The Letters of Noël Coward features correspondence between English playwright Noël Coward, writer Graham Greene, and actor Sir Alec Guinness, in the years following their collaboration on the 1959 comedic spy film, Our Man in Havana, based on the novel of the same name by Greene. Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss, and Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actor Marsha Mason read the correspondence in conversation. The letters, curated by Balaban, celebrate the wit, bonhomie and jaundiced eyes of three veterans of show business, as they discuss life, art, and everything from Cole Porter to varicose veins.
During its release, Our Man in Havana broke box office records in New York and London, and with a screenplay written by Graham Greene, and featuring Ernie Kovacs and Burl Ives (in addition to the aforementioned stars) the film has since developed a cult following. Shot on location in Cuba two years after the fall of the Batista regime, the set was visited during filming by Fidel Castro, who complained that the novel did not accurately portray the brutality of the prior regime.
This edition of The Letters of Noël Coward, serving as an informal reunion of the stars of the beloved film, The Goodbye Girl, is full of infectious and irresistible enjoyment that Dreyfuss and Mason take in each other, as they caper through these witty epistles.
