Cuba

Get out the trombone mutes; this is a "wah-wah-wah-waaaah" laff riot. Pointing out that it is illegal for Americans to visit Cuba, filmmaker John Holod is seen at Key West with a duckie life preserver; in the next shot he appears climbing over the sea wall outside Havana--perfectly dry. Dum-dum remarks continue throughout the tape (after a visit to Hemingway's house, the filmmaker shows an oldster beside a painted "C" on a wall and crows "It's the REAL Old Man and the Sea!"), but what is really annoying is the filmmaker's own narration style. He has horrible phrasing in reading his own script; this is exactly how one portion sounds: "Central Park is the. Main area of the city. The statue of Marti is here when I arrived I thought I was going to witness some kind of fight..." Sure, make allowances for human error, but hearing this off-kilter speech over and over through 80 minutes of travelogue is excruciating. Finally, the tape is filled with questionable facts (the blame for syphilis is firmly placed on indigenous people transmitting it to Europeans, despite evidence that the situation might have been reversed) and thin-ice historical interpretations (there are only positive remarks about the glorious Revolution and the defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion; Cuban-American viewers will have apoplexy). Tiresome phrasing, tiresome "humor," generic salsa music that sounds about 20 years old playing in the background-save your money for a better treatment of the subject. Not recommended. (R. Reagan)