Product Description

A vacuum cleaner salesman (Alec Guinness) is recruited by the British secret service to act as a spy in Havana. When Guinness sends off phony reports, "recruits" mysterious agents and "discovers" mysterious installations, the home office decides to send him some help in the form of an agent named Beatrice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10456 in DVD
• Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
• Released on: 2009-02-03
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
Carol Reed's 1960 adaptation of Graham Greene's satiric Cold War novel (Greene also wrote the screenplay) is simultaneously funny and scary, a microcosm of profiteering under the shadow of nuclear war and a grim comedy about the lengths to which men will go to uphold a useful ruse. Alec Guinness plays Jim Wormold, a low-key, English expatriate and vacuum cleaner salesman living in pre-revolutionary Havana, Cuba, with his daughter, Milly (Jo Morrow). Short on funds, Wormold accepts an offer from a British spy recruiter (Noel Coward) to keep a clandestine eye on Cuban activities, a job for which Wormold has no experience. Anxious to keep the home office happy, Wormold sends schematics of vacuum cleaners he declares are blueprints of secret weapons, and creates fictional agents who appear to send in field reports suggesting something is amiss on the island. Espionage head "C" (Ralph Richardson) is pleased with Wormold's progress, but when the former sends out a beautiful handler (Maureen O'Hara) and a possible assassin turns up at a sales convention, Our Man's faux hero has to think fast to keep up his charade--and stay alive. Ernie Kovacs is excellent as a corrupt police chief trying to win Milly's heart by appealing to her father, and Burl Ives has never been better than as a German expat with a mysterious background. Reed has a superb grasp of the tone and pacing of this spy comedy, with its surges of genuine darkness--he did, after all, give the world the much-less-funny The Third Man. --Tom Keogh




Stills from Our Man in Havana (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Vacuum cleaners, Cuba and death: Another great movie from director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene
Our Man in Havana is an excellent, sly 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 to 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. For years it has needed a Region 1 DVD release. There is a fine Region 2 DVD which I have. I'll add to this review if there are any significant differences or extras.

The Ultimate Secret Agent
A simply wonderful adaptation by Graham Greene of his book about how an unwitting British expatriate who is having difficulty supporting his daughter's expensive habits as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana is recruited to become a secret agent for the British government. The movie is intelligent, witty, and timely with great casting and excellent performances. While billed as a tongue-in-cheek comedy, it may not be too far from the truth in shedding light on how governments recruit their spies, obtain secret information, and cover their tracks. The film is excellent - and the book is, too.

Finally on DVD in US
At last this great Alec Guiness classic is available. Most of his good comedies came out in a multi-pack years ago, but this was inexplicably missing.