The wisp of a plot finds Faye as a passenger on a cruise ship which has run aground near Florida, and John Payne as the cruise company's representative trying to get her to sign a waiver so she won't sue. But Faye, a Macy's salesgirl who has saved up for this vacation, insists on still having it, and Payne is ordered to take her to Havana for the weekend and see that she has a good time, no matter the expense. In Cuba, nightclub entertainer Carmen Miranda and her "manager" Cesar Romero enter the picture, with Romero assuming Faye is rich and Miranda making a play for Payne. Payne is engaged to the daughter (Cobina Wright, Jr.) of his cruise company chief, but naturally it's only a matter of time before he realizes Faye is the girl for him.
We realize it right away, of course, but who cares? The point here is to be swept away to an exotic, Technicolor locale filled with dazzling costumes and decor, and charming romance and songs. Week-End in Havana may be escapism, but it's not "mere" escapism. It's the kind of quality picture which is totally forgotten today - a typical star vehicle of its time which delivered its goods with expert craftsmanship across the board and fed Americans their movie star dreams.
And Alice Faye was a star - an enormous one. Rudy Vallee said of first meeting her in 1932, "She was a cute blonde, very friendly, with a warm smile that could melt the heart of an eskimo." Six years later she would be ranked as one of the top 10 stars in all of Hollywood. Like Week-End in Havana itself, Faye is far too underknown today, but her utterly charming, natural and warm presence is still enough to melt hearts in 2006. Film historian Jeanine Basinger observes on her commentary track that Faye's "strength lies in seeming to be a real person on screen," and that she is "utterly at home inside the frame." Certainly Faye was pretty, but she had deeper qualities which she somehow managed to pass effortlessly through the screen and into the audience, and it's not hard to see why fans fell in love with her.
Week-End in Havana was one of Faye's happiest movies. The actress had recently eloped to Mexico with bandleader Phil Harris and learned during production that she was pregnant. As she later put it, "Some people have said that I looked better in that movie than in any other. So maybe pregnancy agreed with me." Faye was an excellent singer but has only two songs in this picture, one of which, "Tropical Magic" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, became a big hit. She did record a third song, Warren and Gordon's "The Man With the Lollipop," but it was deleted, lingering in the film only as a momentary snippet sung by a passing street vendor.
Faye almost didn't play this part. Fox chief Darryl Zanuck had the script written for Betty Grable, deciding on Faye toward the end of the writing process. John Payne's role was originally designed for Henry Fonda, then changed to Don Ameche, and finally to Payne. He is another virtually forgotten actor today, though in fairness his career never rose to the heights of Alice Faye's. Adept in musicals and noirs alike (99 River Street, 1953, is a great one) he was the kind of reliable actor on which the Hollywood system depended. As Basinger says in her commentary, Payne supports Faye quite well without upstaging her. (She also offers the interesting tidbit that Payne was the first person to buy the movie rights to the James Bond books, though he sold them when he was unable to get them produced.)
Week-End in Havana was the third Hollywood movie for Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian star who had become very popular in America after just two movies for Fox, Down Argentine Way (1940) and That Night in Rio (1941). She sets the tone here in an opening number which is rather abstracted from the story (it's sung to us, not to any character in the film), but which contains plenty of pizzazz and gives us one of her typically insane costumes. Miranda's songs throughout make up somewhat for the relative lack of Faye's numbers.
While the movie was filmed on a Fox soundstage, Zanuck did send second-unit director James Havens to Cuba for a few weeks to get shots for an impressive Technicolor montage of pre-Castro Havana. Havens also made some long shots with body doubles and filmed material for rear-projection process shots. Zanuck said he wanted "an atmosphere of authenticity and color," and we can be thankful he went to the trouble and expense.
Fox's transfer of Week-End in Havana looks pristine, with the crisp Fox look and Technicolor images preserved in their glory. The package includes attractive cover art on both the DVD and the case, liner notes by film historian Sylvia Stoddard and a reproduction of a lobby card in an envelope inside - a nice touch. Extras on the disc include trailers, a good photo gallery, mono and stereo sound options, and Jeanine Basinger's commentary track. This is very listenable and should appeal to casual viewers and film buffs alike - not an easy achievement. She balances a historic overview of the picture with biographical facts, offers insights into the film's storytelling techniques and how they shape audience reactions, and delves into Twentieth Century-Fox's technical leadership in color and sound quality at the time. (By 1941, Fox had made more 3-strip Technicolor features than any other studio.) She is also quite interesting on how Darryl Zanuck re-shaped Alice Faye's image from her early, Harlow-esque look to a more natural, girl-next-door quality, a reminder that it was studios which created and controlled stars' images in those days.
Fox Home Entertainment has been doing an outstanding job lately releasing its library titles onto DVD. The Fox Film Noir series, other classics, and now these Marquee Musicals have generally been given top-notch treatment. Fox promises that its next wave of classic musicals will be released in Summer, 2006 - a collection of Betty Grable titles. Here's hoping that an Alice Faye collection soon follows.
For more information about Week-end in Havana, visit Fox Home Entertainment. To order Week-end in Havana, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jeremy Arnold
