Cuba

I was impressed with the film Cuba despite the usual avuncular performance of Connery as a soldier of fortune hired by the Batista government to advise on combating the march of Castro. The film captured he atmosphere of a country where almost all the people apart from those wedded to the corrupt and criminal regime supported the revolution and where those participating in this haven for the mafia were progressing their exit plans. The complication for Connery which the film more that a historical reconstruction is that he finds the love of his life had married the son of the leading cigar and rum manufacturer who was something of playboy tending to bed whoever appeared willing in the enterprises he controlled separately from his father who had quickly come to appreciate that it was his daughter in law with commercial good sense. There are good laughs bordering on farce which retain credibility. Denholm Elliot plays another “aviator” of fortune who tries to leave the Island with a plane crammed with Havana cigars.

Connery finds that he ahs not role to play other than to watch Castro take over and his employers free and it is the former love that decides it is time to junk her husband and reattached herself to Connery but only as an encore deciding her place is to stay in her homeland and work for the people through the revolution. Connery leaves a wiser man.