As with most travelogue musicals and holiday romances to emerge from the Classic Hollywood system, Weekend in Havana was shot predominately on studio stages in the United States. Unusually though, Twentieth Century Fox sent a second unit Technicolor crew to Havana to obtain authentic B-roll footage.
Contemporary scenes of the Gran Casino Nacional, Oriental Park Racetrack, Sloppy Joe’s Bar and Morro Castle are presented in a flurried montage that serves as a contextualizing prelude to the American contingency arriving by seaplane into the harbor.
Following this visual tour, when Nan Spencer (Alice Faye) enters the Presidential suite of her hotel, the Bellhop proudly presents her with a rear projected video backdrop…
The full 300 word version of this scene location analysis is published in World Film Locations Havana, edited by Ann Marie Stock, published by Intellect Books, 2014.
Carl Wilson 