. She was certainly the classic torch singer. Fascinating reading about her and Paul Robeson's life and career. Robeson's rich bass electrifies, I knew he had played OTHELLO and SHOWBOAT in London and how his political leanings had caused such trouble, but he was certainly a trailblazer ahead of his time. We like Irene Dunne a lot here too, as per label - one of the essential 1930s stars like Margaret Sullavan. Allan Jones was the father of singer Jack Jones.  

Jerome Kern has his finest moment here with unforgettable songs following one after the other. "Ol Man River", "My Bill","Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine", "Ah Still Suits Me", "Make Believe", After The Ball" The film remains a classic piece of Americana. James Whale's direction captures it all perfectly, its certainly an essential 1930s film. The last section though when Magnolia and Gaylord's daughter Kim becomes a stage star too in the then modern 1930s setting seems unnecessary now - we just want to be back on the Showboat with Paul and Hattie and Helen and all of them,

The film also show the ugly racism of the time, that blackface number seems grotesque now but was acceptable then ....
The Paul Robeson and chorus rendition of "Old Man River" has to be  one of the greatest numbers in the history of Hollywood musicals, up there with Judy;s "Over The Rainbow" or "The Man That Got Away" or the "My Forgotten Man" number from GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933. And what makes it even more impressive is that the number was directed by a director who had made his reputation directing monster movies (thats the gay James Whale of GODS AND MONSTERS).

Next: One of the great 1950s musicals: THE PAJAMA GAME. Book your tickets now ...

Blondes: Platinum or Strawberry ? Both !

PLATINUM BLONDE, this is an early talkie - 1931 - someone on IMDB said it was maybe the first romcom? The platinum blonde is Jean Harlow who is playing a rich dame, and she seems rather subdued from her usual brassy roles (as in DINNER AT EIGHT or RED DUST) and the other two leads are the marvellous young Loretta Young (whom I like a lot in her '30s films like MIDNIGHT MARY, LADIES IN LOVE etc, as per label) and the male lead is one Robert Williams, whom I had never heard of. Understandable, as he died (of peritonitis) that year, 1931, aged 34. This was in fact his last (of 6 films) and he is a rivetting presence here, and surely would have been a bigger star. It is an early Frank Capra picture too and its a real treat now. Its a must-see for several reasons. Jean Harlow is unusually cast as a straight society high-brow. Although the role could easily be played as a caricature, she brings to it appealing depth and vulnerability. 
Loretta Young is radiant. And Robert Williams delivers an eccentric modern day performance.

Williams is Stew Smith, a reporter who falls suddenly in love with rich socialite (Harlow) but soon gets bored with the rich life and wants to be back being a reporter again with Gallagher (that's Loretta) who really loves him all along and of course they end up happily together. Its a nice  snappy depression-era satire on the rich idle folk too. (Harlow of course died in 1937, aged 26 - while Loretta continued to 2000, aged 87.)

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (or LA BLONDE FRAMBOISE as the French DVD has it) was a pleasant memory from seeing it on television once, nice to finally get it on dvd, its one I will be returning to, more than once. Its an utterly charming comedy from 1941, by Raoul Walsh (script by Julius  J Epstein) with delightful turns from James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, Rita Hayworth and Jack Carson, and it captures that 'gay nineties' perfectly. 

Biff Grimes is pugnacious but likable young man during the Gay 90's living with his ne'er-do-well father, noted for their scrappy personalities and quick tempers. Like every other young man in town, Biff has a crush on gorgeous and flirtatious 'strawberry blonde' Virginia Brush, who gets catcalls every time she walks past the all-male clientèle of the neighborhood barber shop. Biff is joined in his admiration by his friends, Nick Pappalis, an immigrant Greek barber, and Hugo Barnsfeld, an unscrupulously ambitious young man who doesn't let anything stand in the way of what he wants, including Virginia. Utilizing both fair means and foul Hugo sweeps Vrginia off her feet and frames Biff as the fall guy in a political graft schemee. However, every dog has his day, and eight years later Biff stands poised to take his revenge.

Cagney, in a change of pace, is the young dentist, always outwitted by pushy Carson, both fall for Virigina, the local beauty (Hayworth), but Carson wins her and they are both dis-satisfield. Olivia has a field day as the feisty feminist Amy and she and Cagney are the perfect pair, as Jimmy gets his revenge on bully boy Carson, who has a sore tooth. Alan Hale and Una O'Connor are dependable support. 

The BFI are showing it as part of their Olivia De Havilland retrospective in July, to celebrate her 100th birthday (I saw her there in person in 1972, as per label) and they say: "De Havilland shines as the free-thinking modern gal who falls for Cagney's brawling dreamer. He still yearns after Rita's flirtacious 'strawberry blonde' but its Olivia's Amy who will steal your heart in this romance that packs in comedy and drama.' The perfect 1940s Warner Bros package then. 

Forgotten movie stars - an occasional series: Anna, Nils

Anna May Wong (1905-1961)

The first Chinese-American movie star, a third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the taboo against miscegenation meant that Caucasian actresses were cast as "Oriental" women in lead parts opposite Caucasian leading men (even Katharine Hepburn in DRAGON SEED in 1944!). The discrimination she faced in the domestic industry caused her to go to Europe for work in English and German films, as in PICCADILLY in 1929 or   Von Sternberg's SHANGHAI EXPRESS with Marlene Dietrich in 1932. One of her final roles was in Ross Hunter's PORTRAIT IN BLACK in 1960 and she was signed to play in Hunter's FLOWER DRUM SONG before her death. 

Her IMDB biography is fascinating showing the racism of the time when Asian women could not be cast opposite white actors or have leading roles in films. Anna should be a major discovery now.  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0938923/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Nils Asther (1897-1981)

Nils was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1897 and raised in Malmö, Sweden. He moved to Hollywood in 1927, where his exotic looks landed him romantic roles with co-stars such as Garbo, Pola Negri and Joan Crawford, and his exotic Chinese warlord in THE  BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN with Barbara Stanwyck in 1933. Although his foreign accent was a hindrance in "talkies", his Hollywood career continued until 1934 when he was blacklisted for breaking a contract and went to Britain for four years. After his return to Hollywood in 1938, his career declined and by 1949 he was driving a truck. In 1958, he returned to Sweden, where he remained until his death, making occasional appearances in television and on stage. He was also unabashedly gay at a time when gays remained discreet about their sexual orientation so there was no public suggestion of impropriety.

Next: Charles Farrell, Ramon Novarro, Anton Walbrook - who may not be so forgotten ...

Something for the weekend: Marlene & Von Sternberg

Just a couple of stills to remind ourselves how marvellous those Von Sternberg films like BLOND VENUS, THE SCARLET EMPRESS, MOROCCO etc were and they still look mysterious, glamorous and amazing now - thanks to Marlene (particularly emerging from that gorilla skin, does 1930s cinema get better?). John Lodge looks the business too ... then there is the delirious THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN .... must see that again soon, and then back to Garbo and all her classics.

Mitchell Leisen, Hollywood Director

"Mitchell Leisen, Hollywood Director" first published in 1973 and reprinted in 1995, by David Chierichetti, is a fascinating return to Hollywood's golden age, from the 1920s onwards. The blurb says: "Mirchell Leisen's lengthy film career which spanned the silents through the advent of television, began in 1919 when he was hired as a costume designer for Cecil B DeMille. In the 1920s he moved up to set design and art direction, and he began directing in the 1930s. As director, Leisen's unique cinematic eye was responsible for such hits as TO EACH HIS OWN, EASY LIVING. LADY IN THE DARK, MIDNIGHT, REMEMBER THE NIGHT, and DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY. His story is a fascinating study of Hollywood's Golden Age." The book also gives an indication of Hollywood's rampant gay and bisexual scene back then ... Amusing stories too on those Leisen was great pals with (Carole Lombard) and those he wasn't (Miss Fontaine). 

My friend Daryl, also says this about Leisen:  "Mitchell Leisen was one of the master directors at Paramount in the 1930s; as a former set and costume designer, his films always had an elegant visual surface, and when that was coupled with a script of some merit, the results were some of the true delights of the period. (It's unfortunate that Leisen's reputation was tarnished by Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder - their anger over what they perceived as his meddling - he often cut the scripts if speeches got too unwieldy - caused them to strike out as writer-directors.)"

Leisen (1898-1972)  is now perceived as one of Hollywood's gay directors, but he was also avidly bisexual, being married and also having a long-time mistress, as well as his relationships with men. His early costume designs for Douglas Fairbanks for ROBIN HOOD and particularly THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD in 1924 are still marvellous now.In 1932 he was assistant director, and did art direction and costumes for DeMille's SIGN OF THE CROSS which I like a lot (see Peplums-1 label). He had to measure up a nude Claudette for her bath in ass's milk which DeMille wanted to come up to her nipples - but the heat of the studio was turning the milk to cheese .... 
Lets have a look at some of his successes:

MIDNIGHT, 1939. Today' guest reviewer, my friend Martin did this review of it on IMDB ten years ago, and sums it up perfectly:

As good as a movie can get. Claudette Colbert is the flapper/gold-digger/chanteuse, (take your pick), who arrives in a very rainy Paris in an evening gown and not much else. She is momentarily rescued from her predicament by a gallant taxi driver, (played gallantly by Don Ameche), with whom she immediately falls in love but from whom she runs as fast as her well-turned-out legs can carry her. She runs straight into the clutches of John Barrymore, (a magnificent comic performance), who saves her bacon, so to speak, if only she will seduce gigolo Francis Lederer who is stealing away Barrymore's wife, the always delectable Mary Astor, and thus save Barrymore's marriage.

This is a French farce of the very best kind, although it is written, not by a Feydeau, but by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and directed with supreme elegance by the under-valued Mitchell Leisen. Colbert is wonderful as the wide-eyed chorine, torn between love and riches, Barrymore displays sublime comic timing and Astor is as sharp as a new pin. It feels and looks like a Lubitsch but I doubt if even Lubitsch could better it.

HOLD BACK THE DAWN, 1941. Told in flashback from a preface in which the main character visits Paramount to sell his story - to a director played by Leisen himself. Romanian-French gigolo Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer) wishes to enter the USA. Stopped in Mexico by the quota system, his old flame Anita (a doxy on the make) advises him to marry an American, whom he can then desert and return to her, who's done likewise. But after sweeping teacher Emmy Brown (Olivia De Havilland) off her feet, he finds her so sweet that love and jealousy endanger his plans. This is a perfect romantic fantasy where the varied characters have their own stories and motives for what they do. There is that nice very pregnant American lady Rosemary DeCamp (though she is so covered up one can hardly see that she is expecting) who connives to get her baby born on American territory. Olivia again plays a good woman without being cloying - I love that school bus she drives around. She is injured in a trafffic accident after Anita (a terrific turn from Paulette Goddard) confronts her and tells her the truth about how and why gigolo Boyer married her - he then risks all to cross the border chased by the immigration people, to get to her hospital bedside to comfort her and give her the will to live .... does it all end happily? You bet - even Anita lands a new rich patsy.

Wilder and Preston Sturges, in later years, bewailed the havoc Leisen wreaked on their scripts. Painted him as a flamboyant gay aesthete, who preferred décor to drama, party dresses to pithy dialogue. For Wilder, the problem with Leisen was simple. “He was a fag window dresser.”

Ironically, though, MIDNIGHT is a sharper and more stylish satire than Wilder’s dull  LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957). Lacking Wilder’s pervasive sourness and contempt (to the fore in ACE IN THE HOLE, KISS ME STUPID and THE FORTUNE COOKIE), HOLD BACK THE DAWN views its hicks and whores and schemers through a veil of sympathy, suggesting they might have reasons to act as they do.  

Wilder is said to have hated so much what Leisen had done to his scripts – although it’s hard to imagine how anyone could fault MIDNIGHT or HOLD BACK THE DAWN – that he decided to become a director himself so that his scripts wouldn’t, in the future, be ‘butchered’ . "All he did was he fucked up the script and our scripts were damn near perfection, let me tell you. Leisen was too goddamn fey. I don’t knock fairies. Let him be a fairy. Leisen’s problem was that he was a stupid fairy." 
"HOLD BACK THE DAWN, an unlikely tale of redemption, of gigolos and gold diggers conniving their way across the American border from Mexico, would have been unpalatably depressing under Wilder’s direction. Charles Boyer’s and Leisen’s decision to cut a scene in which Boyer, a down-and-out playboy in his seedy hotel room, toys with and confesses to a cockroach, one can only surmise, was a good choice. It was the elimination of this particular scene that stoked most of Wilder’s hatred for Leisen."

I did these reviews here some while back:

Back to 1944 for FRENCHMAN'S CREEK, a costume drama about pirates from a novel by Daphne De Maurier, with her REBECCA star Joan Fontaine. This is now a Spanish dvd: EL PIRATA Y LA DAMA (The Pirate and the Lady), by that interesting gay director Mitchell Leisen. Mexican Arturo de Cordova is the pirate, with hissable Basil Rathbone, dependable Cecil Kellway and blustering Nigel Bruce. 

Joan is the noblewoman who tires of her husband and his decadent friends in bawdy Restoration London and who decamps with her children to her country estate, run by kindly Cecil, in remote Cornwall. She soon finds out that a French pirate moors his ship in a nearby cove and has been using her house and bedroom. They get to meet and have a chaste affair.  She soon enjoys herself dressing up a his cabin boy and getting involved in his pirate activities. 
Then her husband and suspicious Basil turn up as the plot works out to a satisfactory, for its time, conclusion as she has to give up her pirate lover and settle for dull marriage and looking after her children. Joan gives it her all and gets to wear some nice gowns. Arturo and his pirate gang seem a gay lot .... a subtext picked up by my IMDB pal melvelvit, who commented:  "I see what cinema scribes mean when they speak of Leisen's "gay sensibility"; the camera practically caressed Arturo's hairy (unusual for the time) chest and there were lots of lovingly photographed bare-chested pirates" ... A sometimes campy swashbuckler then. Joan's and Basil's fight to the death on the stairs is certainly well done and packs a punch! 

Then there is GOLDEN EARRINGS made after the war in '47 - is it a comedy, a romance or a thriller? perhaps a bit of each then as Ray Milland is on the run in Germany presumably before or during the war and has to depend on gypsy Marlene Dietrich to help him get around the country. Its actually quite amusing as directed by Mitchell Leisen and Marlene is droll in her gypsy makeup and not playing a heartless vamp for once. Bland Milland is dull - the stars did not get on - I read that Marlene sucked the eye out of a fish-head from her her stewpot during his first closeup to disconcert him. Again we get lots of comic Nazis and they do not seem to mind the gypsies roaming around or telling their fortunes - or maybe the gypsies were not being rounded up just then ! You have to laugh at the end: he comes back after the war and there is Marlene with her gypsy caravan and her stewpot as though he had left just a few minutes before...

Leisen continued into the 1950s - I caught THE MATING SEASON from 1951 once on television but it does not seem available at all now, but provided great roles for Thelma Ritter, Miriam Hopkins, and Gene Tierney. We will be looking out for more Leisen films ....  NO MAN OF HER OWN with Barbara Stanwyck sounds an interesting one.