Starring Alice Faye, John Payne, Carmen Miranda, and Caesar Romero
Directed by Walter Lang
Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Mack Gordon
I return from vacation with a week of later musicals featuring three of the most beloved leading ladies at 20th Century Fox from the 30's through the 60's. Faye was still very popular at this point, but Fox already had a new leading lady waiting in the wings. Betty Grable could not only sing, but dance, too, and she had legs to spare. Faye's interests were increasingly with her family, but she did manage to make this tropical confection before taking time off. How does the story of a sales girl looking for love in Cuba look today? Let's begin with the owner of McCracken Cruises Walter McCracken (George Barbier) as he learns one of his ships has run aground and find out...
The Story: McCracken sends his vice president Jay Williams (Payne) to the grounded vessel in order to circumvent legal action. He's able to get every passenger to sign a waiver for passage on a later voyage but Nan Spencer (Faye). Nan is a shop girl who has saved for her vacation for years and can't get another two weeks off. Jay offers for the company to give her an all-expenses-paid trip in Cuba. Nan says she'll sign the waiver if she has a good time.
Nan's idea of having a good time is finding romance. Jay tells gambler Monte Blanca (Romero) he'll pay off his debts if he courts Nan. Monte's girlfriend Rosita Rivas (Miranda) is jealous, even after Jay agrees to manage her while Monte is busy. And then there's Jay's fiancee Terry (Cobina Wright), who has come to Havana to check on her fiancee, and finds him in love with another...
The Song and Dance: Faye does a lot better in this outing than as Don Ameche's wife in That Night In Rio earlier in the year. Her shop girl is determined, feisty, and almost as fierce as Miranda. Payne does better in the first half as the stiff vice president who is just doing his duty than when he defrosts later in the film. There's also the gorgeous Technicolor production and stunning frilly or floral costumes for Miranda and the performers at the nightclub, stunning gowns for Faye, and huge sets representing Cuba between the wars.
Favorite Number: Our first song is the title number on the delights of Havana, performed in the opening by a lively Miranda, a background band, and a multitude of chorus dancers in tropical orange and yellow costumes. Miranda also gets the authentic Cuban "Rebola a Bola" and "When I Love, I Love," which pretty much sums up her character in most of her movies. Miranda's unnamed band initially performs "Tropical Magic" in Spanish. Faye picks it up in English. Faye later sings it with Payne on a hay wagon back to Havana. Romero and Faye sing about "Romance and Rhumba" on the dance floor at the nightclub, and even do a little dancing themselves. Miranda finishes things with another tropical chorus number, "The Nango." Even Faye and Payne join in here.
Trivia: Faye was pregnant during the making of this film.
What I Don't Like: The story is just as slight as other 20th Century Fox musicals of the 30's and 40's. Payne was never that comfortable in musicals, despite his good singing voice, and he does better as the stuffy vice president than he does later in the film, when he's supposed to be defrosting. Nifty as those sets are, they don't look much like the real Cuba to me. The only actual Hispanic to be seen is Miranda.
The Big Finale: Charming tropical time-waster if you love the 20th Century Fox musicals of the 40's and 50's.
Home Media: DVD only from the 20th Century Fox Marquee Musicals series.
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