Story of movie Our Man In Havana Film :
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 British spy comedy film shot in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noël Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the 1958 novel Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. The film takes the action of the novel and gives it a more comedic touch. The movie marks Reed's third collaboration with Greene.
| Our Man in Havana | |
|---|---|
theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Carol Reed |
| Produced by | Carol Reed |
| Written by | Graham Greene |
| Starring | Alec Guinness Burl Ives Ralph Richardson Noël Coward Maureen O'Hara Ernie Kovacs |
| Music by | Frank Deniz Laurence Deniz |
| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Edited by | Bert Bates |
Production company | Kingsmead Productions |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2,000,000 (US/ Canada) |
Screenplay
In pre-revolutionary Cuba, James Wormold (Alec Guinness), a vacuum cleaner salesman, is recruited by Hawthorne (Noël Coward) of the British Secret Intelligence Service to be their Havana operative. Instead of recruiting his own agents, Wormold invents agents from men he knows only by sight and sketches "plans" for a rocket-launching pad based on vacuum parts to increase his value to the service and to procure more money for himself and his expensive daughter Milly (Jo Morrow).
Because his importance grows, he is sent a secretary, Beatrice (Maureen O'Hara), and a radioman from London to be under his command. With their arrival, it becomes much harder for Wormold to maintain his facade. However, all of his invented information begins to come true: his cables home are intercepted and believed to be true by enemy agents who then act against his "cell". One of his "agents" is killed, and he is targeted for assassination. He admits what he has done to his secretary, and he is recalled to London. At the film's conclusion, rather than telling the truth to the prime minister and other military intelligence services, Wormold's commanders (led by Ralph Richardson) agree to fabricate a story claiming his imagined machines had been dismantled. They bestow honors on Wormold and offer him a position teaching espionage classes in London.
- Alec Guinness as Jim Wormold
- Burl Ives as Dr. Hasselbacher
- Maureen O'Hara as Beatrice Severn
- Ernie Kovacs as Captain Segura
- Noël Coward as Hawthorne
- Ralph Richardson as 'C'
- Jo Morrow as Milly Wormold
- Grégoire Aslan as Cifuentes
- Paul Rogers as Hubert Carter
- Raymond Huntley as General
- Ferdy Mayne as Professor Sanchez
- Maurice Denham as Admiral
- Joseph P. Mawra as Lopez
- Duncan Macrae as MacDougal
- Gerik Schjelderup as Svenson
- Hugh Manning as Officer
- Karel Stepanek as Dr. Braun
- Maxine Audley as Teresa
The film was shot on location in Havana, just two months after the overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista regime, and on 13 May 1959, Fidel Castro visited the film crew when they shot scenes at Havana's Cathedral Square.
Our Man in Havana was positively received by film critics; it has a "fresh" rating of 85% (with 13 reviews) at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
The film was nominated for the Golden Globe best picture (comedy or musical) award, and Reed was nominated for best director by the Directors Guild of America, losing both prizes to The Apartment.
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