Our Man In Havana recap

James Wormold, an unsuccessful British vacuum-cleaner salesman in Batista's Havana, is recruited by British intelligence. Needing money for his daughter Milly, he invents a network of agents and submits fictional reports, including drawings based on vacuum-cleaner parts that London mistakes for a secret installation. The deception grows dangerous when Beatrice Severn is sent to assist him and hostile agents begin acting against the imaginary network. An attempt to poison Wormold kills a dog, and his friend Dr. Hasselbacher is murdered. Wormold kills the enemy operative Carter, gets police captain Segura drunk, and steals a genuine list of foreign agents. He confesses to Beatrice, who loves him. Back in London, the Service conceals its embarrassment by awarding Wormold a decoration and employing him as an instructor. He and Beatrice plan to marry, leaving the fraud officially transformed into distinguished service.

James Wormold runs a struggling vacuum-cleaner shop in Havana and worries about supporting his seventeen-year-old daughter, Milly, whose requests include a costly horse. His closest friend is Dr. Hasselbacher, an elderly German physician; Captain Segura of the Cuban police is an unwelcome suitor for Milly. Hawthorne, a British intelligence officer, approaches Wormold and recruits him as a paid local contact. Wormold has no intelligence experience or useful access, but the money seems to solve his immediate problem. He accepts without fully considering what he can report. Hawthorne encourages him to build a network and explains that London will pay expenses for subagents, giving Wormold both the means and the incentive to make his new occupation larger than it is.

Unable to recruit genuine sources, Wormold invents them. He constructs an agent network from names he finds in ordinary life, assigns each fictional recruit a number, and claims their expenses. He then creates reports to justify the payments. His boldest fabrication is a set of drawings based on parts of a vacuum cleaner, enlarged and relabeled to resemble a mysterious military installation in the Cuban interior. Hawthorne has doubts, but senior officers in London interpret the implausible material as evidence of a major secret development. Their belief rewards Wormold's invention and commits the Service to treating him as an important station chief. What began as a way to meet Milly's expenses now requires regular messages, codes, and an expanding cast of people who do not know they have become British agents on paper.

London responds to the supposed installation and growing network by sending Beatrice Severn to Havana as Wormold's secretary and radio operator. She is capable, loyal, and convinced that the invented agents are real. Wormold must prevent her from meeting them while continuing to produce material that satisfies headquarters. His fabrications begin to affect actual people: foreign services have intercepted enough information to believe the network exists, so the names Wormold casually supplied are placed in danger. Dr. Hasselbacher recognizes that the game has crossed into serious territory and warns his friend. Wormold grows close to Beatrice but cannot tell her that the professional achievement she admires is a fraud.

The opposition begins dismantling Wormold's imaginary organization by attacking the real people attached to its invented names. At a business gathering, Wormold is warned that his drink will be poisoned. He avoids the trap, but a dog consumes the poisoned whisky and dies, confirming that the threat is genuine. Carter, an apparently ordinary Englishman, emerges as the hostile operative behind the attempt. Dr. Hasselbacher is also under pressure because another service expects his cooperation. Wormold's fear shifts from exposure by London to responsibility for the violence his claims have set in motion. He can no longer simply end the reports, since both allies and enemies are acting on them and Beatrice's safety is bound to his false position.

Dr. Hasselbacher is murdered, making the cost of Wormold's invention personal. Wormold confronts Carter and kills him, then seeks one piece of real intelligence that may protect Beatrice and give him leverage with London. He challenges Captain Segura to a game played with miniature whisky bottles, gets the policeman drunk, and photographs his list of foreign agents. Wormold sends the genuine information and admits the fraud to Beatrice. She chooses him over the institution he deceived, and they are recalled to England. Rather than prosecute Wormold and reveal its own credulity, the Service suppresses the truth, gives him a decoration, and offers him work instructing new intelligence officers. Beatrice intends to marry him, Milly accepts their future together, and Wormold's fraudulent career is officially recast as honorable success.

Wormold's invented intelligence has produced real deaths, including that of his friend Dr. Hasselbacher, and he can no longer treat the deception as harmless. He confronts and kills Carter, the operative behind the attempt to poison him. Wormold then gets Captain Segura drunk during a game played with miniature whisky bottles and photographs the policeman's list of foreign agents, finally supplying London with genuine intelligence. He admits the entire fraud to Beatrice, who has fallen in love with him and chooses to stand by him. Recalled to England, Wormold expects punishment. The Service instead suppresses the scandal to protect itself, publicly decorates him and offers him a post teaching future agents. Beatrice plans to marry him, and Milly accepts the new arrangement. Wormold escapes prosecution and financial ruin, while the institution that believed his vacuum-cleaner drawings preserves its reputation by converting failure into an official success.