Havana (film)

Plot

The film is set on the eve of the Cuban Revolution's victory. On Christmas Eve, 1958, aboard the boat from Miami to Havana, Roberta Duran (Lena Olin) enlists the aid of Jack Weil (Robert Redford) in smuggling U.S. Army Signal Corps radios destined for the revolutionaries in the hills. Weil agrees only because he is romantically interested in her. When they rendezvous for the "payoff," Roberta reveals that she is married, dashing Weil's hopes. In Havana, Weil meets up with a Cuban journalist acquaintance (Tony Plana) and during a night on the town, they run into Roberta and her husband, Dr. Arturo Duran. Duran (Raúl Juliá) is a Revolutionary leader. When Roberta points Weil out to him, Duran invites Weil to join them for dinner and asks Weil for further aid to the cause. Weil turns him down, even after Duran outlines the desperate situation confronting the Cuban majority.

The next morning, after a night of debauchery for Weil but one of police arrests for the revolutionaries, Weil reads a newspaper account of Duran's arrest and death. In shock, he continues with the planned poker game, coincidentally meeting the head of the secret police. He learns that Roberta was also arrested and tortured in custody. He pressures another player in debt to him to obtain her release. Shaken by her husband's death and her own experience in jail, she agrees to let him shelter her in his apartment but disappears that afternoon.

Realizing that he is in love with Roberta and encouraged by an old gambling friend, Weil drives into Cuba's interior to find her at Duran's old estate. He persuades her to return with him to Havana and to leave Cuba with him. When she asks, he explains that a lump on his arm contains a diamond that he had sewn into his arm in his youth as insurance. He makes arrangements for her to leave Cuba via boat, but on his return to the apartment, he is assaulted by two Cubans, who inform him that Arturo demands for him to get Roberta out of the country. Weil has an acquaintance from CIA, Marion Chigwell (Daniel Davis), confirms that Arturo is still alive. He intimidates Chigwell to work with him toward freeing Duran.

Pretending to work for the CIA, Weil goes to see Duran, who is held by the chief of the secret police (SIM). He tells the chief that Washington, DC, has new plans for Duran and wants him released, with a payoff of $50,000. He "orders" the chief to have Duran cleaned up and dressed (Duran had been tortured and was in extremely bad shape) and taken to his house. Weil goes to a doctor and then a jeweler to sell the diamond to raise the cash for Duran's release. Back at his apartment, he informs Roberta, who had decided to make a life with him, of her husband being still alive. In shock, she leaves on her own to find her husband. Meanwhile, Weil had blown the big game with high rollers, for whom he had been angling since the day he arrived in Havana. The casino's manager, Joe Volpi (Alan Arkin), forgives him, knowing he had made rescuing Roberta his priority.

At New Year's Eve, 1959, the insurrection is won by the revolutionaries. The upper class, the government and the secret police all leave their lavish parties to make a mad dash to the ports and airport to leave the country. The people pour into the streets, celebrating the victory by trashing the casinos and dancing. Weil and Volpi agree that it is time for them to leave. The next morning, Weil is in a restaurant preparing to depart. He sees Chigwell who informs him that he is working on a new book now, "The Cuisine of Indochina." Not long after, Roberta shows up to wish him farewell. She sees the bandage on his arm and discovers it had cost him to save her husband for her. They hug goodbye. She remains with the Revolution, and he has been changed by it.

Four years later in 1963, Jack drives down to the Florida Keys and gazes across the sea toward Havana, hoping to see a boat that might bring Roberta on board. He knows the ferry is no longer running. However, he does this every year in the hopes he may someday see Roberta again. He also realizes that the changes in Cuba were being echoed in the changes of the 1960s happening in the United States. It is a new decade.

Cast

Production

Filming began on November 22, 1989 and completed on April 28, 1990. Sydney Pollack hoped to film in Havana. However, U.S. law would not allow the producers to spend any U.S. dollars in Cuba, U.S. citizens could not legally enter Cuba, and relations between the U.S. and Cuba in 1989 were not conducive to filming an American motion picture in Havana. Thus, it was decided to make the entire film in the Dominican Republic. The vegetation was the same, and Santo Domingo offered certain architectural similarities, though not a wide boulevard like Havana's famous Prado (Paseo de Marti). The end scene was filmed in Key West, Florida.

Tomás Milián, who played the Batista's head of secret police, had lived in Cuba during the 1950s, and commented that the film recreated Havana during the Batista regime's last days in great detail. Many of the extras were exiled Cubans who had moved to the Dominican Republic. According to Sydney Pollack, "The atmosphere became quite emotional... They remembered the old days in Havana. Our set took them back 30 years."

The film's main set, informally called "The Big Set", was a quarter-mile long (400 m) street surrounded by façades representing casinos, restaurants and hotels. Interior scenes were shot in replicated casino floors, room suites and cafes. The Prado was reconstructed at a former air base in the Dominican Republic. To replicate it, a team of about 300 tradesmen was used, and over 80 neon signs needed to be made in the U.S. and shipped to the Dominican Republic. The set took 20 weeks to construct. Costume designer Bernie Pollock had to outfit 2,000 extras with costumes, and needed 8000–10,000 costumes for frequent changes during different scenes of the film. Besides 1950s period clothing, there were large numbers of hats, accessories, jewellery, gloves, along with 1950s Cuban military uniforms. The wardrobe items were brought in from both Los Angeles and England. About one hundred 1950s vintage American automobiles, buses and trucks appear in the film.

The version of "Rum and Coca-Cola" by The Andrews Sisters is a re-recorded version from 1961 from their DOT Records album Greatest Hits, which was recorded two years after the film's setting.

Raúl Juliá chose to remain uncredited because the film's producers would not give him above-the-title credit alongside Robert Redford and Lena Olin.

Reception

The reviews were generally negative. The film has a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 25 reviews. On a budget of $40 million, Havana made only $9 million in the United States, making it a box office bomb.

The musical score received Golden Globe, Oscar, and Grammy nominations. It was one of Dave Grusin's most acclaimed scores.