His Men in Havana

Officials of the Cuban Interior Ministry were hurt that British moviemakers thought it necessary to ask permission to film Our Man in Havana in Cuba's capital. "Giving written permission," the ministry ruled, "would look like the Batista days, when everybody needed permission for everything." Reassured, Kingsmead Productions flew in Alec Guinness, Noel Coward, Burl Ives and Maureen O'Hara, plus camera crews and equipment. Graham Greene, who wrote both the script and the novel--about a feckless vacuum-cleaner salesman (Guinness) who takes on a part-time job as a British agent in Batista's Cuba (TIME, Oct. 27)--came along to watch. Director Carol (The Key) Reed, major stockholder in Kingsmead, arranged for tea to be served twice daily on the set, and started shooting.

An Atmosphere of Fight. Then Interior Minister Luis Orlando Rodriguez got word that the picture took a rather flippant view of the Cuban revolution. He seized a copy of the script, had it translated into Spanish, studied all 30,000 words. The government called in the film makers and suggested some changes. "They wanted us to put in more of the atmosphere of the fight against Batista," shrugged Novelist Greene. "So we added a few sirens and Black Marias. But this is a comedy, and we could only go so far."

Shooting was resumed before a fascinated throng at the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club. Film Board Secretary Clara Martinez, wearing a red and black rebel badge, stalked about the set to see that the company stuck to the edited script. Sample killed line: a Guinness reference to a Batista police captain as "not really such a bad type, after all."

The Cubans wanted to cut a scene that showed Coward (as the British agent who hires Guinness in the men's room of Sloppy Joe's Bar) striding along a Havana street with bowler and umbrella, pursued by a ragged band of street musicians. "We thought the scene charming," said Reed, "and they finally let us keep it."

A Profusion of Beards. Cuban extras were booed and hissed when they donned the disgraced, powder blue uniforms worn by Batista police. Convincing pre-Castro crowd scenes were almost impossible to shoot because of the profusion of beards. Bushy-bearded Cuban resident Ernest Hemingway, who came to kibitz, stayed out of camera range.

Script changes totaled 39, "due, as it were, to censorship," said Greene. The government bureaucrats hoped that there had been no "misunderstanding," and explained to Director Reed that "our revolution repudiates all censorship." Indeed, it thought the changes may help the picture, because "the book is a little weak."

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