IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

JohnHowardReid Director: MITCHELL LEISEN. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder. Adapta¬tion: Jacques Thery. Original story: Ben¬jamin Glazer, John S. Toldy. Photographer: Charles Lang, Jr. Film editor: Doane Harrison. Art directors: Hans Dreier and Robert Usher. Set deco¬rations: A.E. Freudemann. Costumes: Travis Banton. Music composed and directed by Victor Young. Producer: Arthur Hornblow, Jr.Copyright 8 November 1940 by Paramount Pictures Inc. New York opening at the Para¬mount: 16 October 1940. U.S. release: 8 November 1940. Australian release: 30 Janu¬ary 1941. 12 reels. 9,915 feet. 110 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Girl reporter rescues rebel leader from Spanish prison - exciting, ingeniously cliff-hanging stuff - but, alas for the good of the rest of the picture, they fall in love.NOTES: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed their Annual Award to Benjamin Glazer and John S. Toldy for Best Original Story (defeating Comrade X, Edison the Man, My Favorite Wife, and The Westerner). Also nominated for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards for black-and-white photography (won by George Barnes for Rebecca); black-and-white art direction (won by Pride and Prejudice); Best Music Score (won by Alfred Newman for Tin Pan Alley).COMMENT: Made by the same team responsible for Midnight a year earlier, but this time the Brackett-Wilder script is the weakest link. Despite a really huge cast with some magnificent players, after a very exciting first reel, this movie goes slowly but steadily downhill until all we are left with of interest is Walter Abel periodically exclaiming, "I'm not happy!" But that first reel is must-see material. Frank Puglia is terrific!

Alex da Silva Ray Milland (Tom) is awaiting execution in Franco's Spain when he gets a last minute reprieve courtesy of his wife's intervention. Only his wife, Claudette Colbert (Augusta) isn't really his wife. She's a reporter looking for a story. They make a run for it when their deception is discovered and then the film plays out as a romance set against the beginning of World War 2.Basically, nothing happens in this film. It's very talky. The actors are just given too many words to rattle off to each other without the film ever going anywhere. After about an hour, when nothing had happened, I paused the film and went to have a poo. This gave me the very welcomed experience of actually being entertained as I got to read another chapter of my book – "And I Don't Want To Live This Life" by Deborah Spungen, mother of Nancy Spungen (as of Sid and Nancy fame/legend). When I resumed the film, it just continued in a very boring manner with not a lot happening and lots of words.Question – where are the Hebrides? The answer according to this film is off the coast of Ireland. Yeah, just like Spain is off the coast of Norway. At the beginning of the film, the best part, the soldier being executed marches in time with his executors to his fate. No way. Why is he marching in time to the tune of his enemy killers? While the 2 leads, Colbert and Milland, do work well together and are very likable stars, they unfortunately just get bogged down with sappy shenanigans. The story is just unbelievable tosh. I can't recommend it because the film is boring.

dbdumonteil Mitchell Leisen was one of the few directors who could introduce tragedy into comedy and vice versa .The first part is absolutely dazzling.Incredible though it may seem ,it's full of unexpected twists,of fine lines ("it's my first execution" says the Padre /It's mine too" says the prisoner).The chemistry between Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland is perfect and their husband-and-wife act compares favorably with that of the actress as a "baroness ,her husband and her children" in "midnight" .The movie loses steam in its second part but it does show Mitchell's fondness for France .Unlike too many American movies,there are plenty of French words and the French speak French between them.I particularly like this sentence "Three sisters used to live in this country :Liberté ,Egalité Et Fraternité " as the German army is marching past the streets of Paris.This francophilia is also present in Leisen's "hold back the dawn" or "Frenchman's creek" .The last third may be considered a propaganda one ,but many other directors (Hitchcock,Lang,Hathaway,Borzage etc) had theirs too,and Leisen's is certainly smarter than most of the others.Solomon's prayer (which provides the title) is to be taken literally.Augusta is a go-getter ,she plays the heroine just for the sake of fame .After the beautiful scene in the forest ,where the animals run for their lives ,she does arise .The scene in the Compiègne Car is as incredible as Marlene Dietrich as a gypsy entering an inn full of Nazis in "golden earrings" .But the Spanish extravagant tale had warned us:this is not to be taken seriously ,but in a way,it is.

dexter-10 In the final analysis, a film is about cinematography. From the very beginning at the Spanish prison, extraordinary cinematography is used to an exceptional degree, and it continues through the film. There are minor exceptions, as with the file film of airplanes flying. More importantly, the film claims the obvious: The Spanish government in 1939 had more than casual leanings toward Berlin. The bombing of Guernica by the Nazi air force is testimony, here reinforced. Tom Martin (Ray Millard) says he had a pet rat in his jail cell named "Adolph." Spain's neutrality during World War Two is in question with Paramount Pictures, as it was in diplomatic circles. Of course, a 1940 movie about event of 1939 has the advantage of historical retrospect, yet the public actions of the Spanish government stand. Claudette Colbert as Agusta Nash is the career woman whose career comes before love, who puts her career before all. Her assignment as Special Berlin Correspondent is to tell of Hitler and his gang. A series of unpredictable events leads her to redefine her sense of patriotism. There are, in effect, many loves which must arise and spite the envious moon. Cinematography, historical theme, and some darn good acting all unite for an effective historical perspective on life at the beginnings of World War Two.