Filmed in Cuba right after the revolution, Reed and Graham Greene in many respects seem to be aiming for another Third Man, with their wry view of a city in interesting times, innocent characters caught up in sinister activities, tilted angles and distinctive music.
This is perhaps funnier. Alec Guinness is a vacuum salesman who is recruited by Noel Coward into the secret service, and in inventing spies and information gets himself into mortal danger. Loved the touch of Coward pushing shut the bamboo door with no glass as though it will offer them some privacy, miniature whisky bottles and the couple who meet right at the beginning and then reappear sporadically throughout.
Burl Ives is his German friend, Maureen O'Hara is sent to work for him, Jo Morrow his teenage daughter and Ernie Kovacs the corrupt police detective. With Ralph Richardson, Grégoire Aslan, Paul Rogers, Raymond Huntley, Ferdy Mayne, Maurice Denham, John LeMesurier.
The brief opening shot of the rooftop swimming pool has to be the Hotel Capri, which features also in Soy Cuba; one of the Mafia hotels.
Well photographed by Ossie Morris in CinemaScope; the editor credited is Bert Bates, but Charles Thomas Samuels' book 'Encountering Directors' makes it clear that Reed liked to view the dailies over lunch, then worked with the editor on Saturdays, so the fine cut's ready soon after filming concludes. I've never heard of Bert Bates. He started in the thirties, worked on a couple of Powell's quota quickies, cut Under Capricorn and Reed's Outcast of the Islands and A Kid for Two Farthings, and ended up cutting big British films like 633 Squadron, The Battle of Britain and Diamonds are Forever.
Music by Franz and Laurence Deniz is suitably exotic. John Box is the production designer. Columbia.
I noticed a moment where the sound of the following scene comes in before the end of the preceding one - so Dede can't claim to have invented that trick.
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