Mitchell Leisen | Subjects | Visual Style | Rankings

Films: Golden Earrings

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Mitchell Leisen

Mitchell Leisen: Subjects

• Mothers (hero's good mother, heroine's bad mother, mothers as chief determinant of kids' lives: Remember the Night, adopted baby: The Lady Is Willing, unwed motherhood and its heartbreak: To Each His Own, heroine's mother: Dream Girl, unwed mother: No Man of Her Own, mothers of grown hero and heroine: The Mating Season, teacher in Old West: The Patience Miller Story)
• New identities (heroine, hero: Midnight, heroine gets new lifestyle at farm: Remember the Night, hero: Golden Earrings, unwed mother: No Man of Her Own, Thelma Ritter: The Mating Season)
• Working class work (manicurist: Hands Across the Table, women in magazine publisher's office: Easy Living, cab divers: Midnight, farmers: Remember the Night, tunnel digger hero: No Time for Love, department store: The Mating Season)
• Bills paid at home for rich selfish spendthrifts (banker's wife and son: Easy Living, heroine's brother-in-law: Dream Girl)
• City people have adventure in country (couple moves through war-torn Europe: Arise My Love, Christmas holiday on farm: Remember the Night, Mexican small towns: Hold Back the Dawn, Englishman travels with Gypsy: Golden Earrings, fantasy about cowboy life on ranch: Dream Girl, women pioneers have nervous breakdowns crossing endless prairie: The Prairie Story)
• People evade sinister authorities (couple moves through war-torn Europe: Arise My Love, crooked Justice of the Peace: Remember the Night, hero flees immigration official: Hold Back the Dawn, couple evades Nazis: Golden Earrings)
• War pilots (The Eagle and the Hawk, Arise My Love, I Wanted Wings, Practically Yours) related (civilian pilot: 13 Hours by Air)
• Minorities, sympathetically presented (Roma: Golden Earrings, Native Americans: Hiawatha, Native Americans: The Patience Miller Story)
• The Old Testament (title from "The Song of Songs": Arise My Love, David and Absalom: Absalom, My Son, Judith: The Story of Judith)
• Christmas and presents (family exchanges presents: Remember the Night, department store wrapping job: The Mating Season) related (gifts of another Wise Man: The Other Wise Man, Hawaii Christmas: Mele Kalikimaka to You)

• Nervous breakdowns in bad situations (war pilot: The Eagle and the Hawk, mother-in-law nearly wrecks couple's marriage: The Mating Season, women pioneers have nervous breakdowns crossing endless prairie: The Prairie Story)
• Abnormal escapism (daydream fantasies: Lady in the Dark, daydream fantasies: Dream Girl, watching one's old movies: The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine)

• Pianos (hero plays piano badly but family loves it: Remember the Night, pioneer woman brings piano with her: The Prairie Story)
• The world of music (heroine gets music lesson from voice teacher, stars in "Madama Butterfly": Dream Girl, gramophone and records change life in 1906: Song of Surrender, biopic of impresario Sol Hurok: Tonight We Sing, spy heroes undercover in music world: The Drublegratz Affair)

• Breakfast (rich family: Easy Living, group breakfast at chateau: Midnight, toast before music lesson: Dream Girl, apartment: The Mating Season)
• Restaurants and comedy (Automat: Easy Living, Italian restaurant: Dream Girl, hamburger joint: The Mating Season)
• Pass-through windows and food preparation (Automat: Easy Living, apartment kitchen: The Mating Season)
• Kitchens (farm house: Remember the Night, apartment: The Mating Season)
• Food (spies smuggle microdots in cheese, man eats cheese with dots: The Danish Blue Affair)

Mitchell Leisen: Visual Style

• Rich women and their bedroom mirrors (banker's wife: Easy Living, heroine's sister: Dream Girl)
• Camera movement (heroine enters publishing office where she works: Easy Living, wedding procession: Dream Girl)

• New clothes (fur coat and hat: Easy Living, heroine lent old-fashioned dress for party: Remember the Night, provided for heroine to help with scheme: Midnight, Gypsy outfit for hero: Golden Earrings) related (outfits in fantasies: Dream Girl)
• Closets full of clothes (wife's fur coats: Easy Living, heroine: Pete and Gladys)
• Sophisticates with mustaches (man on bus: Easy Living, John Barrymore: Midnight, worthless society brother-in-law Patrick Knowles: Dream Girl)

Rankings

Feature films:

• The Eagle and The Hawk **1/2
• Hands Across the Table **
• Murder at the Vanities **1/2
• Easy Living **
• Artists and Models Abroad **1/2
• Midnight ***
• Remember the Night *1/2
• Arise, My Love **
• Hold Back the Dawn *1/2
• The Lady Is Willing **1/2
• To Each His Own ***
• Golden Earrings ****
• Dream Girl **1/2
• No Man of Her Own **
• The Mating Season ***

Wagon Train:

• The Prairie Story *1/2

Golden Earrings

The new experiences hero Ray Milland undergoes mix romance with discovery of what it is like to be part of a minority. These experiences in part are an allegory about "gay awakening": the discovery of gay feelings and a gay identity.

Golden Earrings is the likely (but uncredited) source for a good episode of the TV series The Big Valley, Hide the Children (Arthur H. Nadel, 1966).