Movie Review - Our Man in Havana

Throw together Alec Guinness, Maureen O'Hara, Burl Ives, Ernie Kovacs, Ralph Richardson, and assorted other actors into a pot of Batista Era Havana, Cuba, stir in the Cold War arms race, add a household appliance, and simmer on low heat in black and white for just under two hours, and you'll have Our Man in Havana (1959), directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene.

Wormold (played by Guinness) is an expatriate Brit running a vacuum cleaner shop in Havana. His daughter Milly doesn't understand that money doesn't grow on trees, and she wants a horse. She has also caught the eye of Police Captain Segura (Kovacs). A British agent is recruiting contacts and offers Wormhold steady money and expenses to observe, make reports, and recruit other contacts. 

Wormold has no interest in the intelligence game, but he needs funds. He makes an effort to recruit an agent at the country club, a college professor. The professor happened to be seated at the table with a drunk pilot named Mendez--or something like that. The attempt goes badly and he scares away the professor.

Wormold has a friend, Dr. Hasselbacher (Ives) who seems to be on the shady side, and may be involved with the criminal world or some foreign power. It might've been made clear, but I missed it if it was.

Hasselbacher suggests that one might merely provide information without any sources, and Wormold takes the idea to heart. He recruits some "contacts"--including the professor--who all require payments from British Intelligence--coming through him--and he fabricates information from them. He passes on the observations via a book code, his daughter gets a horse, and his bank account grows. 

 

His handlers are anxious for more, and he passes on some drawings (based on the internal workings of a vacuum cleaner) of a new secret project. British Intelligence, headed by C (Ralph Richardson who would go on to a crucial role in the slaying of a dragon), is concerned about the potential weapon and sends Severn (O'Hara) to check it out.

Severn wants to meet with the source of the new information. Wormold puts her off and stalls for time until he comes up with a plan--inspired by a comic strip in the paper--that the informant, the fictitious pilot, who happens to have the same name as the pilot who was seated at the table of the professor he tried to recruit, can have a convenient accident.

Since I'm going from memory here, and to rush things along, Wormold and Severn are at Hasselbacher's when word comes that the pilot has been killed in a car crash. Hasselbacher is distraught because the actual pilot, who is his friend, was killed. The professor also gets dropped off, tied up in a bundle, at the vacuum shop. Things are getting out of hand. Real people are being hurt and killed. Severn also discovers that Hasselbacher has the same book that Wormold uses for his coded messages. He has been intercepting and decoding the messages.

Wormold gets warned that "they" are out to kill him. He goes to a convention with the understanding that "they" will attempt to poison him. He plays it safe, avoiding the food and drink provided to him. Unfortunately, a dog who lapped up the drink he spilled on it was killed by the poison, thus helping Wormold to identify at least one of the assassins.

Hasselbacher is killed, and Captain Segura pressures Wormold to let him marry his daughter. Wormold, who has fallen for Severn, decides to take matters into his own hands. He instructs Severn to take Milly out of the country while he resolves things.

He invites Segura for a game of checkers with single serving size beverage bottles as pieces. Every piece taken must be consumed.

After Segura passes out, Wormold takes the captain's semi-auto pistol and finds his assassin friend from the convention, eventually serving him with a special goodbye message.

For reasons I didn't quite understand, Segura orders Wormold deported with his daughter and Severn. Back in England, he has to face the music, having already provided a confession regarding his fictitious contacts and drawings. Fortunately, seeing the need to save face, British Intelligence decides to decorate him and provide him with a pension. He and Severn and Milly leave together. Happy ending.

Guinness plays Wormold with the low-key demeanor of a weary Obi-Wan on a remote desert planet. He sets the tone and the film is droll rather than hilarious. My main complaint was not enough Maureen O'Hara. Her part seemed smaller than it should've been and the romance between Wormold and Severn didn't get much play at all. The characters were fun and the satire was subdued. It's an amusing experience, but fails to fully satisfy. I would give it four out of five vacuum cleaners--something with which I'm familiar, having spent one summer selling them.

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Don't forget the flash fiction contest going for my newsletter subscribers. Go get signed up. Here are the contest terms:  

Flash Fiction Contest: Submit a story of 500 words or less. The story must include a pool table OR a piece of farm machinery. Submit your story in the body of your email, or you may attach it as a .docx or pdf. The winner will be awarded his/her choice of one of my autographed paperbacks (delivery in continental U.S. only). I retain no rights to any stories presented. If the winner and runner(s) up consent, I'll post their stories on my webpage. Fair warning: Don't exceed a PG-13 rating. Let's make March 20 the deadline to submit your story.

 

 

 

First, I've got a flash fiction contest going for my newsletter subscribers. Go get signed up. Here are the contest terms:  

Flash Fiction Contest: Submit a story of 500 words or less. The story must include a pool table OR a piece of farm machinery. Submit your story in the body of your email, or you may attach it as a .docx or pdf. The winner will be awarded his/her choice of one of my autographed paperbacks (delivery in continental U.S. only). I retain no rights to any stories presented. If the winner and runner(s) up consent, I'll post their stories on my webpage. Fair warning: Don't exceed a PG-13 rating. Let's make March 20 the deadline to submit your story.

You can subscribe to the newsletter now, and submit your story with your reply to the March 1 newsletter.

Fun Fact:

Let's take a break from the French and Indian War to take a peek at the Revolutionary War. In July 1776, the British sent a huge fleet and more than 34,000 troops to New York. In August, the redcoats, led by General Howe, outmaneuvered the Americans to drive Washington's army on Long Island back to the East River. Washington was trapped. It seemed inevitable that the largest contingent of the army was doomed to be crushed and captured between the forces of General Howe on land and his brother Admiral "Black" Dick Howe on the water; the revolution would be throttled on the banks of the East River.

Fortunately, the hammer hesitated, and the anvil couldn't get into position. General Howe elected not to press the assault against Washington's defenses, fearing a repetition of the horrendous British casualties at Bunker Hill. Admiral Howe was stopped from sailing up the East River by a lack of favorable wind. 

Washington saw his opportunity for salvation and called for the 14th Regiment, the Marblehead men, under Colonel John Glover. These were men who knew how to could handle boats. The swaggering Glover, who wore pistols and a broadsword in his belt, called for all the craft that could be found, and sent a false message, to throw off British intelligence, that the boats were to bring reinforcements down from New Jersey.

Under cover of rain and darkness, the boats gathered, and Washington's men began slipping away from Long Island across the river. Unfortunately, dawn was approaching, and many of the weakened rear guard would be left vulnerable when the British discovered the escape still in progress. 

When the sun rose, it was as Washington had feared. The rear guard was trapped. However, before the British discovered the paltry force, a heavy fog arose to obscure the true circumstances from the enemy's eyes, and the evacuation continued behind the providential veil.  The fog lifted and the redcoats advanced to test the defenses only to find the American breastworks deserted as elements of the massive British fleet sailed up the river too late too block the path to refuge.

These events form a substantial part of Crisis in Fire and Snow, Book 6 in the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire Series. Of course, the battle goes somewhat differently in the book, and the evacuation requires aid from Alex and Lucette's special abilities.

 

Ground Zero at the Imbroglio

 

The gif above fails to convey the magnitude of the epic catastrophe that is the inspiration for the drivel below. Behold the tale of ravage and ruin, desolation and disruption. Look upon these works, ye mighty, and despair:

The old theater had hosted many a play. High drama and low comedy had pranced upon the well-worn boards. Tempers had often flared, on stage and off, and laughter had rattled through the rafters. Over the years the veteran hall had seen it all--or so we thought. It could not know--being a thing of wood and stone--and neither could we, the sentient beings and players upon her stage--that all the guns of World War I would soon commence to bray. 

It began with the lull that precedes the fray--the silence before the thunder. One walked away, sad and discontented, leaving the rest to wonder. A galaxy of wrath ensconced in feeble clay returned, fury and the human form full-blended.

The opening barrage of the pitiless attack made peace of mind draw back. Invective darkened the stage-light-sky and vituperation augmented the force of the dreadful operation. Sweet serenity fled at the blast, and the salvo obliterated the ground beneath her, leaving but the faint fragrance of her distant memory.

Players scrambled for the mental trenches as the cannonade continued. Revilement and castigation hammered with archangel blows. The boards heaved and splintered, devastated by the barrage. A sudden pause--an eclipse of the artillery--allowed brief exclamations of amazement, but the guns did merely reposition.

The bombardment renewed with increased vigor combined with spearing expletives. Angry words roared in the continuous shelling to detonate in shards of indignation, slashing bursts of emotional shrapnel exploding above the set. Trenches collapsed, and traumatized thespians staggered, reeling to and fro in their intellectual refuges. 

At length--some seven years by stage time--the cannons melted into molten pools, and the melange of fury and flesh laid the lash to the chariot's chargers to depart the scene of devastation. The players wandered through wreckage to evaluate the extent of the havoc and to gauge the degree of their personal ruin.

Theatrical mayhem and booming broadsides notwithstanding, the show must go on.

Mind Blown at Niagara

 Fun Fact:

After arriving with several regiments in Boston in September 1758, Major General Amherst marched to Abercromby's camp at Fort Edward to find the force there in no condition to mount a winter strike against Ticonderoga. The Major General heard New York, New York calling his name, and retired to that city for the winter. There's no report on what Broadway shows were playing.

In March 1759, Amherst dispatched Robert Rogers with 90 rangers, 200 regulars, and 50 Mohawk allies to reconnoiter the defenses of Ticonderoga. The garrison Forbes left at Fort Pitt had retained the fort, but the supply line was subject to attack from enemy regulars, militia, and their Indian allies. Commandant Lignery had retreated from Duquesne a hundred miles away to Venango to gather forces for a planned lightning attack down the Allegheny to retake Fort Pitt. 

To take pressure off Fort Pitt, Amherst dispatched a force to attack Fort Niagara under newly appointed General John Prideaux. He took 3000 regulars, a battalion of Royal Americans, and a company of Royal Artillery up the Mohawk to rendezvous with 1,000 Iroquois warriors at the ruins of Oswego on June 27, 1759. Prideaux left part of his force to rebuild that fort and advanced with 2,000 troops and 1,000 warriors in bateaux to land three miles east of Fort Niagara.  

The formidable defenses at Fort Niagara suffered from a lack of troops to man them, many having been sent to Lignery for his attack on Fort Pitt, and the fact that the undefended promontory on the opposite side of the river offered an excellent position for artillery to bombard the fort. Prideaux proceeded to mount artillery on the promontory on July 7. 

Commandant Pouchot in command of Fort Niagara sent to Lignery for aid while Prideaux's men advanced siege trenches against the fort. The 50 Senecas at Niagara lost interest in defending and left--only to attack the outposts where Pouchot had sent his cattle to keep them from British hands; adding salt to the wound, the Seneca butchered the cattle and took the meat to the English camp. Additionally, the Iroquois with Prideaux were in communication with the Indian allies in Lignery's relief force, with each native force promising to sit out the contest if the other would. 

July 20, after helping remove the body of Colonel Johnstone, who was killed by a French sniper, Prideaux watched a newly placed howitzer fire on the French fort. The howitzer exploded, blowing Prideaux's mind as a shard from the barrel removed part of his skull. With the grim reaper now managing Prideaux's retirement plan, Colonel Sir William Johnson and Lt. Colonel Eyre Massey contended for command. Johnson was a provincial; Massey claimed that he outranked him as a regular officer. News of the appearance of the French relief force provoked a compromise. Massey led the attack against Lignery while Johnson managed the siege.

Despite Pouchot's instructions to approach on the west side of the portage and attack the promontory from which the British artillery shelled the fort, Lignery came down the east side on July 24. As the French advanced along the narrow road, Massey's men waited. The Indians with Lignery turned back to depart in their canoes, leaving the French on their own. The French advanced, firing as they went. The British waited behind an abatis blocking the road. 

Lignery had led his men into an ambush. When they approached within 30 yards, Massey sprung the trap, opening fire from both flanks. The fire devastated the French. When the British finally mounted a bayonet charge and the French fled, the Iroquois joined the slaughter. Only a hundred French survived to be taken prisoner. 

Pouchot surrendered the next day to Johnson. Pouchot and his men were sent to Albany as prisoners.

The above was taken from my notes from Chapter 12 of The French and Indian War by Walter R. Borneman.

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I finished a short story on Saturday immediately before the crew sharing my last name arrived. I say "finished," but that's the first draft. I'll run over it a time or two and then see if my skirmish team would like to give me some feedback on the space cowboy story -- which remains sans titre for the moment. I wrote a good hunk of the story during the evenings in the hotel room after the professional conference I attended during the days for most of last week. It went better than I had expected as I sat in the chair beside the bed with the laptop on my knees, tapping out the story that didn't quite go in the direction I had anticipated, but which drew me along as it grew. I hope to submit it before the end of the month.