Week-End in Havana ***½ (1941, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, John Payne, Cesar Romero) – Classic Movie Review 9,933

20th Century Fox’s 1941 film Week-End in Havana is a highly engaging Forties wartime musical, with Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda on top singing form. It is 81 minutes of Technicolor escapist bliss.

Director Walter Lang’s 1941 film Week-End in Havana is a typical, engaging 20th Century Fox Forties wartime musical, with Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda on top singing form. It is 81 minutes of Technicolor escapist bliss, just a tiny notch down from the dizzy heights of Down Argentine Way and That Night in Rio. Alice Faye stars as Our Woman in Havana.

Faye plays Nan Spencer, a department store salesgirl on a cruise that comes adrift in Havana, where engaged cruise company rep Jay Williams (John Payne) is sent to ensure she has fun. Gambler Monte Blanca (Cesar Romero) woos Nan thinking that she is rich, incurring the wrath of his singer-lover Rosita Rivas (Miranda). Then Nan and Jay’s budding romance incurs the wrath of Jay’s fiancée Terry McCracken (Cobina Wright Jr).

In the delightful musical highlights, Faye sings ‘Romance and Rhumba’ and ‘Tropical Magic’ with Romero, while the effortlessly camp and infectiously exuberant Miranda enjoys ‘The Nango’, ‘When I Love, I Love’ and the title track ‘Week-End in Havana’. Nacho Galindo as the lollypop vendor sings ‘The Man with the Lollypop Song’.

Also in the nice and friendly cast are Cobina Wright Jr, George Barbier, Sheldon Leonard, Leonid Kinskey, Billy Gilbert, Chris-Pin Martin, Hal K Dawson, William B Davidson, Hugh Beaumont, Maurice Cass, Leona Roberts, Harry Hayden, Sam Harris, Eugene Borden, Jack Coffey, Robert Conway, Gino Corrado, Bob Crosby, William Forrest, Nacho Galindo, Dorothy Harris, John McAvoy, Alberto Morin, Betty Jean Orth, Ted O’Shea, Jack Ross, John Santley, Mary Stuart, Marcia Sweet, William Taylor, Manuel Paris and Dan Wyler.

Faye was pregnant during filming.

In those days, studios didn’t wait for the critics to make up their minds about a movie. They reviewed it for them. 20th Century Fox called it ‘FAST… FUNNY… FRISKY’ and it’s hard to disagree with that.

The well-constructed original screenplay is by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware. Just because it is escapist fluff, we should not underestimate the skill put into this.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,933

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