OUR MAN IN HAVAVA
DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY CAROL REED
KINGSMEAD PRODUCTIONS
COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION
Information from IMDb
Plot Summary
Jim Wormold sells vacuum cleaners in Havana. His daughter Milly, 17,
spends a lot of money, so he accepts a job with the Intelligence Service.
As he has nothing to report, he invents facts, pretends to recruit agents
and to discover secret constructions...
Of course, one day all will become much harder...
Written by Yepok
Full Cast
Alec Guinness .... Jim Wormold
Burl Ives .... Dr. Hasselbacher
Maureen O'Hara .... Beatrice Severn
Ernie Kovacs .... Capt. Segura
Noel Coward .... Hawthorne (as Noël Coward)
Ralph Richardson .... 'C'
Jo Morrow .... Milly Wormold
Grégoire Aslan .... Cifuentes (as Gregoire Aslan)
Paul Rogers .... Hubert Carter
Raymond Huntley .... General
Ferdy Mayne .... Prof. Sanchez
Maurice Denham .... Admiral
José Prieto .... Lopez (as Jose Prieto)
Duncan Macrae .... MacDougal
Gerik Schjelderup .... Svenson
Hugh Manning .... Officer
Karel Stepanek .... Dr. Braun
Maxine Audley .... Teresa
Elisabeth Welch .... Woman
Yvonne Buckingham .... Woman
Enrique Almirante .... Man at the Film Introduction (uncredited)
René de la Cruz .... Man Beaten by Police (uncredited)
Madeleine Kasket .... Black-haired girl (uncredited)
Shan Lawrence .... Native Canadian Girl (uncredited)
Anne Padwick .... Dark-haired woman (uncredited)
Rachel Roberts .... Prostitute (uncredited)
Writing Credits
Graham Greene
Produced
Raymond Anzarut .... associate producer
Carol Reed .... producerOriginal Music by
Frank Deniz (uncredited)
Laurence Deniz (uncredited)
Cinematography
Oswald Morris
Original Music
Frank Deniz (uncredited)
Laurence Deniz (uncredited)
Trivia
Fidel Castro's government gave permission for this film, which presents the fallen regime of Fulgencio Batista, in an unflattering light and also condemns American and British meddling, to shoot on location in Havana, only months after the revolution. It was completed during the brief period in 1959 before Cuba had aligned itself with the Soviet Union.
The comic strip Rock Kent in the newspaper is credited to a Syd Cain. Syd Cain was the movie's assistant art director.
Filmed on location in Havana three months after Fidel Castro's January 1959 revolution, the script had to be submitted to Cuba's Ministry of the Interior, which insisted that 39 changes be made to make it appear that life during the Batista regime was more unfavorable.
Several times during the film, one can see the neon business sign next door to Mr. Wormold's building which boldly reads "BOND". It is an obvious nod to Ian Fleming's popular spy novels of the time.
Jean Seberg was considered for the role of Milly.
Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti had originally been in talks with Graham Greene about making a film together just after World War II. They had devised an outline story about a vacuum cleaner salesman operating as a spy in the Estonian capital of Tallinn in 1938. This project stalled when they were refused government permission to lampoon the Secret Service. Undeterred, Greene carried on under his own steam, drawing on his experience observing Abwehr (German intelligence service) agents in Portugal during World War II, who had been paid per report and not according to results.
Alfred Hitchcock was interested in making a film based on Graham Greenes novel. The writer wasn't keen on Hitchcock, however, after his days as a film critic, so he chose to work instead with Carol Reed.
Cinematographer Oswald Morris deliberately lowered the light levels in the Havana locations to make them more atmospheric.
Alec Guinness originally wanted to play his character as an untidy, defeated soul instead of a generally hapless non-entity.
The Cuban scenes were filmed over a period of five weeks, and were frequently interrupted by local Cuban residents getting very excited by all the filming.
Ernie Kovacs reportedly smoked 25 Cuban cigars every day.
Shooting at Shepperton Studios lasted 11 weeks.
Englishman Jim Wormold is raising his daughter, Milly, as a Catholic on the wishes of his estranged wife, although he is not Catholic. Alec Guinness and the book's author, Graham Greene, were Englishmen who converted to Catholicism. Guinness and his wife converted in 1956.
The car Millie shows interest in at the end of the movie is a 1957 Jaguar Mk.VIII
Goofs
Errors in geography: At the end of the film,the aerial footage of the Tower of London has been flipped, resulting in Tower Bridge being on the West of the Tower of London and all traffic driving on the right.
Continuity: In the sequence where Wormold seeks revenge on Carter, Wormold stands in an alley way, with a window behind him to his left. He shoots at Carter, misses him, and walks quite a distance down the alley while putting on his jacket. Carter then pulls out a gun, shoots twice at Wormold who is walking away. Suddenly, the scene cuts back to Wormold back in his original location standing in the alley way with the same distinctive window behind him to his left. He is now without the jacket he had just been seen putting on while walking away. Wormold then shoots Carter.
Boom mic visible: While Guinness is talking to the Doctor in his ransacked apartment, you can see the shadow of the boom mic moving overhead.
Continuity: In the scene where Segura is in the shop with Wormold immediately after Hasselbacher's death (the scene where Segura asks for Milly's hand), Wormold is smoking a cigarette at the beginning of the scene. When the camera angle switches from behind him to in front of him, the cigarette, which he was nowhere near finishing, has disappeared.
Filming Locations
Havana, Cuba
Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK
(studio)
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