A very lopsided spy story played for laughs most of the time...

Doylenf

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.

score 6/10

Doylenf 6 June 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1887638/