Pier 5, Havana

TCM aired this movie the other morning. For around 45 years,this film has not shown up an the TV or released on DVD or video. Filmed in Havana,Cuba in 1959,this film makes mention on how the United States helped Fidel Castro and his followers oust the Batista government and put Castro in power. As it turned out,that was a big mistake for the United States. Rumours circulated that the U.S. government purchased all the copies of this film and destroyed them. Well,not true. Turners classic movies has a copy. As for the film,their in nothing really interesting to see. Other than Cameron Mitchel,and lessor known actress,Allison Hayes,this film was filmed on a cheap budget.

Story-line is fresh, even after all these years. Mitchell is OK, the lady is not too good, the bad-guy 'Fernando' is well acted. Set construction is B-grade, with several goofs. Script and dialog are a little better than you would expect. Simple action scenes are on par for this kind of movie. Overall production is about what you would expect for a B-grade movie. Some real shots in/near Havana add a special touch to the film. Trying to protect Castro from pro-Baustista forces seems a bit odd these days, but probably spot-on for 1959. The cast all seemed to work together well.

Good, rainy-day film.

Not a lot of background info on IMDb on this 67 minute shortie from "Premium Pictures", and even less info on the writer, Joseph Hoffman, and its director Ed Cahn; as of today, not even one message on the message boards at the bottom of the main page. "Pier 5" starts out with narrator (Cameron Mitchell as Steven Daggett) giving us the first-person background on Batista skipping town, and Castro moving in take over Cuba. Daggett tells us he is trying to find his best friend Hank Miller (Logan Field), but is quickly picked up by the police for questioning... we are introduced to the local bigshot Senor Ricardo (Eduardo Noriega), American singer Monica Gray (Allison Hayes), and local businessman Senor Schluss (Otto Waldis), who all may or may not be involved in something together.. Ms. Gray admits that she knows the missing man Miller, so Dagget starts following clues to try to find his missing friend. The biggest Hollywood name here is our narrator, Mitchell, who later had several successful TV series in the 1960s and 1970s (the Beachcomber, Swiss Family Robinson, High Chaparrel). The bombshell Hayes has an interesting bio.. apparently was a contestant in the Miss America Pagaent, but unfortunately died quite young at age 47, possibly from being overdosed with calcium...how strange.... she was even in "Tickle Me", with Elvis, and died a couple months before he did. "Pier 5 " Produced by Robert Kent aka James Gordon, who had started out as a writer in the 1930s, and wrote and produced many films with a foreign, exotic location. This one is a good solid script, with perfectly competent actors, but I guess isn't shown often, since it doesn't have any real big names. It's interesting that what some of the "bad guys" are involved in might today be treated differently than how it was regarded at the time.... but that's a matter for history to sort out...won't say any more to avoid giving away any plot points.

I remember seeing this film way back in 1959 when it first came out in the theater. History was moving very fast back in this time in Cuba and within days this item was quickly withdrawn from circulation. Before 1959 was out you could never have made an American film with the Castro as the good guy and the Batista counterrevolutionaries as the bad guys.

Cameron Mitchell in the immediate days after the Castro revolution in Cuba comes to Havana to find his friend Logan Field who has gone missing. What he finds is Field's wife Allison Hayes now involved with Eduardo Noriega a rich plantation owner and singing at the nightclub in hotel owner Nestor Paiva's palatial resort hotel, once the playground of touring Americans as were many such places in Batista Havana.

Michael Granger the local Havana cop and Castro supporter is taking a real interest in the comings and goings of Mitchell. And before long Mitchell up to the neck in a counterrevolutionary assassination plot that the missing Mr. Field was involved in before.

Within days of this film's release public opinion changed radically about Fidel Castro and this film was buried. Not that it should have been unearthed for art's sake. This is sloppily put together with the villains making stupid moves that would have rivaled some of the movie Nazis of World War II vintage.

If Pier 5, Havana teaches us anything it is that with help like this no wonder Batista never regained power.

Well the revolutions did end in 1959 when castro took over Havana and it is sureal to see hollywood root for castro then batista in this melodrama. The film is very cliche and you get to see how cuba was like in this year because this was the last year cuba was free. I recognized some of the places in this film cause coincidentally I have been to cuba before. I recognized the nacional hotel. The plot of the film caught me off guard and thought that his soilder body was part of the bay of pigs invasion but no that wouldnt come till next year. This fillm is a skip unless ur into cuba and cuba-usa history. Viva cuba!!!!!