Is it weird to say that Mitchell Leisen's Arise, My Love merely made me appreciate Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942) even more? Arise, My Love does everything wrong that Casablanca does right when it comes to telling a gripping war-time romance. Both films deal with a couple trying to navigate their relationship through the rise of Nazism in Europe. Both end with the lovers agreeing to fight back against Hitler however they can. But here's the crucial difference: the romance in Casablanca was tragic, the romance in Arise, My Love was melodramatic. There are a couple of things about the film that I enjoyed, first among them being Claudette Colbert's performance as a go-get-'em, Lois Lane reporter type. But little else about the film works.
6/10
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