Week-End in Havana (1941)

Alice Faye is on a vacation to Havana by cruise ship that she saved up for and had eager expectations for a good time, when the ship encountered problems. Everyone else on board signed a waiver saying this wasn't an inconvenience and that they could get on another cruise ship! But Alice Faye had to be back to work in a short time and could not take a vacation any other time, despite all the courteous cooperativeness of John Payne, the agent of the company. He finally offers her the Havana vacation and her expenses to be paid by the company. The catch is she won't sign the waiver (to not sue) until after she had the good time promised. John Payne is ordered to be at her side at all times, despite the fact he is engaged to be married and the wedding will have to be postponed due to Alice's vacation. What movie musical problems! Enter Cesar Romero, who thinks she's rich! John does not like him, but Alice keeps thinking, where's this good time you've been promising me? She's taking it with Cesar. Then, there's Carmen Miranda who likes Cesar, or does she? He was her manager, but he kept borrowing her money for gambling. With Ms. Miranda's colorful musical numbers, this to-do over Alice's good time and complications to boot, this makes for an upbeat and fun film for a weekend in Havana!

Splashy TCF musical with an imaginative plot, but also with an unfortunate lineup of undistinguished musical numbers. Payne's supposed to keep Faye happy on her Havanna vacation so she won't sue his cruise ship line. That might be okay if Payne didn't have an impatient fiancée, Wright Jr., waiting back home. Worse, Faye wants romance and thinks she's found it with handsome gold-digger Romero. But what happens when the greedy Romero doesn't pan out. Payne's got a big juggling act to do. And through it all, Miranda rhumbas her way, sporting a permanent smile and a half dozen top-heavy hats. The mystery is how she gets them to stay on.Faye's her usual winning self, while Payne gets to go Tarzan-like shirtless. But together they do make a compelling couple, as a dozen of these TCF musicals show. Meanwhile, Romero and Wright get to model some impressive high fashion, as compensation, I guess. Fortunately, director Lang keeps the circus running smoothly, but don't let all that splashy Technicolor overwhelm you. Nothing special here, just a truckload of eye-catching Hollywood escapism.

I know this is going to offend a lot of fans, but "Weekend in Havana" does not come anywhere near "Down Argentine Way" or "That Night in Rio" both of which were made around the same time. Certainly, Carmen Miranda (the main attraction of the movie) has more to do in this, bus the talent of Alice Faye is wasted, and I felt it needed someone like Charlotte Greenwood to really lift the tempo and interest. No need to recap the story as it is one that has been done before many times, but I do give full marks for the Technicolor which was absolutely brilliant (in more ways than one!). John Payne and Caesar Romero were adequate, and it was good fortune to have some of the standard actors in Leonid Kinsky, Billy Gilbert and Sheldon Leonard to help move it along.

Despite the super-lovely Alice Faye's top billing, exotic Carmen Miranda manages to steal the show. She not only has the pick of the songs, the liveliest dances and the most colorful costumes, but shares the movie's funniest moments with Cesar Romero. Mind you, Alice is most attractively photographed, does wear some beautiful clothes, and does get to sing the haunting "Tropical Magic", one of Harry Warren's loveliest tunes. (Harry, incidentally, hated the picture. He loved Alice, but was somewhat ambivalent about Carmen Miranda and John Payne with "his limited and rather ordinary singing voice." Harry also complained that Fox treated him badly, forcing him to work night and day for four weeks because Carmen had scheduled the movie between other engagements. "I turned out a lot of music, some of which was dropped from the picture. I fell ill and was hospitalized for three months with pneumonia. When I returned to the studio, I found I'd been taken off salary for the whole time, whereas Mack Gordon had been kept on. Waving my walking stick, I stormed into Zanuck's office but his yes-men wouldn't let me see him. Maybe Zanuck knew nothing about it, but his lieutenants did. They were horrible people." In Fox's defense, it should be pointed out that Mack Gordon did write lyrics for "Romance and Rhumba" during Harry Warren's absence).To my surprise, John Payne's role is more of a character part than that of a romantic lead. It's the lively, personable Cesar Romero who not only shares most of the comedy with both Alice and Carmen, has some delightful run-ins with the heavy (Sheldon Leonard), but supplies romance as well.The comedy is also helped out by George Barbier as the peppery president and Billy Gilbert as a self-important innkeeper. In the scenes with both these expert comics, Payne plays the fall-guy. And he makes an amusing job of it too.Walter Lang has directed with his customary expertise and no-one will feel short-changed by the lavish Miranda dance numbers choreographed by Hermes Pan.