Our Man in Havana (film)

Our Man in Havana
theatrical poster
Directed by	Carol Reed
Produced by	Carol Reed
Written by	Graham Greene
Starring	Alec Guinness Burl Ives Ralph Richardson Noel Coward Maureen O'Hara Ernie Kovacs
Music by	Frank Deniz Laurence Deniz
Cinematography	Oswald Morris
Editing by	Bert Bates
Studio	Kingsmead Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	30 December 1959 (London premiere) 27 January 1960 (US)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs.^[1][2][3] The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene. The film takes the action of the novel and gives it a more comedic touch.

Plot

In pre-revolutionary Cuba, James Wormold (Alec Guinness), a vacuum cleaner salesman, is recruited by Hawthorne (Noel Coward) of the British Secret Intelligence Service to be their Havana operative. Instead of recruiting his own agents, Wormold invents agents from men he knows only by sight, and sketches "plans" for a rocket-launching pad based on vacuum parts to increase his value to the service and to procure more money for himself and his expensive daughter Milly. Because his importance grows, he is sent a secretary, Beatrice (Maureen O'Hara), and a radioman from London to be under his command. With their arrival it becomes much harder for Wormold to maintain his facade. However, when they do, all of his imagined information begins to come true. One of his "agents" is killed, and he is himself targeted for assassination. He admits what he's done to his secretary, and is recalled to London. At the film's conclusion, rather than telling the truth to the prime minister and other military intelligence services, Wormold's commanders (led by Ralph Richardson) agree to fabricate a story claiming his imagined machines had been dismantled, bestow honors on Wormold, and offer him a position teaching espionage classes in London.

Cast

• Alec Guinness as Jim Wormold
• Burl Ives as Dr. Hasselbacher
• Maureen O'Hara as Beatrice Severn
• Ernie Kovacs as Captain Segura
• Noel Coward as Hawthorne
• Ralph Richardson as 'C'
• Jo Morrow as Milly Wormold
• Grégoire Aslan as Cifuentes
• Paul Rogers as Hubert Carter
• Raymond Huntley as General
• Ferdy Mayne as Professor Sanchez
• Maurice Denham as Admiral
• Joseph P. Mawra as Lopez
• Duncan Macrae as MacDougal
• Gerik Schjelderup as Svenson
• Hugh Manning as Officer
• Karel Stepanek as Dr. Braun
• Maxine Audley as Teresa

Production

The film was shot on location in Havana, just two months after the overthrow of the Batista regime, and on 13 May 1959 Fidel Castro visited the film crew when they shot scenes at Havana's Cathedral Square.^[4]

Reception

Our Man in Havana was positively received by film critics; it has a "fresh" rating of 85% (with 13 reviews) at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.^[5]

References

Notes

1. ^ Variety film review; January 13, 1960, page 7.
2. ^ Monthly Film Bulletin review; 1960, page 4.
3. ^ Harrison's Reports film review; January 30, 1960, page 18.
4. ^ Picture from Castro's visit, on Flickr Retrieved 2011-01-04
5. ^ Our Man in Havana at Rotten Tomatoes

External links

• Our Man in Havana at the Internet Movie Database
• Our Man in Havana at AllRovi
• on-line trailer & movie clips