Hold Back the Dawn

Hold Back the Dawn is a 1941 romantic film in which a Romanian gigolo marries an American woman in Mexico in order to gain entry to the United States, but winds up falling in love with her. It stars Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois and Rosemary DeCamp.

Georges Iscovescu Boyer recounts his story to a Hollywood film director at Paramount. He is a Romanianborn gigolo who arrived in a Mexican border town seeking entry to the US. He endures a waiting period to obtain a quota number of up to eight years with other hopeful immigrants in the Esperanza Hotel. After six months he is broke and unhappy. He runs into his former professional dance partner Anita Dixon Goddard who explains she obtained US residency by marrying an American, who she then quickly divorced.Georges therefore seeks an American wife, soon targeting visiting school teacher Miss Emmy Brown de Havilland. They marry the same day. Emmy unexpectedly returns a few days later, but immigration inspector Hammock Abel appears, hunting for con artists such as Georges. In order to evade Hammock, Georges drives Emmy to a small village, where they participate in romantic traditional rituals for newlyweds. Georges becomes increasingly bothered by his conscience as he sees how happy and unsuspecting Emmy is. ........

Source: Wikipedia