Our Man in Havana

Our Man in Havana (1960) is Carol Reed's spy satire, well worth a watch online on iFILM. Pre-revolutionary Havana under Batista, all heat and neon. Wormold, a mild Englishman, sells vacuum cleaners and barely makes rent — until a recruiter from British intelligence slides into his seat at the bar.

The pay is for a network of agents Wormold doesn't have. So he invents one: he sketches "secret" military installations off vacuum-cleaner diagrams, files reports, conjures informants out of thin air. London is delighted, wires money and sends backup. The trouble is that the enemy takes the fiction seriously too — and the made-up agents start dying for real. Alec Guinness plays it with a perfectly straight face, alongside Maureen O'Hara, Noël Coward, Ernie Kovacs and Ralph Richardson.

Graham Greene adapted the screenplay from his own novel, with Reed behind the camera — the same pairing that made The Third Man. They shot in the streets of Havana not long after Castro took power, and a cold Cold-War chill runs under all the comedy. Stream Our Man in Havana (1960) online on iFILM.