Wormold (Alec Guinness), an English vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba, is propositioned by stiff-upper-lip spy Hawthorne (Noël Coward) to become an agent for Britain. Having no applicable skills, his friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) suggests he invent his reports, a suggestion he takes to heart. The heads of MI6 back in London (Ralph Richardson, Raymond Huntley, and Maurice Denham) are so impressed with his information that they send him a secretary (Maureen O’Hara). Now he must keep his secrets from her, his daughter, competing spies who take him seriously, and the local police captain (Ernie Kovacs).
Shot on location just after the Cuban revolution, but before it was clear what Castro’s alliances were, Our Man in Havana use the uncertainty and dangers of Batista’s rule as a background; the satire is pointed at bureaucracy and espionage, partly taken from what novelist and screenwriter Graham Green observed of actual spies during WWII. In a nutshell, spies and their political masters have no idea what they are doing.
Which defines Wormold. He’s a sad-sack who is just getting by selling vacuums and has no idea of what is going on around him. He’s likable as a man who wants to support is daughter, but he’s no hero and no intelligent agency would ever recruit him. But then intelligence is not on display in the intelligence agencies. It is the higher members of the organizations that get the lions share of the skewering.
This is a pitch-black comedy of a type rarely scene. In films such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, the murders always have a dash of humor. Not here. The deaths are taken quite seriously, and there is a background hum of tension that you’d expect from a humorless thriller. Kovacs’s police captain is generally pleasant, but there is no doubt that this man is a killer that the people in the streets rightly fear. His talk of torture is not done for laughs. Here and there the other characters have their funny moments, but most of the humor is in the general situation and from Coward, Richardson, Huntley, and Denham. This is a delicate balance to pull off, but Green and director Carol Reed (whose previous collaborations include The Third Man) and their skilled set of actors pull it off. It’s funny and emotional and meaningful and the tone shifts enhance that instead of distracting from it.
Our Man in Havana is fascinating from a historical perspective, enlightening, and a good time to watch. It is a favorite of mine and a must see film.
Guinness also appeared in the Post-War British Comedies Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Last Holiday (1950), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Card (1952), The Captain’s Paradise (1953), The Ladykillers (1955), To Paris with Love (1955), Barnacle Bill (1957), The Horse’s Mouth (1958).