Havana

Havana (1990)

Timing: 2:24 (144 min)

5.8/10
140

6.823/10
1441

6.1/10
9200

All about film

Video 0

Photo 8

Actors and characters

Release date

1990-12-11

Country

United States

Production

Universal Pictures, Mirage Films

Genre

Drama, Romance

Budget

$40 000 000

Revenue

$9 243 140

Website

Director

Sydney Pollack

Actors

Robert Redford, Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Tomas Milian, Daniel Davis, Tony Plana, Betsy Brantley, Lise Cutter, Richard Farnsworth, Mark Rydell
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Richard A. Roth, Sydney Pollack, Ronald L. Schwary

Operator

Owen Roizman

Composer

Dave Grusin

Artist

Audition

Lynn Stalmaster

Editing

William Steinkamp, Fredric Steinkamp
All team (31)

• Initially, Sydney Pollack wanted to film directly in Havana, but this proved impossible for several reasons. At that time, it was illegal for US citizens to legally visit Cuba. According to then-current US law, producers were not allowed to invest money in filming in Cuba. Official relations between Cuba and the United States were extremely strained in 1989-1990. Therefore, filming was organized in another Caribbean country – the Dominican Republic. The vegetation there was similar, and there was some resemblance in the architecture. The final scene was filmed in Key West, Florida.
• Many of the extras were political emigrants from Cuba, residing in the Dominican Republic during the film's production. According to director Sydney Pollack, the atmosphere on set was quite emotional, as the extras reminisced about the homeland they had left three decades prior.
• Approximately one hundred American cars and buses from the 1950s were used in the filming.
• Around 2,000 extras and supporting actors were involved in the film, requiring between 8,000 and 10,000 costumes, as many of them changed outfits during the shooting of various scenes.
• The central plotline, featuring three main characters and a woman forced to choose between her husband and his rival – with the latter ultimately saving the couple out of simple human kindness – was borrowed from Michael Curtiz’s melodrama “Casablanca” (1942).
• The main filming location was a street section lined with facades of casinos, restaurants, and hotels. Interior scenes were shot in recreated interiors of casino gambling halls, hotel rooms, and cafes. Havana’s Prado Boulevard was recreated on the grounds of a former US Air Force base in the Dominican Republic. Around 300 people worked on this. Over 80 neon signs were made in the US and delivered to the Dominican Republic. It took 20 weeks to build the main filming location.
• The original screenplay for the film was written by Judith Rascoe in the mid-1970s. At that time, Jack Nicholson and Jane Fonda were slated to star in the film, but they left the project due to delays in the start of filming.
• Raúl Juliá appeared in a supporting, but important role for the plot of the film. This actor received an 'Oscar' for Best Actor for his work in Héctor Babenco's drama 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' (1985), but he wasn't even mentioned in the credits of 'Havana'. The actor himself wanted his name to appear in the credits immediately after Robert Redford's, but for contractual reasons this was impossible, and then Juliá asked that his name not be included in the credits at all. That is why Lena Olin's name followed Redford's in the credits, followed by Alan Arkin's.