Clube Havana

Although Tom Neal and Margaret Lindsay are given top billing, this is a film which really has no leads. Instead, it consists of many different vignettes as well as a few nightclub acts. In some ways, you might compare it to "Grand Hotel" or "Dinner at Eight" because there are many different plots going on at the same time, though this is from tiny PRC studios...an ultra-cheapo studio that specialized in making B-movies and making them quickly.

The story bounces around a lot....from table to table as the film progresses. Each little vignette offers a glimpse at a couple or group of people....and then the camera goes off to follow some other folks or a song and dance number. The sum effect is as if you were a waiter or guest at the nightclub and you wandered about the place all evening...catching snippets of this and that. One of the plots involving a criminal and his alibi is the stronger of the many plots.

So is this any good? Well, compared to a typical PRC movie, yes...though with PRC's incredibly low standards this isn't saying much. I will say it never gets dull and the stories are mostly interesting. The least interesting aspect of the film are the musical acts, though having a nightclub without entertainment would be a tad strange.

Overall, a surprisingly watchable film...for PRC. Not exactly brilliant but a decent little time passer...and with an amazingly tough and violent ending!

Edgar G. Ulmer was used to far, far lower budgets than he had to play with on this inconsequential little bonbon, and saw to it that what little money was available to him was up there on the screen as his camera glided about Edward C. Jewell's night club set creating a reasonably plush and atmospheric mixture of melodrama and latin song & dance.

The film also benefits from an interesting cast of familiar faces with Marc Lawrence supplying the menace, Rene Riano supplying cynical wit as a merry serial divorcee and Sonia Sorel in a vivid cameo as the film's blonde sacrificial lamb. Although top-billed and famed for his role in Ulmer's 'Detour', however, Tom Neal is hardly in it.

Whether by chance or providential design, Edgar G. Ulmer's definitive rumination on fate - otherwise known as Detour (1945) - has slowly etched itself into the minds of film lovers around the world as one as one of the quintessential b-movie noirs of its day.

Bolstered by similar musings and patched together at about the same time, Club Havana (1945) amounts to little more than a trifle. A story is concocted out of nowhere and, once over, dissipates back into nothing. But that's part of its charm. In draining a Grand Hotel (1932)-type scenario of a budget as well as a purpose, the film acquires a strong offhand flavour that legitimises the whole ordeal. Low-budget-friendly aggravations of sadness, solitude and regret hover over the set as individual stories coalesce into an abstract whole. Talking leads into music and back into talking. The top-billed Tom Neal is diluted into the narrative and what little there is of a plot through-line emerges elsewhere - and why not?

Ulmer knew how to breathe life into an obviously vacant affair and have a lot of fun in the process. Club Havana may not be Exhibit A (nor B, nor C...) of this refreshing trait, but it's certainly one to consider down the road.

People are being way too hard on this little gem that is available for viewing on youtube. They remind me of Roger Ebert comparing every film ever made to "Casablanca" and that takes the fun out of movies.Relax and enjoy this glossy looking cheapie, although if you are a Tom neal fan as am I -- he is only onscreen for perhaps 10 minutes. He probably came in one morning and shot his scenes and close ups before lunch and then split. hit the gym and then the bar and Ms.Payton. The music is an added plus - a must see for B Movie fans all in all, a neat little film.

There's plenty of bang for the buck in Club Havana. This low rent Grand Hotel featuring a variety of Latin musical interludes with a plot unfolding at nearly every table offers a lot of entertainment in its brief running time by hardly taking a breath. Comic, romantic, suspenseful, it juggles storylines with a fair share of sardonically written observations involving characters at crucial crossroad in their lives. Featuring a variety of moods an emotions, the buoyant rhumba infused film is a disturbing entertainment culminating in a jarring finale.

Directed by Edgar Ulmer who does amazing things with little money and little time as he manages the plot, does some interesting silhouette and other camera work to deal with budget issues while getting serviceable performances from his entire cast. Rene Riano as multi-millionairess Mrs. Cavendish, with children in tow, simply steals the film as she cynically lays out her proposition to a man in need of a loan.

Club Havana is a fine floor show.