Why is Havana covered in 5-digit numbers in Our Man in Havana?
In the 1959 film version of Our Man in Havana, the streets of Havana are littered in signs with 4- and 5-digit numbers on them.
Here's an example:
Notice the "00260", "19072", and "42857" left of center, "33004" and "23584" in center-frame, and a "200?" at the right edge of the frame.
The signs are assembled in tall stacks on telephone poles, the sides of buildings, people carry them and even wear them.
What are they? Is it an accurate depiction of pre-revolution Cuba? If so, what were they for? Is it there as a foil to the numeric codenames?
Best Answer
These are lottery numbers.
The location above is, as per Graham Greene's novel:
“…the square at the top of Lamparilla Street… swallowed up among the pimps and lottery sellers of the Havana noon.”
Unlike modern lotteries which are computerised (and often allow multiple 'winners' through duplication), the Cuban lottery took a form where sellers would buy specific numbers, and then re-sell them. Obviously, certain combinations were supposedly more valuable than others, particularly if they were a buyers lucky number. Furthermore, vendors would try and convince buyers that their numbers were lucky, by whatever means possible.
Green considered the lottery a blight on Cuba, and as per the extract below from his journals, considered the lottery to be profiteering from desperate superstition;
While the story was emerging I set about curing a little of my ignorance. I made Cuban friends, I took a car and traveled with a driver around the country. He was a superstitious man and my education began on the first day, when he ran over and killed a chicken. It was then he initiated me into the symbols of the lottery — we had killed a chicken, we must buy such and such a number. This was the substitute for hope in hopeless Cuba.
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How is our man in Havana?
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 British spy comedy film shot in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Carol Reed, and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, No\xebl Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the 1958 novel Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene.What is the film Our Man in Havana about?
NovelSpy fictionHumorWhat genre is our man in Havana?
Our Man in Havana, novel by Graham Greene, published in 1958 and classified by the author as an \u201centertainment.\u201d Set in Cuba before the communist revolution, the book is a comical spy story about a British vacuum-cleaner salesman's misadventures in the British Secret Intelligence Service.Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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