Cuba (film)
| Cuba | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Richard Lester |
| Produced by |
Arlene Sellers Alex Winitsky |
| Written by | Charles Wood |
| Starring |
Sean Connery Brooke Adams Jack Weston Hector Elizondo Denholm Elliott Martin Balsam Chris Sarandon Alejandro Rey Lonette McKee |
| Music by | Patrick Williams |
| Cinematography | David Watkin |
| Edited by | John Victor-Smith |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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122 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Cuba is a 1979 film directed by Richard Lester and starring Sean Connery, portraying the build-up to the 1958 Cuban Revolution.
Connery is a British mercenary who travels to Cuba, which is on the brink of revolution with the authority of dictator Fulgencio Batista steadily collapsing. Connery encounters a former lover there (Brooke Adams), who is neglected by her Cuban husband (Chris Sarandon). The film ends with Havana falling to Fidel Castro's revolutionaries as most of Connery's employers flee the island aboard one of the last flights out.
The same historical events were featured five years earlier in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II and would be covered again by Sidney Pollack in his 1990 film Havana, starring Robert Redford. Lester's film was perhaps the most stylish of the three, aided by its stirring Spanish locations, "with a marvelous sense of atmosphere."
The film's sense of historical accuracy is marred by the opening scene which shows an airliner landing in Havana with the wrong date ("1959") superimposed on the screen. It should read "1958", the last year of the revolution. Cuban President Batista fled the capital on New Year's Day 1959, one week before Fidel Castro and his guerrillas entered Havana.
Former British Major Robert Dapes (Sean Connery) arrives in Cuba under General Bello's (Martin Balsam) orders to train the Cuban army to resist Fidel Castro's revolt. Before he even begins his task, he encounters an old flame, Alexandra Lopez de Pulido (Brooke Adams), whom he repeatedly pursues. The plot winds around the tremendous wealth of the Cuban leaders, the mainly American tourists with their seemingly endless money, the poverty-stricken and ex-urban slums where many Cubans live, and the rum and cigar factory owned by Alexandra's selfish husband Juan Pulido (Chris Sarandon) and managed by Alexandra.
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Wikipedia