Black comedy about a so-called "important" spy
Graham Greene's novel "Our Man in Havana" was well adapted by him for this 1959 film of the same name. It stars Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson - quite a cast. Guiness plays Jim Wormwold, a British expatriate living in pre-revolution Havana with his teenaged daughter. He works as a vacuum cleaner salesman. He is asked by a British official (Noel Coward) to work as a British agent for a tidy sum of money. This means he must recruit other agents to work under him. Jim makes a few stabs at getting a network together, but he's pathetic and out of his element. In the meantime, he is sent an assistant (Maureen O'Hara). Stuck with filing a report, he takes a design of a vacuum cleaner, invents names, and makes claims that lethal weapons are being built in the mountains. It goes from there, and Wormwold grows in importance as an agent.Though this is a satire, it wouldn't surprise me if real spies have done this in order to earn their keep. I mean, every week can't give you a Cuban missile crisis. And what would a government do if it found out that the info they were getting was fake? What would they tell their bosses? "Our Man in Havana" is sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always thought-provoking. The acting is excellent, though some have mentioned that Maureen O'Hara was too much star power for the role she plays - that's really a minor criticism.
Another great Guiness film.
score 8/10
blanche-2 20 June 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1896367/35080
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