Fri 23 Jun 2023
An Archived Movie Review: CLUB HAVANA (1946).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[8] Comments
CLUB HAVANA. PRC, 1946. Tom Neal, Margaret Lindsay, Isabelita (Lita Baron), Marc Lawrence, Ernest Truex. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Currently available on YouTube (see below).
A typical night at a Latin-American night club, with lots of intertwined stories: young love, a broken heart or two, attempted suicide – and a piano player who can break a gambler’s alibi for the slaying of a showgirl, and calls the police.
The budget was skimpy. No expensive location shots here. All the action takes place in the night club or just outside the front door. I could have done without the floor show; it’s the characters that make the story, brought to a smashup conclusion.
– Reprinted from Movie.File.2, June 1980.
June 23rd, 2023 at 5:06 pm
Walter Albert also reviewed the film on this blog, some 12 years ago or more now. Here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=6262
June 23rd, 2023 at 7:07 pm
Attached to Walter Albert’s review is an analysis picture by picture of Edgar Ulmer. This includes the three films Louis Hayward and Edgar made together, The Strange Woman, Ruthless, and my personal favorite, The Pirates of Capri, but there is one more, a thirty-minute televison pilot for a Saturday morning series, Swiss Family Robinson, directed by Edgar, and unbilled, financed and produced by Louis. The intention was the film thirteen shows and sell them to CBS for a Saturday morning slot. Only the pilot exists.
June 23rd, 2023 at 9:37 pm
SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON comes in as #5 in the video list of Ulmer’s best films, whether movies or TV. CLUB HAVANA is #15. (Wait for the second round of the list.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTeh6V9oGzY
June 23rd, 2023 at 10:29 pm
Ulmer, as he often did, making the most out of next to nothing.
Always interesting to see Marc Lawrence, whose career ran much longer than most and ran the gamut from THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS to James Bond.
June 24th, 2023 at 7:45 am
Here’s my review of this one:
https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2009/12/movies-ive-missed-until-now-club-havana.html
June 24th, 2023 at 12:01 pm
You just can’t keep a good movie down, no matter its budget restrictions.
June 24th, 2023 at 1:06 pm
Just an aside to Reasoner’s review. Ulmer was a director working for the cheapest studio in town at $250.00 a week. He did get somewhat out of that rut with The Strange Woman although he received the same pay, and a few of his other later films, but not all. I knew him, he was very bright, but he was not walking around telling actors what to do, just where to move. If I had to use a single word for character description, it would be wild. In any case, he was not Welles, or Ford, or Wiliam Wyler.
October 5th, 2023 at 8:56 am
If I had to sum up a character in one word, it would be “wild.” In any event, he wasn’t William Wyler, Welles, or Ford.