Product Details

• Actors: Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noel Coward
• Format: NTSC
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JL0F

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow-building, surprisingly subtle comedy of spying, February 6, 2002

By 

Stephen O. Murray "Stephen O. Murray" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Sir Carol Reed's 1960 film of Graham Greene's "Our Man in Havana" gets off to a slow start. The expatriate British widower Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) is having difficulty making enough money to support the expensive tastes of his cherished teenaged daughter Milly (Jo Morrow), who has caught the idea of a Batista torturer and equestrian, Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs). The British spymaster for the Caribbean (Noël Coward) insists that Wormold become a British secret agent, and Wormold decides to take the money and when pressed for results, concocts nonsense "intelligence."

His ludicrous inventions, including a military installation he invents out of vacuum cleaner parts, are taken very seriously. As in Greene's "The Third Man" (also filmed by Reed) and "The Quiet American" (filmed by Joseph Mankiewicz), ignorance ("innocence") proves to be extremely dangerous to others. This film is not as great as those other two, but has a very strong cast (including Burl Ives as a German doctor, Maureen O'Hara as a plucky M16 professional sent to assist Wormold, and Ralph Richardson as the agency head back in London) and splendid black-and-white cinematography of Havana almost as good as that of Vienna and Hanoi in the other two films. The camerawork is by Oswald Morris, John Huston's cinematographer on another, broader 1950s spy spoof (Beat the Devil) and other films (including the 1952 Moulin Rouge, Moby Dick, The Roots of Heaven, The Man who Would be King, and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison) plus Kubrick's "Lolita" and Reed's "Oliver!"

Guinness (who had a career in spying movies ahead of him!) delivers a subtle performance. More unexpectedly, so does Ernie Kovacs, who was generally a very broad and antic comic. A thuggish police officer in a Latin American dictatorship is an easy target, but Kovacs draws on the tradition of cortesia and is considerably more professional than the M16 establishment that turns out to be at least as devoted as he is to keeping up appearances. Burl Ives (who long outlived Kovacs, but stopped getting roles like those in which he was so memorable in the late 1950s) also delivers a subtle performance as he is dragged into the madness Wormold's fantasies unleash.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and Vintage Guinness, March 30, 2004

By 

JMB1014 "JMB1014" (USA) - See all my reviews

Alec Guinness gives a terrifically funny performance as Wormold, a reluctant, middle-aged British resident of Havana who is approached by his country's desperate, and ridiculously credulous, "intelligence service" to do his patriotic duty and become a part-time spy. Wormold is also the lonely father of a nubile daughter and he needs extra money to answer her increasingly expensive wishes. The government will pay well. One day, rather hopelessly and absently, he sketches the interior of a vacuum cleaner he is supposed to be selling at his modest business, pretending his sketch pertains to some dangerous, real-life strategic device. His secret agent employers are elated. They send Wormold money. Unfortunately, they also become desperate for more "intelligence" from the now equally desperate Wormold. As he invents ever more outrageous fictions, the spy masters grow ever more fascinated. Then comes the kicker: Wormold's elaborate fantasies begin to come true. He has created a monster, in effect. The complexities of his imaginary spy world begin to envelope him. The outcome is terrible - and terribly funny. The subtle comic genius of Guinness may be lost on some American audiences, or it may be just your cup of tea. I laughed till I cried. I have never forgotten this movie since I saw it when I was an English major, studying Graham Greene, among others. I eagerly await its issuance in DVD.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Movie Deserves To Be On DVD, October 4, 2004

By 

C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Our Man in Havana [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a very funny black comedy with a screenplay by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed. James Wormold (Alec Guinness) is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. He's getting by but needs more money to take care of his teen-aged daughter. He's recruited as a spy for Britain by Noel Coward. He doesn't really know what's wanted, but he can use the money. Since he doesn't know anything of value, he begins making up stories and inventing plans, and mentioning the names of people supposedly involved. The names, of course, are just names he picked at random. His masterpiece is his "discovery" of a giant military complex, the plans of which he gets to his controller (Coward) who sends them on the London. The plans are actually the diagrams of one of his vacuum cleaners. This first part of the movie is a funny, sharp-edged parody of British pomposity and the thick headedness of "intelligence."

But then people begin to die.

It seems there may be more than British spies in Havana, spies who also believe the plans are genuine, and who are a lot more ruthless than the British. The second half of the film is darker, less funny and much more sardonic.

The cast is a strange grouping of disparate acting styles, but somehow they all work very well together. In addition to Guinness and Coward, there is Burl Ives, Ernie Kovacs, Maureen O'Hara and Ralph Richardson. Coward is priceless as a mannered, fatuous, obliviously incompetent spy. Kovacs for once is less Kovacs and more the part. He plays the Cuban police's main man in catching spies. He's amusing, and so are his lines. Among them, "There are two classes of people: those who can be tortured and those who can't." He and Guinness share a great scene where Guinness, who has to get away from Kovacs, challenges him to a checkers match with the pieces being miniature liquor bottles. Each time a piece is taken, the victor has to drink it. Guinness manages to lose regularly. Kovacs preens on his victories and only gradually, and increasingly incoherently, begins to suspect.

For Reed, who directed The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and other classic films, this is, in my opinion, the last of his first-rate movies. He continued to direct but made such things as The Key, Oliver! and The Agony and the Ecstasy.

This is a film that cries out to be on DVD. It's not even available on VHS. I taped it three or four years ago when it was on cable and watched it again over the weekend. Keep an eye out for it if its ever released. It's a very good movie.