RED ZONE CUBA (1966) ½ *

Red Zone Cuba features all of writer/director/star Coleman Francis’s hallmarks:  Long scenes of people sitting around drinking coffee, people flying airplanes, a hero being gunned down in cold blood in the finale, and confusing editing.  I’m all for auteurs indulging their creative instincts, but this is Coleman Francis we’re talking about here.  If you thought The Skydivers or The Beast of Yucca Flats was bad, wait ‘til you get a load of this. 

Francis really outdid himself on this one.  He takes the incoherence he pioneered in Beast and doubles down.  You know the editing is bad when we don’t even know what country our heroes are in.  There’s a scene where Francis’s escaped convict character and his buddies flee from their Cuban prison and return to the States within the span of a jump cut.  Maybe it would be easier to figure out if Arizona didn’t look exactly like Cuba. 

The plot is an exercise in delirium.  Francis joins up with a band of freedom fighters to evade capture by the police.  He and his team storm the beaches of Cuba (they look like kids filming a war movie in their mom’s backyard), are captured, and get imprisoned.  While they await execution, Coleman and his cohorts escape and return home seeking to fleece the widow of one of their cellmates.  

The only thing saving Red Zone Cuba from being a No Stars movie is the presence of John Carradine.  His brief cameo doesn’t add much to the film, but the fact that he sings the theme song (“Night Train to Mundo Fine”) definitely makes it memorable.  Too bad the 90 minutes that follows the song it is thoroughly dreadful. 

AKA:  Night Train to Mundo Fine.