It's 2013 and nothing has changed in communist Cuba. This story, set in the early 1960s, tells of an American woman (Wynter) arriving in that beleaguered country to get her husband out of jail, where he sits on trumped-up charges of being a spy. In fact, as she soon finds out, he has hidden a million dollars in the aftermath of the 1958 revolution, and the Castro regime wants that money badly. The wife enlists the aid of a brash journalist (Forrest) to help her free her husband and steal the money, only to find she has put all of their lives in danger. The Cuban officials are shown to be the corrupt weasels that we have long suspected, and unfortunately such people are still in power today under another Castro. Forrest plays his usual breezy he-man and Dana Wynter looks amazingly beautiful, given the old lady clothes, hairdo and makeup of the period. Victor Jory has a pivotal part as a boozy artist harboring a very big secret.
3 Reviews
Our leader is here there and every were
sol-kay20 January 2012
***SPOILERS*** Traveling to Communist Cuba Anne Palmer, Dana Wynter,is determined to get her husband Scott back home with her to the USA if that's the last thing she does. Scott or Scotty as Anne calls him is behind bars in a Havana prison charged with espionage for the US. A charge that Anne feels s totally false and is there now to prove his innocence. The truth of Scott's incarceration is far more complicated then anyone including Anne could have imagined. It's then where Amercan tourist and reporter with a Cuban visa Mike Taggaet, Steve Forrest, pops up. Taggart knows the real reason why Scott is being held captive by the Castro regime and want's not only to get him freed but get his hands on the $1,000,000,00 dollars in US currency he had stashed away before the "Bearded One's", Fidel Castro, men took over the country.
Under orders from their leader Fidel Castro it's up to both Col. Valsaquez, Val Avery, and Havana police Captain Santos, Frank Silvera, to find out from Anne about what her husband did with what turned out to be stolen Mafia money.As for Anne she has no idea in what the two are talking about since Scott kept her in the dark on what he was doing in Cuba. He told her he only went there, before Castro's men took over, to see the sights and buy himself a box of Cuban cigars. It's later when it's reported to Anne by Capt.Santos that Scott died in prison of a sudden and unexpected heart attack that she begins to realizes,together with Mike Taggert,that the whole story of Scott being a spy for the CIA is all bunk. It's the money that he had hidden is what the Cuban Government is after and she as well as Taggert, who had by then hooked up with Anne, will never leave the island alive until it gets it's hands on it.
***SPOILERS*** It doesn't take that long for both Anne and Taggert to find the money in a number of clues that Scott left for her before he was arrested by the Cuban Secret Police. But the difficulty of getting out of the Communist Peoples Republic is a bit more of a challenge. It's then that American artist and helpless alcoholic Conrad Easter, Victor Jory, steps into the frame. Just putting on an act that he's a helpless drunken sot Easter is really a leader of the counter-revolution against Castro's Government. And it's that one million dollars that Anne and Taggert have that will buy Easter's men lots of arms and ammunition to overthrow the Castro Regime! That's if both Anne & Taggert,in Conrad offering them his boat to escape the island in exchange, will hand the money over to them!
P.S what the film brings out is not just how brutal and totalitarian the Castro Regime is but just how corruptible those running it are. Who without their help both Anne & Taggart would have been lucky to end up in front of a Cuban firing squad instead of spending the rest of their lives working on a Cuban sugar plantation or Gulag. And worst of all being forced to listen on the radio to Chairman Castro's boring and endless speeches, sometimes lasting as much as eight hours, that's a fate even worst then death itself!
Under orders from their leader Fidel Castro it's up to both Col. Valsaquez, Val Avery, and Havana police Captain Santos, Frank Silvera, to find out from Anne about what her husband did with what turned out to be stolen Mafia money.As for Anne she has no idea in what the two are talking about since Scott kept her in the dark on what he was doing in Cuba. He told her he only went there, before Castro's men took over, to see the sights and buy himself a box of Cuban cigars. It's later when it's reported to Anne by Capt.Santos that Scott died in prison of a sudden and unexpected heart attack that she begins to realizes,together with Mike Taggert,that the whole story of Scott being a spy for the CIA is all bunk. It's the money that he had hidden is what the Cuban Government is after and she as well as Taggert, who had by then hooked up with Anne, will never leave the island alive until it gets it's hands on it.
***SPOILERS*** It doesn't take that long for both Anne and Taggert to find the money in a number of clues that Scott left for her before he was arrested by the Cuban Secret Police. But the difficulty of getting out of the Communist Peoples Republic is a bit more of a challenge. It's then that American artist and helpless alcoholic Conrad Easter, Victor Jory, steps into the frame. Just putting on an act that he's a helpless drunken sot Easter is really a leader of the counter-revolution against Castro's Government. And it's that one million dollars that Anne and Taggert have that will buy Easter's men lots of arms and ammunition to overthrow the Castro Regime! That's if both Anne & Taggert,in Conrad offering them his boat to escape the island in exchange, will hand the money over to them!
P.S what the film brings out is not just how brutal and totalitarian the Castro Regime is but just how corruptible those running it are. Who without their help both Anne & Taggart would have been lucky to end up in front of a Cuban firing squad instead of spending the rest of their lives working on a Cuban sugar plantation or Gulag. And worst of all being forced to listen on the radio to Chairman Castro's boring and endless speeches, sometimes lasting as much as eight hours, that's a fate even worst then death itself!
Who do you root for--the Castro government, the Mafia or a wife who doesn't really love her husband?!
planktonrules15 October 2015
Dana Wynter plays Anne Palmer, a woman whose husband is being held by the Castro regime in Cuba. She's just arrived in the country when she meets an American adventurer, Mike (Steve Forrest). He offers to help her any way he can--but how could he? As for this help, the offer might be useless, as by the time she's arrived, she's been told that her husband has disappeared from police custody. But where is he? And what is it she's hearing about $1,000,000 in mob money--the REAL reason her husband was in Cuba 'on business'?! And, the real reason Mr. Palmer is in the country.
This is a hard sell because EVERYONE in the show is scum. Do you root for Castro's revolutionary government? Do you root for the Mafia? Or do you root for an estranged wife who appears to have her own selfish agenda?! This takes away from the show because the viewer just doesn't feel engaged with the story or care about them. Apart from this big problem, it's a mildly interesting story with occasionally bad dialog but not much more.
This is a hard sell because EVERYONE in the show is scum. Do you root for Castro's revolutionary government? Do you root for the Mafia? Or do you root for an estranged wife who appears to have her own selfish agenda?! This takes away from the show because the viewer just doesn't feel engaged with the story or care about them. Apart from this big problem, it's a mildly interesting story with occasionally bad dialog but not much more.
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