Havana

Havana (1990)

A gambler who trusted no one. A woman who risked everything. And a passion that brought them together in the most dangerous city in the world.

During the revolution, a high-stakes gambler arrives in Cuba seeking to win big in poker games. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with the wife of a Communist revolutionary.

Date of release
1990-12-11
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (169)
Runtime
2h 24m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Sydney Pollack

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Havana is a 1990 American drama film starring Robert Redford, Lena Olin, and Alan Arkin, directed by Sydney Pollack with music by Dave Grusin. The film's plot concerns Jack Weil (Redford), an American professional gambler who decides to visit Havana, Cuba in 1958 on the eve of the Cuban Revolution.

Production

Filming began on November 22, 1989, and was completed on April 28, 1990. Sydney Pollack hoped to film in Havana. However, U.S. law would not allow 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.

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 on replicated casino floors, hotel rooms, and cafes. The Prado was reconstructed at a former airbase in the Dominican Republic. To replicate it, a team of about 300 tradesmen was assembled, and over 80 neon signs were made in the U.S.

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.

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

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended