June Wilkins Movies

Hold Back the Dawn begins with a shabby immigrant (Charles Boyer) wandering onto a Paramount sound stage and telling his life story to director Mitchell Leisen (who actually directed this film). In flashback, we see that Boyer was once a conscienceless gigolo, desperate to flee Nazi-occupied Europe. He makes it to Mexico, where he pretends to fall in love with shy schoolteacher Olivia de Havilland. It is his plan to marry her, thus be able to enter the United States; then he intends to dump her and pursue the woman he really loves. Boyer's regeneration, and the price he pays for his previous callousness, brings Hold Back the Dawn to its tearful conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Considering that it was adapted from a Broadway musical by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott, The Boys From Syracuse must rank as a disappointment, though it manages to remain entertaining throughout its surprisingly brief 74-minute running time. Like its theatrical predecessor, the film was inspired by Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors ("After a play by William Shakespeare long, long after" reads the opening title). In ancient Ephesus, young tyrant Antipholus (Allan Jones) sentences elderly merchant Aegeon (Samuel S. Hinds) to death unless the latter can come up with a handsome ransom. What Antipholus doesn't know is that Aegeon is his own father; he also doesn't know that he has a twin brother, also named Antipholus (and also played by Allan Jones) who has just arrived from Syracuse in search of dear old daddy. Further complicating matters is that Antiopholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse both have slaves named Dromio (Joe Penner)-likewise identical twins! The mistaken-identity angle is played to the hilt, with A. of E.'s wife Adriana (Irene Hervey), A. of S.'s girlfirend Phyllis (Rosemary Lane), and Dromio of Ephesus' main squeeze Luce (Martha Raye) ending up just as confused as everyone else. Only four of the original Rodgers & Hart songs were retained-"This Can't Be Love", "Falling in Love with Love", "Sing for Your Supper", and "Oh, Diogenes"-while two new ones were written for the film. Most of the best jokes are based on anachronisms, with Dromio the slave organizing a labor union (complete with placards), a cheering section at an execution shouting "Give him the ax", and a parchment newspaper bearing such headlines as "Ephesus Blitzkriegs Syracuse". Originally purchased by Universal as a vehicle for the Ritz Brothers, The Boys from Syracuse isn't any great shakes, but it would certainly be well worth seeing again (last telecast in the 1970s, it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth in recent years!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When the Daltons Rode is the much-embellished tale of that celebrated outlaw family, the Daltons. Broderick Crawford, Brian Donlevy, Stu Erwin and Frank Albertson play the gunslinging brothers, with Mary Gordon on hand as Ma Dalton. In the tradition of the 1939 western Jesse James, the film whitewashes the Daltons, showing them being forced into committing their crimes by duplicitous railroad interests. There's plenty of comic banter and byplay until about twenty minutes from the end; then the film becomes a nonstop marathon of action, halted only by the Daltons' fateful (and for the most part fatal) bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas. Randolph Scott is the nominal hero, a lawyer who befriends the boys and tries to dissuade them from their life of crime. When the Daltons Rode ends with all four brothers dead as doornails--even though the script was based on the autobiography of the surviving Dalton! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Before sitting down to watch Love and Hisses, it's important to know that columnist Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie were engaged in a phony but highly publicized feud in the late 1930s. For the purposes of this film, the source of the Winchell-Bernie contretemps is pretty nightclub singer Simone Simon. Secretly signing the girl to a contract, Bernie spreads rumors that the girl has no talent, knowing full well that his "friendly enemy" Winchell will then give her a huge build-up in his newspaper column. Upon finding out that he's been hoodwinked, Winchell gets even by having Bernie kidnapped by a gang of phony hoodlums. With all this going on, it's easy to forget that legendary Broadway clown Bert Lahr is also in Love and Hisses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Greta Garbo enjoyed one of her greatest triumphs in this glossy adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' oft-filmed romantic tragedy. Here, Garbo stars as Marguerite Gauthier, who is born into humble circumstances but in time becomes Dame aux Camille, one of the most glamorous courtesans in Paris. Camille is kept by the wealthy and powerful Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell), but after many years of earning a good living from her beauty without finding true love, Camille's heart is stolen by Armand (Robert Taylor), a handsome but slightly naive young man who doesn't know how she came by her fortune. Armand is just as attracted to Camille as she is to him, and she's prepared to give up the Baron and his stipend to be with Armand. However, Armand's father (Lionel Barrymore) begs Camille to turn away from his son, knowing her scandalous past could ruin his future. Realizing the painful wisdom of this, Camille rejects Armand, who continues to pursue her even as Camille contracts a potentially fatal case of tuberculosis. Remarkably, even though this was one of Garbo's greatest commercial and critical successes, she would make only three more films before her retirement in 1941; Camille, however, would be filmed several more times following this version (most memorably by elegant sexploitation auteur Radley Metzger in 1969's Camille 2000). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide