{"id":15665,"date":"2017-03-23T15:17:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T19:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15665"},"modified":"2017-12-09T01:23:24","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T06:23:24","slug":"br-our-man-in-havana-1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15665","title":{"rendered":"BR: Our Man in Havana (1959)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>:\u00a0Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Twilight Time<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0March 14, 2017<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Espionage \/ Black Comedy<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A vacuum salesman utterly inexperienced in espionage is recruited\u00a0by England to keep tabs on local intrigue with disastrous results.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Isolated Mono Music & Effects Track \/ Theatrical Trailer \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a> and www.twilighttimemovies.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A bone-dry dark comedy, Graham Greene\u2019s screen adaptation of his 1958 novel also gave director Carol Reed an opportunity to show he possessed a wicked sense of humour, riffing some of the stylistic elements from The Third Man<\/strong> (1949) and walking a fine line between comedy, satire, and genuine drama.<\/p>\n

Although it has the stark gloss and production value of a thriller, Our Man in Havana<\/strong> is all comedy, with a simple Hoover vacuum salesman in pre-Revolutionary Cuba being enticed by a MI6 handler into becoming a spy for Her Majesty. Jim Wormold (Alex Guinness) isn\u2019t an idiot, but an opportunist, and agrees to take on the role of Britain\u2019s Havana-based spy purely for the monthly and very tax-free $150 stipend offered by Hawthorne (scene-stealing Noel Coward).<\/p>\n

The problem? He hasn\u2019t the foggiest idea what to do, and becomes desperate when London demands results. Good friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) suggests he invent minions and feed London further fantasy factoids, since fiction can\u2019t possibly do anyone harm. This simple plan is wholeheartedly accepted by Wormold, creating a diversity of reliable moles and sending hand-crafted images of deadly super-weapons to London, from which he\u2019s able to fund the luxurious needs of spoiled daughter Milly (The 3 Worlds of Gulliver<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Jo Morrow).<\/p>\n

The bigger problem? Wormold becomes too successful, prompting\u00a0London to verify his data through the aide of a seasoned assistant, Beatrice Severn (Maureen O\u2019Hara), and a minor minion. His life becomes precarious, and his relationship with corrupt police Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs) is unnerving, as\u00a0the similar-aged authoritarian has eyes and secret plans for not-quite-adult Milly.<\/p>\n

Reed shot in Havana a few months after Fidel Castro claimed Cuba, making the film a rare snapshot of the city in its \u2018everything is legal\u2019 state before the State got cozy with Soviet Russia, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the 1962 embargo reduced the country to a more brittle economic state.<\/p>\n

Among Wormold\u2019s \u2018contacts\u2019 is an exotic dancer, necessitating a few enticing moments in a sprawling nightclub with leggy Tropicana dancers,\u00a0and there\u2019s much footage of local streets and Havana\u2019s gleaming parliament building. The film\u2019s opening shot is a stunner: Reed\u2019s camera follows a woman in a large pool swimming to screen right, and as the lens lifts up, we see Havana\u2019s exquisite bay, hammering home the film\u2019s use of authentic locations.<\/p>\n

Reed also indulges in a series of poetic touches: a couple who launch the main title sequence move in measured, dancer-like steps, and reappear in a few background shots for no logical reason except as subversive reminders by the director not to take anything in Havana<\/strong> too seriously.<\/p>\n

Additionally, wherever Hawthorne travels in Havana, he\u2019s perpetually followed (and surrounded) by a street band, unable to to follow Wormold discretely, and forced to shout words over the band’s recurring\u00a0catchy tune. Reed sets up the gag and repeats it a few times, characterizing the musicians like a cloud of gnats that refuse to dissipate.<\/p>\n

Hawthorne\u2019s teaching Wormold tricks of the trade is equally droll, with fast quips and moments of stark absurdism: when the pair meet ‘in secret’ at a Jamaican beach resort, Hawthorne stops their inaugural conversation to close a bamboo door that, like the surrounding walls, is just an open frame \u2013 an empty gesture, given anyone within a few feet can hear their discussion.<\/p>\n

Whether it resided in the novel, the script, or Reed\u2019s devious head, there\u2019s also strange sexual subtext within the film, anchored to little Milly. She\u2019s a ‘mature’ teen, and in her first screen appearance, initially resembles Wormold\u2019s mistress, drawing attention of onlookers as she crosses a busy street with new shopping boxes & bags.<\/p>\n

Although Milly doesn\u2019t ogle or display any sexual longings, instead of clothes or shoes, she invests in equestrian gear, which Reed reveals in provocative shots: straps, clasps, and saddle\u00a0suspended in her room around an invisible horse. In a later scene when Wormold\u00a0spies one of the shopping boxes on the floor, he tips off the cover with an umbrella and drapes the strapping bit over her neck, which she lovingly coddles in her hands. That scene sets up a follow-up when she presents\u00a0her new horse Seraphine to daddy at same the country club where Segura spends his downtime (mostly watching her ride horseback).<\/p>\n

Milly rejects Segura\u2019s advances, but tolerates\u00a0his fantasizing because his obsession and interest helps maintain her\u00a0level of social privilege within Havana. When Wormold scores extra cash to cover the expense of a club membership, he\u2019s allowed entry not as a valid member, but because he\u2019s \u2018Milly\u2019s father.\u2019 Segura makes it clear to Wormold he wants to wed\u00a0Milly, but Wormold never says no; he leaves it up to his daughter, being ignorant or oblivious or too daft (except in the mechanics and suction power of Hoovers).<\/p>\n

Most of the characters’ predicaments ultimately connect and come to a head in the final act, but there\u2019s an oddness to everything within Havana<\/strong>, as though the city itself is flat-out bonkers. Segura\u2019s behaviour and corruption may be tied to the Batista regime, but the filmmakers seem to suggest any authoritarian regime would yield a Segura, ordering street patrols and interrogating passersby out of boredom. Hasselbacher is harassed early in the film because like Wormold, he\u2019s a foreign national Segura can make disappear or boot from the country.<\/p>\n

Guinness is the de facto star of Havana<\/strong>, but secondary and minor characters are exceptionally cast. Ives doesn\u2019t nail a German accent for his character, but that regional\u00a0wobbling adds to his oddness; Kovacs (Bell Book and Candle<\/a><\/strong>) underplays Segura, making him droll but also scary, and inferring his full capability for unfair arrest and engage in torture (topics that are dropped in a quick dialogue exchange); and O\u2019Hara\u2019s role, while quite small, opens up the film with healthier sexual teasing, even though her romance with Wormold doesn\u2019t click until (literally) the very end. Ralph Richardson (The Fallen Idol<\/strong>) plays na\u00efve spy chief C fully straight, and prolific character actors Ferdy Mayne (A Man Called Intrepid<\/strong>) and Paul Rogers (Billy Budd<\/strong>) add depth to minor characters drawn into Wormold\u2019s fantastical web.<\/p>\n

Havana<\/strong> is a film that\u2019s aged extremely well \u2013 it\u2019s a genre classic, pre-James Bond and pre-Bond spoofs that walks a fine line between light and darkness \u2013 and due to its impeccable performances and tone, shouldn\u2019t be remade, especially since\u00a0it\u2019s a snapshot of the Castro regime which\u00a0eventually became corrupt.<\/p>\n

Reed\u2019s career may not have been boosted by the film \u2013 he moved on to an aborted stint helming of Mutiny on the Bounty<\/a><\/strong> (1962) with Marlon Brando before coming back into form via a series of blockbusters (Oliver!<\/a><\/strong>), but soon after fizzling away with smaller, minor films \u2013 but it represents a an important shift in his ongoing fascination with characters dragged into dreadfully dangerous, secretive circumstances and behaviour.<\/p>\n

Reed’s\u00a0luck in tackling topical politics in films was largely successful, from the post-WWII carnage in Vienna that gave The Third Man<\/strong> such bleakness, and the converging ideologies and eventual segregation\u00a0of East Germany via divided Berlin in The Man Between<\/a><\/strong> (1953). Havana<\/strong> forms the final chapter in his unofficial B&W espionage trilogy, albeit with a deliberately satirical angle.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray sports a gorgeous transfer of the film, showcasing the stunning cinematography by Oswald Morris, who would shift gears from high-contrast Cuban sunlight\u00a0to grainy East German grime in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold<\/a><\/strong> (1965) and the espionage thrillers The MacKintosh Man<\/a><\/strong> (1973), and later The Odessa File <\/strong>(1974), situated in isolated West Berlin.<\/p>\n

The disc also features a mono isolated music & effects track \u2013 the only release of the largely acoustic score composed by Frank and Laurence Deniz<\/a>, members of Britain\u2019s guitar band Hermanos Deniz. As with Third Man<\/strong>\u2019s score by zithermeister Anton Karras, Havana<\/strong>\u2019s music was composed and performed by film scoring newcomers, and consists of mostly source cues which morph into score in the finale as intrigue, desperation, and murder come into play.<\/p>\n

TT\u2019s resident historian Julie Kirgo penned a concise overview of the film\u2019s excellence, citing Greene\u2019s background with MI6, his encounters with \u2018creative\u2019 German agents, and the film\u2019s influence on author John le Carr\u00e9 (The Russia House<\/a><\/strong>), especially The Tailor of Panama<\/strong>, written in 1996 and filmed in 2001.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2017 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> — \u00a0Composers Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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