Jun 25 2010
Our Man in Havana Review
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Our Man in Havana is an estimable, sly murky comedy with a screenplay by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed. James Wormold (Alec Guinness) is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. He’s getting by but needs more money to rob care of his teen-aged daughter. He’s recruited as a watch for Britain by Noel Coward. He doesn’t really know what’s wanted, but he can spend the money. Since he doesn’t know anything of value, he begins making up stories and inventing plans, and mentioning the names of people supposedly interested. The names, of course, are objective names he picked at random. His masterpiece is his “discovery” of a giant military complex, the plans of which he gets to his controller (Coward), who sends them on to London. The plans are actually the diagrams of one of his vacuum cleaners. This first share of the movie is a comical, sharp-edged parody of British pomposity and the thick headedness of “intelligence.”
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But then people launch to die.
It seems there may be more than British spies in Havana, spies who also own the plans are satisfactory, and who are a lot more ruthless than the British. The second half of the film is darker, less silly and grand more sardonic.
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The cast is a unusual grouping of disparate acting styles, but somehow they all work very well together. In addition to Guinness and Coward, there is Burl Ives, Ernie Kovacs, Maureen O’Hara and Ralph Richardson. Coward is priceless as a mannered, fatuous, obliviously incompetent gawk. Kovacs for once is less Kovacs and more the portion. He plays the Cuban police’s main man in catching spies. He’s droll, and so are his lines. Among them, “There are two classes of people: those who can be tortured and those who can’t.” He and Guinness fraction a broad scene where Guinness, who has to earn away from Kovacs, challenges him to a checkers match with the pieces being exiguous liquor bottles. Each time a fraction is taken, the victor has to drink it. Guinness manages to lose regularly. Kovacs preens on his victories and only gradually, and increasingly incoherently, begins to suspect.
For Reed, who directed The Third Man, Peculiar Man Out, The Fallen Idol and other classic films, this is, in my notion, the last of his ample movies. For years it has needed a Site 1 DVD release. There is a exquisite Position 2 DVD which I have. I’ll add to this review if there are any important differences or extras.
A simply astonishing adaptation by Graham Greene of his book about how an unwitting British expatriate who is having pain supporting his daughter’s expensive habits as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana is recruited to become a secret agent for the British government. The movie is sparkling, witty, and timely with huge casting and agreeable performances. While billed as a tongue-in-cheek comedy, it may not be too far from the truth in shedding light on how governments recruit their spies, score secret information, and shroud their tracks. The film is pleasant - and the book is, too.
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