Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1507 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-12-26
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com
Graham Greene wrote this witty comedy inspired by Cold War paranoia. Jim Wormald (Alec Guiness) is an Englishman selling vacuum cleaners in Cuba on the cusp of the revolution. Hawthorne (Noel Coward), a British intelligence agent, is looking for information on Cuban affairs and recruits Jim to act as a spy. Jim has no experience in espionage and no useful knowledge to pass along, but Hawthorne is willing to pay for his services, and since Jim's daughter Milly (Jo Morrow) has expensive tastes, he can use the money. To keep Hawthorne happy (and his paycheques coming in), he turns in reports on the Cuban revolution that are copied from public documents, "hires" additional agents who don't exist, and presents blueprints of secret weapons that are actually schematics of his carpet sweepers. However, Hawthorne and associate "C" (Ralph Richardson) think that Jim is doing splendid work and encourage him to continue; meanwhile, Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs), the elegantly corrupt chief of police, has been fooled by Jim's charade into believing he's a real spy and has also become attracted to Milly. Our Man in Havana also features Burl Ives and Maureen O'Hara in supporting roles.

Customer Reviews

Entertaining spy spoof set in pre-revolutionary Havana
What a treat! Here we have one of the UK's finest twentieth century actors (Alec Guinness) starring in a story by one of the UK's finest twentieth century novelists (Graham Greene). It also stars Burl Ives, Ralph Richardson and Maureen O'Hara. This is a light-hearted black-and-white comedy (Greene called it an 'entertainment') about Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman, recruited into espionage by Secret Service agent Hawthorne (Noel Coward). Wormold needs the money to finance his daughter's expensive tastes, especially with horses, but quickly finds himself out of his depth when expected to find further recruits at his country club. He files false reports and supplies drawings of non-existent secret weapons, based on vacuum cleaner designs. The story takes several darker turns, but by the end we all have a smile on our faces.

It's wonderful to contrast late-fifties Havana with Havana today. The opening credits show a lady doing languid backstroke down a rooftop swimming-pool, then turning to gaze past the twin towers of the Hotel Nacional towards the arc of the malecon and Old Havana - seemingly unchanged. A street hustler approaches dapper, quick-striding Hawthorne and grows increasingly desperate as Hawthorne fails to bite: "Shoeshine? Pretty girl? Dirty movie?...Palace of Art?!" The hustlers are still there, but these days it's more likely to be: "Cigars? Restaurant? Pretty girl?...Viagra?!"

You can watch this film in four different languages, with a choice of 12 languages as subtitles - great! OK, sometimes the subtitles go astray. "Kettle" gets subtitled as "tetera" (= teapot) - not much good for steaming letters open! According to the subtitles, a man found bound and gagged in the gutter (arroyo) is said to have been found in the "puerta" (= doorway) - not quite the same thing! But these shortcomings are amusing rather than annoying. Apart from being great fun to watch, the film supplies an important piece of social history. The timing is critical: the book was written in 1958 about events in 1957, i.e. the end of the Batista regime. But director Carol Reed needed Fidel Castro's permission to film in 1959, after the revolution. Luckily Castro complied. Buy it and enjoy!

I love it
I went to cuba recently and spent time in some of the locations shown in the film

the film itself is whimsical and extremely enjoyable as well as having a truly authentic background

It was made in 1958 but apparently predicted the cuban missile crisis of 1962 ( more on Wikipedia)

Graham Greene would have been proud of the film

for film buffs this is a must!

Nick Farrar

Our Man in Havana
Excellent film with (Sir) Alex Guinness. Cannot understand it has not been released world-wide.