The novel was inspired by Greene's visit to see a friend in the Caribbean nation of Haiti in 1963. A recent coup had installed a new dictator, "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and Greene wanted to see what changes were afoot in this poverty-stricken country. What he saw was the stuff of nightmares. Duvalier ruled Haiti through fear and terror using his feared secret police the Tontons Macoutes. They were supposed to be powered by Duvalier's knowledge of voodoo, but their techniques were the same ones used in other 20th-Century oppressive states. Enemies and sometimes supposed friends would disappear into Papa Doc's prisons, never to emerge, and everyone else was constantly terrorized, looking out for the sudden visit that could lead to unexplained torture and death. "I was haunted by Haiti for years after my last visit," Greene said.
The novel was highly acclaimed but when it came time to create a movie from it, a location shoot was out of the question. Wisely, Haiti was recreated a hemisphere away in the African nation of Dahomey (now Benin). Even here threats were made against the members of the cast. However, despite the heat, humidity and intimidation, a remarkable cast was collected. Alec Guinness plays the gunrunner Major Jones, Peter Ustinov is Ambassador Pineda and Paul Ford and Lillian Gish are two idealistic American visitors. Some of America's greatest Black actors took the roles of the chief Haitians; James Earl Jones as a doctor leading the rebellion, Raymond St. Jacques as the head of the Tontons Macoutes, Roscoe Lee Browne as the head of Haiti's public relations department and Cicely Tyson as a "hostess" in a bar. Heading the cast was the most famous movie star couple of that era, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, both of whom had just received Oscar® nominations for their performances in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Graham Greene was present during much of the shooting, insuring that The Comedians was as accurate a version of his novel as possible.
For all the effort and the big names, The Comedians failed at the box office. Most of the problem was the title. The "comedians" of the novel are the Europeans and Americans, putting a phony smiling face on a loathsome regime. The Comedians was a fine title for a Graham Greene novel, but quite misleading as the title of a movie, especially when paired with an advertising campaign that relied wholly on the big names associated with the movie and gave audiences no idea what to expect. Ticket buyers looking for an all-star humor fest were greeted by a political thriller with horrific overtones.
The movie's failure was quite a shame as this is a surprisingly powerful and unique film for its time. The Comedians represents one of Hollywood's few examinations of third-world politics, especially one that bypassed political preachiness for a subtler portrait of post-colonial failure. The subtlety extends to the acting as well with both Burton and Taylor giving quiet, nuanced performances unlike their other co-starring productions of this period. Time has been kind to The Comedians for the same reason that history has been unkind to us. As similar nightmare governments have erupted in Cambodia, Uganda, Rwanda and The Sudan, Haiti under Papa Doc looks like a forerunner to them all, and The Comedians an unsettling portrait of a terrorist regime that has become far too common.
Director/Producer: Peter Glenville
Writer: Graham Greene, based on his novel
Music: Laurence Rosenthal
Cinematography: Henri Decae
Editor: Francoise Javet
Art Director: Francois de Lamothe
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor (Martha Pineda), Richard Burton (Brown), Alec Guinness (Major Jones), Peter Ustinov (Ambassador Pineda), Paul Ford (Smith), Lillian Gish (Mrs. Smith).
C-152m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Brian Cady
