An explosive story of violent lives...lived dangerously!
1949-04-27
N/A
106 min
China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with American expatriate Tony Fenner. Tony develops a plan to tunnel under the city's cemetery to a plot owned by a high official, assassinate him, and blow up the whole Cuban hierarchy at the ensuing state funeral. Together with a band of dedicated revolutionaries, they begin digging.
It was unique to come across this early Huston work. It's weird that today, three generations later, when Scarlett Johansson gets in trouble for being cast as an Asian, that this was long the practice. I've seen star Jennifer Jones here as a Cuban, and later in 'love is a Many-Splendored Thing' as Eurasian.
She and John Garfield (himself playing a Cuban-born American businessman and revolutionary supporter) had good chemistry, and the film was finely made. Worth purchasing and rewatching.
