Trivia for
Hold Back the Dawn (1941) More at IMDbPro »

• Iscovescu appears at the Paramount soundstage to peddle his life story to director Mitchell Leisen. Veronica Lake and Richard Webb are shown rehearsing a scene from I Wanted Wings (1941) (also directed by Leisen). This scene was actually filmed during the production of "I Wanted Wings".
  
  
• The hotel in Tijuana where the immigrants wait anxiously for U.S. visas is the Hotel Esperanza. Esperanza is Spanish for "hope."
  
  
• The original script included an early scene where Charles Boyer talks to a cockroach in his room. Boyer dismissed the scene as idiotic and convinced director Mitchell Leisen to delete it; screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were so incensed at Leisen for giving in they resolved to direct and produce their own movies from then on.
  
  
• Paramount paid $5000 for Ketti Frings' story "Memo to a Movie Producer," before any novel was published. The working title of the movie therefore was "Memo to a Movie Producer," but was changed to "Hold Back the Dawn" when the novel was published before the movie was released.
  
  
• Mitchell Leisen joined the Screen Actors Guild so he could play the part of the director of I Wanted Wings (1941), but he donated his acting wages to charity. The scene depicted from that movie was reshot specifically for inclusion in this movie.
  
  
• One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
  
  

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