You probably know that I am kind of obsessed with contemporary WWII movies, the ones made in the 1940s during the war, I mean. Well, Mitchell Leisen's Arise, My Love is one of the best I've seen. The script is superb, and this is a hilarious movie as well as being a good romance and a good propaganda vehicle. Oh, and it's also exciting and action-filled, with two daring escapes. This whole thing is aces. Ray Milland and Claudette Colbert are fantastic. And Walter Abel is hilarious.
Mitchell Leisen is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment, and perhaps a critical reassessment of his work. There is a series of his films on the Criterion Channel right now... but Arise, My Love is not one of them. Now, I do not know why this is, but this movie has got to be one of his best. It's great.
You can watch Arise, My Love in some random spots on the internet just by googling it.
The title, incidentally, comes up several times in the film, and it's from the English Standard Version of Song of Solomon 2.10-13:
Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.
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