Our Man in Havana (1959)

Our Man in Havana
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Graham Greene (novel)
1959/UK/USA
Kingsmeade Productions/Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] ‘C’: In our service it is essential to bury the past very quickly and very securely.[/box]

I find this cold war comedy to be darker than many do.

The film is set immediately before the Cuban revolution.  Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) sells vacuum cleaners in Havana.  He is raising his teen-age daughter alone since his wife left him.  Wormold has many worries, principally regarding his finances.  His daughter is being pursued by Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs), a distasteful policeman.  She is at the age when she wants the finer things in life, currently a horse.  Jim’s best, perhaps only, friend is a similarly downtrodden fellow expatriate named Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives).

Jim’s life changes when he is approached by a British Secret Service official (Noel Coward) to spy and recruit agents.  He is to be paid handsomely.  Dr. Hasselbacher advises him that he can do no harm if he simply makes his secrets up.  Dr. Hasselbacher could not be more wrong.  Jim works the Home Office up into a frenzy when he submits drawings of vacuum cleaners as secret weapons being developed in the mountains.  Soon he finds himself saddled with a secretary (Maureen O’Hara) who threatens to blow his cover. Worse, he has made himself a target of the Other Side.  With Ralph Richardson as ‘C’.

Something about Alec Guinness’s performance in this strikes me as so sad that I don’t laugh as much as I would like.  My husband, on the other hand, chuckled out loud repeatedly. I had not realized Ernie Kovacs could act.  In Reed’s hands and with this cast, it’s quite well made.

Trailer