Our Man in Havana

British novelist Graham Green and filmmaker Carol Reed know a thing or two about international intrigue; after all, they cooked up the classic 1949 noir thriller "The Third Man," as famous for its star (Orson Welles) as for the creative team behind it. (They also created "The Fallen Idol," a film from 1948.)

But the two also had a mastery of satire, and they deftly, precisely employ that sensibility with the 1959 thriller "Our Man in Havana," a tale of incompetence and chicanery that spins into a yarn about spies and their craft. No less than the great Noel Coward appears to kick events into motion when Coward's character -- an MI-6 operative maned Hawthorne -- strolls into the vacuum cleaner shop of a British expatriate named Wormold (Alec Guinness) to recruit him as a secret agent. Times are uncertain, after all, and revolution is brewing. (The film, though produced on location early in Castro's regime, is set before the Cuban revolution brought Castro to power.)

As it happens, Wormold has a lovely young daughter with expensive tastes; her name is Millie (Jo Morrow) and her habits extend from shopping to socializing with a smitten (but frightfully vicious) police official named Segura (Ernie Kovacs). With the prospect of extra income from the British government dangled before him -- plus bonuses of various sorts -- Wormold cannot resist; he signs on. But what to do about the actual job or recruiting others to spy for him? What about intelligence gathering? World is utterly incapable of any such ambitions, so he takes the advice given him by a loose friend, a German fellow named Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), and simply makes up wild stories about a new super-weapon. (Proof postitive that "fake news" has been with us for a long time, and its basic motivation -- money -- hasn't changed.)

Wormold's inventions take on a life of their own, however, and his fantasies seem to be morphing into facts of the cloak and dagger variety once a beautiful fellow spy, Beatrice (Maureen O'Hara) shows up from London to verify and assess his work. With bodies starting to pile up and shadowy forces moving in, Wormold has to think like a secret agent man to protect himself and his daughter and keep all the plates he's juggling in the air.

Greene adapts his own novel for the screenplay; Oswald Morris photographs Havana and other locales with beautiful black and white compositions. A sly and knowing romp, this is a cold-war comedy in a vein much more restrained than the all-out hijinks of "Dr. Strangelove," but you get a feeling the two movies belong on the same shelf.

If this Twilight Time Blu-ray does land on your shelf -- and there's no reason it shouldn't, especially if you like atmospheric black and white films, spy thrillers, comedy with a spry, lean style, or Alec Guinness -- it will lend a little light on the special features side. There's an isolated score to showcase the work of Frank Deniz and Laurence Deniz, and an original theatrical trailer. don't despair, however; Julie Kirgo comes to the rescue with another of her witty, incisive essays.

"Our Man in Havana"
Blu-ray
$29.95
https://www.twilighttimemovies.com/our-man-in-havana-blu-ray/