Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Steineded How sad is this?

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

chaswe-28402 Not unentertaining, but blurred and bizarre. A bewildered Alec Guinness malfunctions in the middle of an off-centre international cast mixture with very little mutual rapport. The relationship between Guinness and his screen daughter Milly was a misalliance. For most of the film I thought she was being played by Britt Ekland. She seemed to have a funny accent. I never figured out what had happened to Alec's screen wife. Next was Burl Ives, blown in from Illinois via Prussia, having seen service in the German army in WWI. This would have been an achievement, since he wasn't born until 1909. I never really understood who shot him, or why. The hyper-gorgeous Maureen O'Hara appeared to be seriously misplaced as a secretary spy from London, and it was difficult to tell what she saw in Guinness, with whom she had no chemistry and whose general ineptness was only too obvious. Although it could also be interpreted, at a stretch, as supremely subtle subterfuge.Then we had Noel Coward, with his clipped tones, whose brisk and dapper presence stood out like a sore thumb in the sleazy purlieus of Havana. The most memorable comic part of this film was when, in the interests of security, he shut the al fresco door. I've remembered that scene for the last ten years at least. But if this was a comedy, then it was one of the oddest, with three unfunny assassinations, including an attempted poisoning in full daylight at the European Traders Lunch. Which side was the head waiter, Le Mesurier, on, I wonder ? One of the deaths was of a totally innocent air pilot we'd only glimpsed, a hapless victim of Alec's blundering falsehoods, which he got clean away with. Another victim was bundled up and dropped in the gutter outside the vacuum cleaner shop. I don't know what that was supposed to achieve. Who was the enemy, anyway ? It must have been the Russians; it always was in this era. Extraordinary to read that Castro actually attended some of the film's shooting. The most sympathetic character was the police captain, known as the red vulture, who only tortured people by mutual agreement. In the end he mercifully deported Guinness and his daughter back to London, where they were given their just deserts. Milly was finally seen fondling a white Jaguar. A curious send-up of the phony spy set-up, fully fit to compete with the one who came in from the cold.

SnoopyStyle Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly (Jo Morrow). He runs a small vacuum cleaner shop while Milly is busy shopping. The latest being a horse. So he takes a job from British secret agent Hawthorne (Noel Coward) to recruit people for his spy network. He is hopeless in the effort. So his friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) suggests inventing everything. He even delivers a drawing of secret machinery based on a vacuum cleaner.This takes quite a few fun pointed jabs at the spy world. Hawthorne is conspicuously English. He is possibly the worst spy. This is the perfect antidote for a James Bond thriller. Alec Guinness is brilliant playing this seriously letting all the jokes come naturally. All the while, there is a threat of danger that is all too real.

secondtake 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.

thinker1691 Back in the 1950's many changing aspects of life in Cuba were in their infancy. Fidel was still spouting histrionic rhetoric, the British government was striving to remain among the elite of world governments and the U.S. was trying hard to ignore the tiny imprisoned island. Here is one movie which captured the essence of the times. The film is called " Our Man in Havana " and is the story of the British secret service prior to the first James Bond movie. Noel Coward plays Hawthorne a government official seeking to establish a covert base on the Island of Cuba. Finding one Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) a British subject, running a vacuum sales shop, he enlists him to create a spy network complete with agents and code names. Completely ill suited and inexperienced for the post, Wormold is advised by his friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) to accept all the money, privileges and perks which come with the post and just make up a network of spy and secret weapons. He is so successful, London (Ralph Richardson) sends him Miss Beatrice Severn (Maureen O'Hara), a beautiful secretary to help him with emerging operations. However, due to the accumulating power of the agency in Cuba, the heavies too become dangerously threatening, in the guise of Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs). The movie has a comedic, but dark veneer as things begin well enough, but then become lethal. A surprising hit for it's time and one reminiscent of the years in which it was created. ****