Charles Boyer is a past master of the smooth-talking, Continental style of love-making. He's been given cinematic chances to practice his technique on practically everybody from Austrian princesses to Hungarian dairy-maids. In "Hold Back the Dawn," he sets to world on an American school-teacher; his skill, incidently, is undiminished.

Cast as a romantic Rumanian gambler and lady-charmer, Boyer finds himself on the wrong side of the Mexican-California border, waiting for the papers which will enable him to cross the line. Discovering that marrying an American woman will speed up his visa, he sets out to make the necessary arrangements. The prey turns out to be an American school-marm. Olivia de Haviland, on a Mexican holiday. This marriage of convenience eventually results, as you might have guessed in the suave Boyer's falling for the theoretically naive charms of Miss brown of Azusa, California. Paulette Goddard, as the femme sinistre from Boyer's past, is present to add to the intrigue.

With some very effective acting especially on the part of Miss de Haviland as Hollywood's notion of what school-teachers are like. "Hold Back the Dawn" turns out to be one of the better pictures of recent months. It's well paced, mature entertainment.