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Rating:  -
This flick should have everything going for it. Directed by Carol Reed from a story by Graham Greene who previously collaborated on the greatest British noir, "The Third Man". A top-notch cast led by Alec Guiness and Maureen O'Hara. Alas, it's the story that does the film in. This espionage tale of a vacuum cleaner salesman pawning off bogus intelligence to the British Secret Service and raising all kinds of havoc in the process just doesn't get off the ground. There are two things I can recommend the film for. A surprisingly effective turn by Ernie Kovacs as a Cuban police official and terrific Havana ambience. The way cinematographer Oswald Morris lenses Havana brings to mind how Reed used Vienna to terrific effect in "The Third Man".
Rating: -
Guinness, Greene, and Reed, but for all that, this film never seems to find the right tone: not funny enough to be comedy nor dramatic enough to be drama, OUR MAN IN HAVANA is most interesting for the disconcertingly un-typical and out-of-step performances it exacts from Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, and Ernie Kovacs, and for its frozen portrait of Cuba before the revolution.
Rating:  -
This movie was filmed a few months after Castro came to power but is set before. Some of the negative aspects of pre Castro Cuba are exaggarated, but this film is a spy movie set against the backdrop of the more seedier aspects of life in Havana at the time. Ernie Kovacs is the real star of the film as the Mercedes 300SL driving Capt Segura. Havana was the most beautiful city in Latin America at the time and we have this film to remember it by.
Rating:  -
Classic British comedy and more. Guinness and Ives are wonderful but Ernie Kovacs and Noel Coward are fantastic too. When people would ask me what going to a much less traveled Caribbean in the '70s I would say it was like stepping into a Graham Greene novel.
Rating: -
While innuendo and scuttlebutt battle as different sides of the same coin in Our Man From Havana we are presented a dilemma. Is this truly `espionage in an exotic land' or a dark comedy on trials and tribulations of a start up business in a foreign locale? In this initial DVD release by Sony on their Martini Movies series, the renowned team of Carol Reed the director/producer and Graham Greene (who penned the novel and screenplay adaptation) grant us a rare treat and last glance into a pre-Castro regimen Cuba. Having turned out classic films The Fallen Idol and The Third Man a decade before you know you are in for a very special treat. Offered singularly in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, this is a fitting format for the original black and white cinemascope shot by Oswald Morris. The opening scene captures a young enjunue in her last lap of swimming situated rooftop as the camera pans out and over the beatific skyline and harbor of a pristine 1959 Havana as she climbs from the pool. We also get a quick peek of her companion dressed in military/law enforcement garb smoking a Cuban cigar. This is the glimpse a Cuba at the height of worldly access just before the rumblings of revolution play out for real and change forever this pentacle of latin culture and historic architecture.
Tone and mood are set as you realize this is the real deal, no Hollywood back lot staging. Irony and luck have conspired for a perfectly timed story of fiction imitating facts. Life oozes around the clock as the town is always be on the brink of breaking out into a festive carnival. Bars are open at every other corner, musicians wander shaking marimbas, belting native songs, waiters wear white jackets, and drinks like the daiquiri prop up the myth of two drinks before lunch as standard social etiquette. The mystique of intrigue and mischief are quickly draped as a very dapper Englishman, Noel Coward, playing a British Secret Service agent based in Jamaica, is tailed by our local police captain whom we saw earlier rooftop is none other than Ernie Kovacs.
As the BSS agent makes his way into a little shop of `space age designed' vacuum cleaners we meet Alec Guinness. He plays the charming, unsuspecting protagonist Jim Wormold. As a blank slate, he is unknowingly scouted into the ranks of spy-for-hire while trying to sell one of these ultra modern appliances that looks more like a rocket ship for some sect of tiny aliens. Burl Ives, playing the German scientist Hasslebacher, a man of questionable repute and income who happens to be window shopping gets taken to task by Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs). Known locally as the notorious Red Vulture he takes immense pleasure in the shake down of foreigners. Their business becomes his business, their misfortune an endless source of amusement and income for him.
As in their previous collaborations, Reed and Greene place importance on camera movement and locations as principal as their characters. There is also a undercurrent of whimsy at play over an enjoyment of life even in the face of dangerous odds. Suffice to say, their provocative and dubious sense of humor is well timed. Given the chance to subsidize his income, our Mr. Wormold becomes a rather inventive spy/agent with a large imagination. As his pockets become flushed with cash he gets ever more fanciful with each report submitted in their agreed upon code. So grand are Wormold's schemes they catch the attention of the home based London office, run by the affable but ineffective Ralph Richardson who played the warm and affectionate butler in The Fallen Idol. These waves of good fortunes wash over onto his single daughter's (Jo Morrow) almost debutant outing. Lavished with gifts and attention she becomes the object of beauty for Captain Segura. You know these affections are ill placed and rather unpleasant things await.
Really more Shakespearean than spy spoof, I don't want spoil the party and give away too much. Over the span his career the knighted Sir Carol Reed is credited with the production of five 'as good as it gets' films. Our Man In Havana is among them. There's not much in way of extras but they aren't expected since there is no precedent for this movie. The mere fact of it finally being available in a DVD format other than on TCM cable we do get one infamous Cuban Martini recipe and an introduction to the other nine titles in the series from Sony. After seeing the Reed's technicolor Trapeze last week I must confess I prefer his black and white medium as his signature pallet. I also hold back no reservations and recommendations of this hidden jewel resurfaced. Made at a time the world tittered on the excess of human quandary - will it be happy hour or atomic cafe? You decide.
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