User reviews

This movie is a good example of how a story can be carried by the force of the actors' skill and director's art rather than relying the science of special effects. The absence of "action" means that the audience's attention has to be held by the sheer force of the story line, the actors' interpretations of it and the director's presentation of the product as a whole.

It deals honestly with what intelligence gathering is. A mundane craft open to manipulation not only by governments but also by lowly operatives. Sir Alec Guinness, as he later became, portrays the ordinariness of the seedy characters who carry on this trade. Ernie Kovacs gives a splendid presentation of the laid back but sinister not so secret policeman while Burl Ives is as powerful as ever.

The pre-Castro Cuban setting is well portrayed and one can almost feel the tropical heat as the cast of misfit characters go about there subterfuge business.

Comedy and espionage make uneasy bedfellows in this Alec Guinness vehicle. Viewers should expect more of a morality play than a gleeful farce.

Guinness frequently played characters leading double lives. Here we see his character Wormold tripped up by one that may cost him his life. Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana who is approached by a fellow named Hawthorne (Noel Coward), alias Agent 59200, who wants Wormold to serve the British Secret Service "for $150 a month and expenses" as his subagent, 59200/5, collecting secret information regarding pre-Castro Cuba.

Encouragement for this comes not only indirectly from his love for his spendthrift daughter Milly (Jo Morrow) but more directly from his best friend, a castoff German doctor named Hasselbacker (Burl Ives), whose advice forms the heart of the message from screenwriter Graham Greene, adapting his own novel:

"That sort of information is always easy to give. If it is secret enough, you alone know it. All you need is a little imagination...As long as you invent, you do no harm. And they don't deserve the truth."

The joke, which is also the story's tragedy, is Wormold invents too well, convincing not only his London paymasters but the opposition of his fiction's veracity. Director Carol Reed famously made a spy film, "The Third Man," which blended tragedy and comedy in equal measure. This time, the comedy is more front-and-center, but efforts at creating a light tone conflict with the more serious message and various characters' fates. "Our Man In Havana" struggles at times with what kind of film it wants to be.

Perhaps Guinness's own difficulty with his part contributes to this confusion. He reportedly found Reed's instruction ("Don't act!") unhelpful. Ives is especially heavy for the film's most delicate part, making it oppressively sad; I wish that Reed's collaborator Orson Welles could have taken this part and invested it with some of his trademark cunning and craft.

Much of "Our Man In Havana" does work, and well. Oswald Morris's cinematography employs actual Havana locations to great effect, using unusually angled shots of the crumbling, sun-drenched city. You feel the tension of Wormold's world in every scene. Ernie Kovacs, a hero of early TV comedy, gets a lot out of a thanklessly straight part, the menacing but sensitive Segura, who lusts for Milly and explains his position with real sensitivity even though he never loses the cruelty of the character.

"Do you play checkers, Mr. Wormold?" he asks.

"Not very well," answers Wormold.

"In checkers, one must move more carefully than you have tonight."

Wormold isn't kidding; he only knows enough to lose. In a world this topsy-turvy, it proves the right approach.

Coward does much to serve the comedy, which would be almost entirely absent without him. His recruitment of Wormold, which is played like a seedy homosexual liaison in bars and men's rooms, is a riot when one knows not only Coward's own legendary proclivities but his friendship with that master of spy fiction, Ian Fleming. Some of the film is even set in Fleming's own Jamaican stomping grounds; one can imagine the creator of James Bond must have enjoyed this send-up of his work before it was a gleam in Albert Broccoli's eye.

"Our Man In Havana" plays with your mind and conscience for an hour and a half. It capably establishes a dark mood with cheerful undertones though it would have worked better vice versa, which was my takeaway from reading the novel. Anyway, it's intelligent, entertaining, and worth a look.

Although most Americans have little knowledge of his work other than Star Wars, Alec Guinness produced an amazing body of work--particularly in the 1940s-1950s--ranging from dramas to quirky comedies. I particularly love his comedies, as they are so well-done and seem so natural and real on the screen--far different from the usual fare from Hollywood.

This spy farce is about a man who is a paid spy in Cuba during the latter years of the Batista regime. The problem is, he has absolutely no idea what he is doing and is in way over his head because he is NOT a trained spy--just some guy dumped into the role despite his objections. So how do you think he should deal with this dilemma? Of course, make up EVERYTHING and pretend you are doing your job. The problem is, he is too good at it and the lies take on a life of their own! This comedy is a bit silly at times and unbelievable compared to some of his earlier work, but it is still an excellent film. Don't be put off by mediocre reviews that came out since its release--it's well worth your time.

One of my favorite scenes is when Alec Guiness must get the chief of police (Ernie Kovacs) so drunk that he passes out. He arranges a game of checkers played with miniature bottles of scotch. You know,the kind served on airlines. Each time one is taken, it must be opened and drunk immediately. This leads to hilarious results. Guiness is excellent in the beginning for his famous "fusby" look. Meek, almost sheepish. Only when Kovacs is finally "knees up", can Alec Guiness complete his plan. (Watch the movie to see what this is!). This movie used to be a staple of late night television, before cable and the advent of talk shows, when movies reigned supreme. Of course, it was usually horribly butchered.

"Our Man in Havana" has all of the elements of a sure-fire classic: a cast that includes Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Noel Coward, a very lovely Maureen O'Hara and Ralph Richardson; a screenplay by Graham Greene adapted from his own novel; and direction by Carol Reed, who had tackled Greene before and made one of the best films in history ("The Third Man").

So why doesn't "Our Man in Havana" entirely work? I'm not sure, but I found myself wanting to like this movie far more than I actually did. Guinness plays a vacuum cleaner salesman living in Havana who gets recruited by the British secret service to do spy work for them. He doesn't want to be a spy but wants the fat paychecks that come with it, so he feeds them fake information to avoid having to do any actual work. But when very real consequences arise from his false information, he suffers a moral crisis.

And maybe that's where the movie stumbles. That moral crisis is never made explicit, and the movie gets sidetracked into a revenge storyline as Guinness plans the murder of another agent out to get him. The film isn't as playful as the book, so it's not very funny when it should be, but since it doesn't examine the more serious themes inherent in the story as thoroughly as it could, there's nothing to fill the gap where the humor used to be.

This film isn't exactly a misfire, but it's certainly no "Third Man."

Grade: B

My idea of paradise would be sitting down with a DVD boxed set of Alec Guinness comedies from the 1950's. What will it be tonight? The Man in the White Suit, or The Ladykillers (both by Mackendrick)? Or Kind Hearts and Coronets, where he played eight parts to perfection? No, tonight will be Our Man in Havana, the blackest of black comedies, directed by Carol Reed from Graham Greene's novel. The tone of confusion and mounting panic, the sense of things sliding hopelessly out of control is perfectly caught by Reed, who had already given us the classic The Third Man.

The casting is very good. Noel Coward, Gregoire Aslan, Ferdy Mayne and especially Burl Ives as Hasselbacher, the most reluctant of spies are all impressive. Maureen O'Hara is a Rolls Royce when a Morris would have done for this story, but she plays well. I liked Ernie Kovacs as Segura, the brutal police chief; he had a nice vulgarity blended with sensitivity that worked for me.

Now my pleasure would be complete if this picture were available on DVD, and if IMDb would give us the memorable quotes this film abounds in. Like Segura: "one never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement", or Beatrice's description of her estranged husband: "He was very beautiful; he had a face like a young fledgling looking out of the nest in one of those nature films..."

To me Our Man In Havana was a strange film. It would have been far better had it been played more broadly and for satire. The potential was there, the cast actually a perfect one for it. But instead the film was played seriously.

What an incredible premise. MI6 always on the lookout for agents and they can be recruited in a variety of ways spots expatriate vacuum cleaner salesman Alec Guinness living in Havana with his daughter Jo Morrow is scraping by on his job and it's expensive sending Morrow to a Catholic Convent school.

Along comes Noel Coward from British Intelligence with a proposition some extra income to work for them and recruit other agents and send back reports on loose information he picks up. And he has to recruit other agents to report to him with them getting a stipend from MI6.

It takes his good friend Burl Ives to show him the possibilities there. Ives is a German expatriate living in Havana as a doctor since the 30s. Invent stories, make up agents, pocket their stipends this could be a real money maker.

I'm sure you can see the possibilities there for broad comedy. Yet though some laughs are here, it gets deadly serious when the other side expresses an interest in killing Guinness because his reports to British Intelligence are giving the reputation to Our Man In Havana as one of the best they have.

One thing the British take pride in is their spy service. Since the days of Francis Walsingham who developed it for Queen Elizabeth I this something they take seriously. So of course when Guinness is finally found out to be a fake, they've got quite the conundrum.

Also in the cast are Maureen O'Hara who said that she and Guinness got along well during the shoot in Cuba which was right after the Revolution of 1959. She even met Che Guevara there and was impressed by him. She and Guinness both devout Catholics always attended mass together.

Ernie Kovacs plays a lecherous Cuban police captain who has his eyes on Jo Morrow. He's not sure what Guinness is about but he knows he's up to something. For the price of Morrow he'll cover for Guinness. O'Hara said that the new Cuban government watched the shooting of this film with intense scrutiny and wanted it made clear that Kovacs was a Batista supporter. Kovacs was the kind who would have been shot right off when Castro took power.

Although Our Man In Havana is well done it misses being a classic. What Mel Brooks could have done with this plot though.

This is one of Alec Guiness's best performances. The whole film is understated and takes into account the arid wit of the novel. Graham Greene usually buries humor in dark text that deals with one man's coming to grips with some moral or religious crisis. In Our Man in Havana Greene sets aside his usual level of introspection-made-manifest and dwells upon the absurdity of a small man with a small life that is drawn into circumstances that quite outdistance his usual worldly sphere of experience and expectation. A vacuum cleaner salesman is drawn into a vortex of espionage and intrigue. He has to create from whole cloth scenarios to satisfy his spy-master contacts. Due to his agility at fabrication he becomes regarded as an indispensable operative and ultimately draws upon a well of heretofore untapped personal resources in order to save the day. Guiness, alternating between bewilderment and resolve paints a lovable portrait of a man pinned between a bedrock sense of duty and a stomach-emptying realization of being completely out of his depth. It's a sin and a shame that this film is not available in any format in any country.

From the first shot, of Noel Coward in a dark suit and hat, tightly rolled umbrella, and immobile face striding down a Havana street besieged by grinning musicians and beggars, we know what we're in for: a story of chilly British imperturbability undermined by Latin misrule. The usual way this happens is through love or lust, but this movie has a subtler and darker theme--an amusing fantasy, in a dictatorship, turns into something seriously and horribly real.

Attracted by the money that secret-service work will bring, but clueless as to how to do it, Wormold (Alec Guinness), a vacuum-cleaner salesman, makes up reports inspired by comic strips. But not only does London take them seriously--so does the other side, which has cracked his code.

Our Man in Havana starts out as a comedy, but the humour turns to satire and then to a very black comedy indeed. Wormold's spy stories result in misunderstanding, then embarrassment, then murder, until he is put in a position where, though it's the last thing he wants, he has to become a hero, perhaps a dead one.

An irony that went unappreciated at the time was of Alec Guinness expressing his disgust of homosexuals in one scene and, in another, being comically mistaken for one (in a maneuver shown him by Noel Coward!).

Not many big laughs, but lots and lots of knowing and rueful smiles are what this movie inspires--it's a very dry martini in a world of brightly coloured alcopops.

A GREAT MOVIE: classic performances, despite some miscasting with the women. The film never has any trouble deciding what it will be, despite the fact that some viewers seem put off by the shading of genres. Some of the comments above referring to a "weak" screenplay or Guinness's inability to fully develop the role only reveal how taste has changed over the years. This is classic British humor, of the black variety, very underplayed, as it always was done before the Brits succumbed to American taste. While his treatment is lighter than the book, Reed (a man, by the way, as others have noted) captures the wry cynicism of Greene perfectly. The film displays touches of the same sensibility that produced "The Third Man," which also contained humorous moments (The literary party for Holly Martins). Reed's juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy, while unsettling to some, is the essence of his profound commentary on "the spy game." As mentioned above, this deserves a DVD!!!

Just saw Our Man In Havana on a VHS that I won on e-bay. I had seen this movie as a child, but had little memory of it. Seems that the Tailor of Panama with Pierce Bronson was a remake of this movie. Interesting, but clearly out-dated movie. Has an historical element as it was filmed in pre-Castro Cuba. Amazingly, the Cuban Revolution didn't occur during the filming of this show. I'm not Cuban, but it was still very interesting to see the streets of Havana.

Great performances by everyone involved, but Ernie Kovacks steals the spotlight as the evil Police commander. A few very funny scenes, one with a gay overtone, and the other regarding a "supposed" desire to have a threesome. I'd rate Our Man In Havana a 7.

Given the pedigree of this film, one would expect much more of it. Oddball casting -- Burl Ives as a German doctor? Maureen O'Hara as a strangely accentless English secretary? Ernie Kovacs as a brutal Cuban police official? -- is a distraction, as is the odd juxtaposition of tone.

Ostensibly a "spoof" of spy thrillers, the film never achieves a consistent comic tone. Unfortunately, it also fails to succeed as a thriller.

This afternoon I chanced upon this terrific film on Channel 4.I had seen it years ago as a child,and couldn't understand why my father kept referring to the brilliant " Our Man in Havana" Now I know what he meant.Alec Guinness hit the perfect note in the part,as he invariably did.Havana is rendered almost tangible by director Carol Reed, a difficult feat to achieve.The rest of the cast shine too.Ernie Kovacs makes a human being out of his police-thug character.The script seems almost improvised,so fresh , pointed and witty.Compare this movie to the bulk of today's garbage,and prepare to feel very let-down by what you can see at your local Multiplex.This strange and sharp movie has re-affirmed my intention to spend some time in Havana.Buena Vista Social Club first whetted my curiosity.This movie is timeless and a great 2 hrs of entertainment/art.Enjoy! And look at Maureen O ' Hara, is she not quite splendid? !

Before the revolution in Cuba, a vacuum cleaner salesman is recruited by the British Secret Service for the title role. This cold war comedy sets up a premise ripe with comic possibilities but fails to deliver the laughs. The script by Greene, adapting his own novel, is good for only a few chuckles. A marvelous cast is wasted, including Guinness as the recruited spy hoping to make a quick buck, Coward as his recruiter, O'Hara as his devoted secretary, and Richardson as a befuddled Secret Service superior. Kovacs steals the film as a slimy Cuban police chief who has designs on Guinness's daughter. A disappointment, considering the cast and the director (Reed).

Our Man in Havana (1959)

A lovely movie, funny and trenchant in its own way, and a precursor to Dr. Strangelove with its wry criticism of the Cold War and government ineptness. In this case, it isn't the atom bomb at hand, but the spread of communism into the colonies--though, to be fair, I don't think the word communism ever comes up.

Anyway, the simple trick of a recently hired agent trying to save his minor reputation by inventing things right and left, and having the upper levels not see through it, is hilarious. Yes it's implausible as shown, but the idea isn't so far fetched, and Alec Guiness, the protagonist, pulls it off with droll, steady humor and cleverness.

Cuba, of course, was in upheaval, and the truth of the revolution in the hills became a dramatic revolution shortly before filming took place. For political reasons, a note declares at the start that the film is set before Castro's takeover, so the corruption shown would be attributed to the overthrown government. A terrific background is given at the TCM site here (www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=143178).

The writing, by Graham Greene, is first rate, and keeps the farce in perfect balance, even with some of the secondary actors (Burl Ives, Noel Coward) hamming it up slightly. The director is the legendary Carol Reed (The Third Man) and between Guiness and him (and Greene), the movie has a British tilt--indeed, it was filmed mostly in Havana with followup work in Shepparton Studios, London. It's completely fun, well filmed, and if at times frivolous, maybe that's just a tonic for the times, and the real life drama of 1959 Cuba.

If you can get past the absurd storyline that has ALEC GUINESS pretending to be a spy and even inventing his fellow agents so that he can pose as the real thing for NOEL COWARD and RALPH RICHARDSON--well, it's a tall order. Graham Greene must have been in a very imaginative mood when he concocted this bit of farce and not all of it works as intended. It's an odd mixture of acting styles and it all seems more than a little foolish by the time Alec has become such a valuable "spy" that the Russians want to assassinate him.

The best scenes are after Guiness realizes that things have gone too far and someone actually intends to kill him at a banquet he is forced to attend. He's told how to play the game of avoiding food and drinks and there's a clever bit of attempts on his life at the function that are chilling and yet provoke laughs at the same time. Interesting too is his final confrontation with the man who is a hired assassin.

MAUREEN O'HARA enters the picture rather late in the story as a woman who is hired to be secretary for "our man in Havana" and has little to do, but is charming and as attractive as always. Unfortunately, RALPH RICHARDSON is completely wasted in a nothing role but NOEL COWARD has a fine time with an amusing part as the man who recruits Guiness.

ERNIE KOVACS is surprisingly well cast as a member of the police force during the last days of the Battista regime, before the revolution. And BURL IVES is an odd bit of casting as a man who knows too much.

The overall result is somewhat of a misfire and yet there are moments that are calculated to stir your interest in the offbeat story. ALEC GUINESS gives a marvelous performance as the reluctant spy who finds himself in hot water when he decides to play the game the way Ives told him to. Filmed entirely in Cuba in glorious B&W, the authentic backgrounds give it a nice flavor.

Not bad, but not the best thing Greene ever wrote and the story lacks credibility at too many key moments.

This superb noir comedy has wonderful depth and balance -- based on a fine novel, well-scripted, spectacularly well-lit and photographed, and vwey well performed, particularly by Alec Guiness and Ernie Kovacs, who was virtually as good an actor as he was a comedian. Havana itself is another major contributor to this masterpiece, shot at perhaps the peak period of its physical condition.

Made nearly 50 years ago in black and white (though in Cinemascope), this film still has some charm. It was filmed in Cuba in 1959 just after Castro came to power and the Havana of the film is not the crumbling city it is today – the 1950s American cars for instance are in showroom condition. The setting is the better parts of town just before the revolution and we glimpse the sybaritic life the doomed upper classes led. Revolution or not, Carol Reed here takes a holiday from directing serious films and along with Graham Greene as screenwriter concentrates on sending up espionage thrillers. Alec Guinness is comfortably at home in the role of as Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman for Hoover who suddenly has the role of secret agent thrust upon him. Ernie Kovaks (hitherto a US TV comic) puts in a nuanced performance as the chief of police in a seriously bent town. Jo Morrow, who more or less disappeared after this film, is quite effective as Wormold's pretty young daughter Milly.

The M15 of the day is accurately portrayed as a bunch of incompetent snobs, with Ralph Richardson the boss being the master of the cover-up. No-one is better at carrying on in the face of disaster as if nothing has happened than he. Noel Coward plays the role of Hawthorn, Wormold's controller, pretty well without acting at all. That such a person should stride round Havana in dark suit, bowler hat and umbrella drawing attention to himself is utterly ridiculous, of course, but Coward gets away with it by just being Noel Coward. The lovely Maureen O'Hara as the agent sent from London to assist our man in Havana seems lost, or at least as if she is in another movie, a romantic spy drama perhaps. (I can imagine her as Ms Moneypenny). Burl Ives as Wormold's not –so-loyal friend Hasslebatcher is a curious character – his fate does not match the otherwise knockabout comic tone. Ives was not much of an actor, but his role here is minor.

Looking back at it now, this film seems to fall in the Ealing comedy tradition - little man triumphs over the powers that be - though of a glossier and more expensive kind than usual as Columbia was paying the bills. It does suffer from an unevenness of tone, as if Greene as writer was veering between pure comic relief and serious drama. It's not one of Reed or Greene's better efforts (they were responsible together for the sublime "The Third Man") but still quite watchable, which is something to be said after 50 years.

Sir Alec is, as always, magnetic. Guinness described himself as someone who liked to put on the mask, preferring to live someone else's life in order to keep his own private. Here his character tries to do something like that, with mixed results.

What is it about Guinness that makes it so hard to take our eyes off him? This role is, in a way, a variation on Col. Nicholson: the simple soul who discovers, a little too late, that he has understood nothing. In both cases their innocent acts start a chain of events that comes close to tragedy (but for Hollywood endings), and yet we never think of blaming either character for what they have brought about.

On the contrary, it's hard not to feel that Wormold deserves all of his undeserved good fortune, which appears to come at no cost. And even after Greene's story dispels that illusion, we still feel that his decency ought to count for something, even if his intentions were less than pure.

You can read this movie as an allegory for the common delusion on the part of great powers that they can direct events to their liking. If so, then Guinness has, even without the tacked on ending, subverted it. And even if we know better, it is hard not to cheer for him.

Not having seen this movie in the early 60's, I saw it a couple of years ago and loved to make my re-acquaintance with these famous actors once again. It was wonderful to watch this movie in black and white, which befitted the conditions created in the film and heightened the mystique. Excellent performances were given by all British actors and this movie stands out as one of the better ones. But don't try to compare it with later spy movies full of action, as these stories required intellect and good dialogue to make it work.

The novel was infinitely darker than the film. Satire is never casually light-hearted; it has a serious purpose. But this film is touched by the hand of slapstick artist Ernie Kovacs and, in an entirely different comedic way, Noel Coward. As many reviewers have noted, Alec Guinness seems at a loss in more ways than one to bring together all the different strands of entirely disparate story lines that are woven around him. The parts are indeed greater than the whole.

The one scene that I have carried with me, lo, these many years is the one where Sir Noel is having a confidential tête-à-tête with Sir Alec in a tropical garden surrounded by a rattan shell, and he suddenly shushes Sir Alec and cautiously moves to close the putative entry door. One of the best sight gags ever.

The sad thing about "Our Man in Havana" is that it came out the same year that Cuba traded in one tyrant for another. And there is nothing funny at all about either Fulgencia Bautista or Fidel Castro. I recommend the excellent film "Before Night Falls" for those persuaded that the latter was the lesser of two evils.

In short, one has to choose the comedic elements over the political ones in order to enjoy the film. And that means essentially anchoring it to the role of Noel Coward and everyone else who falls in his shadow.

This is so much fun, this story. Written by Graham Green, directed and produced by Carol Reed, and starring Alec Guinness, Cuba, and one of my all-time faves: Ernie Kovacs. My mouth waters just writing about this endearing, daring little number. Right at the last minute possible this movie was made in Cuba before it shut down. It's like a love letter to Cuba, and it's beautiful to behold. In order to fund his high school daughter's burgeoning tastes Jim Wormold, an expat Brit vacuum cleaner sales rep, allows himself to be recruited by MI6. He knows nothing about spying or nationalism, nor does he care. He just wants to take care of his little girl and she wants a horse.

I had heard about this movie a long time ago and wanted to see it. But I haven't had the opportunity so far. In my chilldhood's Romania was considered dangerous to be showed. So, I was expecting something more and better, specially from Carol Reed, the maker of "Oliver!" and "The Third Man", two very good films. The story disappointed me, nothing extraordinary. A banal story about a vacuum-cleaners salesman who starts to lie everybody... Childish! Very good actors in the cast: Alec Guinness, Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Ernie Kovacs. The best are Ernie Kovacs and Noël Coward.