"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.[2][3][4] 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" wiki
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Graham Greene called this novella and the screen play derived from it "an entertainment." It is certainly that. I suppose that money was the reason that it was filmed in Black and White but I can't imagine it in color. The richness of the material is such that color would be just too much, like an excess of sauce on a fine steak.
The cast is simply wonderful as is the direction. It is hard to pick and choose among the great dialog and acting but who could forget Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs) answering a question with "No, Mister Wormold, you are not of the torturable class …"
I mentioned to someone yesterday that when I ran Defense HUMINT I used episodes of "Reilly, ace of spies" as the basis for seminar discussions with new entry trainees. This was also true of "Our man in Havana." pl
