THEY LIE, THEY CHEAT, THEY DESTROY… THEY EVEN TRY TO LOVE.
A group of Westerners spend time in “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haiti, trying to find ways to get along with the regime until there’s only two choices left – either escape or rebel. Graham Greene’s novel angered Duvalier much and the screen adaptation hardly put him in a better mood. The film tries to portray the brutal realities of life in Haiti as closely as possible, even though it was shot in Benin. Overlong and not terribly moving story about courage and cynicism, but some performances are memorable; Alec Guinness as the cowardly con man, Paul Ford and Lilian Gish as the naive American tourists.
1967-U.S. 148 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Peter Glenville. Screenplay, Novel: Graham Greene. Cast: Richard Burton (Brown), Elizabeth Taylor (Martha Pineda), Alec Guinness (H.O. Jones), Peter Ustinov, Paul Ford, Lilian Gish… James Earl Jones.
Trivia: Also available in a 130 min. version.
