"a place of license and loose morality, of prostitutes, pimps, and pornography, of bars and brothels, casinos and cabarets, gambling and drugs, gangsters, mobsters and racketeers, politicians on the take and policemen on the make. Daily life had developed into a relentless degradation.”
This point of view has turned Havana into a gross caricature. Was it really as bad as all that?
Surprisingly, Grau’s ban on gambling during the postwar years shut down the Cuban tourist industry, and Americans flocked to Mexico. For example, in 1951, Cuba took in $50 million of the $19billion that Americans spent on travel. Mexico’s share was $300 million.
Cuba also faced stiff competition from from Puerto Rico and Haiti. From 1949 its share of the Carribean markey declined from 43 percent to 31 percent.
But just as Prohitbiton had spurred tourism a generation earlier, the straitlaced morals of 1950s made Havana ideal for a dirty weekend.
In the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, Sky Masterson takes the prim, puritanical Sister Sarah Brown to Havana in the hopes of seducing her. Most Americans’ view of Cuba was shaped by I love Lucy, a television phenomenon that began in 1951 and soon reached 50 million viewers weekly. The character of Ricky Ricardo was played by Desi Arnaz, who often lapsed into rapid-fire Spanish to Lucy’s bewilderment. In contrast to the couple’s humdrum existence, Havana seemed sexy and exhilarating.
The casinos of the 1920s , such as the elegant Jockey Clun and the sedate Casino Nacional, were a far cry from the brassy Tropicana. Big-time gambling came to Havana by way of Miami. Meyer Lansky, once a bootlegger and associate of Bugsy Siegel, ran a lucrative gambling business and bootlegger and associate of Bugsy Siegel, ran a lucrative gambling business in south Florida throughout the 1940s. Just as I love lucy hit the airwaves, Senator Estes Kefauver’s televised hearings cast the national spotlight on mob-related activities. The public outcry soon shut Lansky down, and he served a two-month jail term.
American organized crime had yet to establish a beachhead in Cuba. Al Capone tried to establish a pool room in Marianao during the 1920s but had been chased out. Even by Chicago standards, Havana was a tough town.
Middle-class Habaaneros inhabited another Havana altogether, rarely seen by tourists. They rightfully regarded their city as one of the greatest in the world and would have been baffled and offended by its portrayal in Godfather II.
Robert Redford glorifies Fidel’s sidekick Che Guevara on film in “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and since that is apparently insufficient, Steven Soderbergh follows suit with a six-hour session that might as well have been entitled “Saint Che.” Director Oliver Stone praises Fidel as “one of the world’s wisest men.”Actor Jack Nicholson calls him “a genius.” Supermodels Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell gush after meeting Fidel that this was “a dream come true.
Before the revolution, Cuban cinema existed in a diluted form controlled by the U.S. film industry. In the 1960s, the support granted by the newly formed ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinema Art and Industry) — plus the copious cache of primary material and inspiration on the ground in Havana — allowed a handful of talented filmmakers to launch careers that would, in turn, launch Cuban cinema to internationally-recognized heights.
Although some might contest precisely which of his films should top this list, Tomás Gutierrez Alea is without doubt the most important Cuban director, for both his candid portraits of Havana and the manner in which his renown managed to snag the international spotlight and shine it on Cuba. His oeuvre alone stands as a testament to the power of Cuban cinema; his films are alternately bitter and sweet and always reflect the sharp sense of humor for which Cubans are known for.
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