Our Man in Havana
by Carol Reed
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Ernie Kovacs, Maureen O'Hara, Noel CowardDirector: Carol Reed
Brand: Sony
Cinematographer: Oswald Morris
Producer: Carol Reed
Editor: Bert Bates
Producer: Raymond Anzarut
Writer: Graham Greene
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-02-03
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Our Man in Havana
Movie Review: The best secrets are known to no one
Summary: 5 Stars
I just recently saw the movie Carol Reed's 1959 "Our Man in Havana" and enjoyed the sense of irony Graham Greene (author of the book and the screen play writer for the film) communicated about Cold War politics and intrigue. The movie was actually shot in 1959 Havana, only a few months after Castro's revolution. I understand that it was not easy to get the Castro govt. to allow the shooting and they had to approve the script before giving permission. So, the movie is a great time capsule of Cuba before the embargo. I suspect many of the cars in the film are still on the road today!!! Carol Reed of "The Third Man" fame, (one of my top 10 favorite movies also written and screen play by Graham Greene) uses his actors and Havana street scenes to great effect!!! Loved Reed's cinematography.
Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) is an expatriate Englishman living in Havana in the late 1950s with his vivacious teenage daughter Milly (Jo Morrow). Jim sees that Milly has extravagant tastes and he would like nothing better than to send her to Switzerland to "finishing" school to get her away from the likes of police captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs), who is friendly with the nuns at Milly's school, and is looking for a traditional and pretty young woman to be his wife from among the graduating students.
However, Jim owns a vacuum cleaner shop which barely pays the bills. Therefore, Jim accepts an offer from Hawthorne (Noel Coward) a Secret Service official based in Jamaica charged with recruiting a group of secret agents to report on Cuban military activities for a monthly stipend. Jim's closest friend, a former German army officer, Dr. Hasselbacher, (Burl Ives) suggests that the best secrets are known to no one, so Jim decides to pretend to have a list of agents and provide fictional tales for the benefit of the bosses in London. Hasselbacher opines that Jim would not be doing anything immoral because countries feel obligated to play a game and spy on each other, and it might has well be him who gets paid.
Jim decides to manufacture a list of agents culled from the local country club and provides fictional tales of futuristic looking weapons being built in the mountains, (in reality, drawings of his vacuum cleaners) for the benefit of his masters in London. Some other reports are inspired by comic strips. He is soon seen as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere by the spy boss C (Ralph Richardson) who is deeply impressed, and C decides to send him a support staff.
Soon Beatrice Severn (Maureen O'Hara) arrives in Havana, sent by C to be his "bookkeeper" and assistant. Beatrice finds Jim romantically attractive. When she begins to catch on to the deceptions, she keeps quiet despite misgivings. There are others who get suspicious of Wormold at the Agency. One agent comments to C that the drawings look like parts of a vacuum cleaner, enlarged. Hawthorne hears this while he is behind C, and realizes what Guinness is sending, but he keeps quiet. Meanwhile, Captain Segura is aware, after hearing of Jims approaches to local fellows, that Jim was recruiting spies, but he bides his time, as his interest is getting Jim's consent for him to marry Milly. Milly accepts some courting, but her interests are rather with her horse rather than marrying. Additionally, Dr. Hasselbacher, tempted by Jim's reports of easy money in exchange for false information, also starts to sell lies, judging that no significant harm results from the deception.
Wormolds originally harmless fraud eventually becomes dangerous. As British Intelligence agencies begin to take his work seriously, so does the other side, and thus Wormold is a wanted man, dead or alive. Hawthorne has Jim go to Jamaica for consultations, where he warns him that Jim's discovery of military secrets is so impressive that the other side's agents have decided to silence him by assassination, most likely by poisoning at a banquet Jim has to attend as part of his vacuum cleaner business. Hawthorne instructs Jim in a variety of techniques to avoid being poisoned by food or drink.
Jim manages to figure out the assassin is none other than a friendly man he met on the flight to Kingston, but he is unable to prevent the murder of his friend Dr. Hasselbacher. Jim tells the assassin they will be going to a couple of semi clandestine night clubs, giving their names, but in fact he goes to others, so the ambushers are sent to the wrong place, the assassin is isolated, and Jim shoots him. The next day, however, after Jim and Milly attend Dr. Hasselbachers funeral, Captain Segura orders Jim deported, and he must return to London.
He tells all details of what he has done to Beatrice, who decides to quit the spy business and return to London with him. Meantime, Beatrice and Milly have become friends, Milly accepts Beatrice as a future stepmother. Jim goes to a meeting with C and other spy bosses in London. While he is waiting to be seen, the officials discuss what they should do with him. To reveal to the Prime Minister and the other top brass that Jim concocted all his intelligence would have a damaging effect on their intelligence agency, so they come up with a solution. A story is fabricated, claiming the hardware that Jim's agent had seen had since been dismantled. Wormold is told he is to receive an O.B.E, and the secret service offers him a position teaching espionage classes to new recruits in London. With this money, he can afford to send Milly to the fancy school in Switzerland.
As a retired Army officer and an adjunct professor of history, I loved Greene's sense of humor and irony about the "great game" intelligence services played during the Cold War. I am sure that more than once events as told in "Our Man in Havana" have happened. My personal experience with military intelligence (long considered an "oxymoron" among soldiers) leads me to conclude that much of the spying that went on did little to provide necessary information to make any of us safer!
Summary of Our Man in Havana
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