Table Of ContentHollywood in Havana
Hollywood in Havana
US Cinema and Revolutionary
Nationalism in Cuba before 1959
Megan Feeney
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2019 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in
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Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 59355- 5 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 59369- 2 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 59372- 2 (e- book)
DOI: https:// doi .org /10 .7208 /chicago /9780226593722 .001 .0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Feeney, Megan, author.
Title: Hollywood in Havana : US cinema and revolutionary nationalism in Cuba
before 1959 / Megan Feeney.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018020252 | ISBN 9780226593555 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780226593692 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226593722 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures, American—Cuba—History—20th century. |
Motion pictures, American—Cuba—Influence. | National liberation movements—
Cuba.
Classification: LCC PN1993.5.C8 F44 2018 | DDC 791.4307291—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020252
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48– 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction Looking Up: Hollywood and Revolutionary
Cuban Nationalism 1
1 The Film Business That Unites: Early US Cinema in Havana, 1897– 1928 21
2 Teaching Eyes to See: The Advent of Cuban Film Criticism, 1928– 1934 49
3 Our Men in Havana: Hollywood and Good Neighborly Bonds,
1934– 1941 71
4 You Are Men! Fight for Liberty! Hollywood Heroes and
the Pan- American Bonds of World War II 109
5 Breaking the Chains: Hollywood Noir in Postwar Havana, 1946– 1952 147
6 Rebel Idealism: Hollywood in Havana during the Batistato, 1952– 1958 193
Epilogue The Show Goes On: Hollywood in Havana after 1958 233
List of Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Sources 241
Notes 243
Index of Films 291
Index of Subjects 295
Acknowledgments
I have first to thank the many Cubans living on the island who made this
project possible and deeply rewarding. Filmmaker Consuelo Elba Álvarez
made her home mine and became a second mother to me. Beyond feeding me
and nursing me through a few bouts of heat exhaustion, she happily hoofed
it through Havana with me, searching for old cines and office buildings. Her
husband, Alejandro, who loves to ponder the universe from the eye of his tele-
scope, was also brilliant at navigating me through the channels of Cuban bu-
reaucracy back on earth. The men and women at the Instituto cubano de artes
y industrias cinematográficas’s Cinemateca— including Vice Director Dolores
Calviño and, especially, Mario Naito— treated me like a colleague and made
my research possible.
I am also grateful to the many Cubans who kindly submitted to inter-
views. Walfredo Piñera, a pre- 1959 film critic, opened his home to me along
with three bulging scrapbooks of publicity for Hollywood films that came to
Havana during his youth, when he lovingly put the scrapbooks together. Sub-
sequent interviews proved equally inspiring and fruitful, especially those with
José Massip, Nelson Rodríguez, and Enrique Pineda Barnet, who each spent
hours recalling for me their film- related activities in the 1940s and 1950s. I am
also grateful to the reference librarians at Havana’s Biblioteca Nacional José
Martí and the Instituto de Literatura y Lingüística, who brought me edition
after edition of crumbling Cuban fanzines and trade journals.
Back in the United States, I owe thanks to the University of Minnesota’s
Graduate School for a Harold Leonard Film Studies Fellowship and to the
University of Minnesota’s Humanities Institute for a second fellowship. This
support allowed me to conduct research in Cuba as well as in the United
States, particularly at the United Artists Collection at the Wisconsin Historical
viii acknowledgments
Society; in the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami; at the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library; and
in the Warner Brothers Archives at the University of Southern California.
A grant from the Rockefeller Archive Center allowed me to dig into their files
on the Office of the Coordinator of Inter- American Affairs’ Motion Picture
Division. I am grateful to the committed and knowledgeable archivists at all
these collections, and especially to a few that went above and beyond: Barbara
Hall and Kristine Krueger at the Margaret Herrick Library and Rosa María
Ortíz at the Cuban Heritage Collection.
Over many years, I have incurred intellectual and personal debts to many
colleagues, including those who read and constructively commented on drafts
in early stages: Matt Becker, Jennifer Beckham, Jenny Gowen, John Kinder,
Dave Monteyne, and especially David Gray. Lary May, Elaine Tyler May, and
Haidee Wasson have been invaluable advocates and uncompromising critics.
I also owe thanks to Louis A. Pérez Jr., who opened up his incomparable men-
tal catalog of Cuba studies to advise me to research the Machado era as an
important precursor to what would come in subsequent decades. At St. Olaf
College, where I taught for years, I am thankful to members of the History
Department who generously read a chapter draft. I am especially grateful to
Jim Farrell, Eric Fure- Slocum, and Bill Sonnega. And, for helping me to imag-
ine this project in new and exciting ways, I have to thank filmmaker Gaspar
González. More recently, I have come to owe a debt of gratitude to my editors
at the University of Chicago Press— Douglas Mitchell, Kyle Adam Wagner,
and Jo Ann Kiser— for their faith in this book and their work polishing it into
its present form.
I have been working on this book for more than a decade and could not
have finished it without the support of my family, which has grown over that
period. My father’s influence pervades every page; from him, I learned a pas-
sion for history and the cinema. The unswerving faith of my mother can be
perceived particularly on the final page; she always knew I could get this done
even when I did not. Such faith and encouragement might be expected of a
mother, but I also received equal amounts from my sister, my in- laws, and my
most constant friend, Dina Drits. And then there are my two wonderful chil-
dren, whose mother’s mind has been “elsewhere” in many moments through-
out their young lives. I thank them for their love and patience. Finally, this
book would not be possible without the loving support of my husband, John
Geelan. For all this, and much more, I am grateful.
Fig. I.1. Korda (Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez), “Fidel Castro at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC”
(also called “David and Goliath”), 1959. © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
(Courtesy of Art Resource, Inc.)
