Lucien Montas, who headed the cultural department of the Foreign Ministry (while doubling as a journalist for the local daily Nouvelliste), was instructed by Chalmers to write the foreword. He called Graham ‘the prey to a thousand complexes and obsessions’ and went on to declare that Graham’s ‘nightmarish images in his frenzied imagination, together with a pessimistic vision of the world’, were a ‘reflection of an unbalanced and proudly perverted self’.
The essays were entitled, in order: ‘Graham Greene’s Biographical Panorama’; ‘Graham Greene’s Swindle’; ‘Could Graham Greene Be an Advocate of the Theory of Existence of Superior Races?’; ‘Does Graham Greene Know the History of Haiti?’; ‘Achievements of the Haitian Government’; ‘Graham Greene, or the Scaring Machine’; ‘The Comedians: A Commissioned Work’; ‘Graham Greene’s Contemner of [sic, evidently meaning ‘Contempt for’] the Negro Race’; ‘The Political Philosophy of the Government of His Excellency Dr François Duvalier’; ‘Aren’t Graham Greene’s Novel, The Comedians and Peter Greenville’s [sic] Film an Episode of the International Plot Against the Haitian Government?’
Yves Massillon, a protocol officer at the Haitian Foreign Ministry, wrote two of the essays. In the first, entitled ‘Graham Greene’s Biographical Panorama’, Massillon alleged that Graham, after a ‘morbid adolescence’, became a ‘young Communist stool pigeon’. After a wasted youth, Massillon further alleged, Graham launched
an all-out drive for money in 1938. At long last, the war! The war and the opportunity to get rich! He is a secret agent in Africa under cover of a writer. But this pseudo-writer, spotted in Indo-China and Havana after the war, is shadowed wherever he is. Yet, he goes on with his activity of novelist—secret agent and writes a commissioned novel, The Comedians, about the Republic of Haiti where he stayed less than fifteen days.
Warming to his subject, Massillon declaimed:
Will Graham Greene ever stop his many repudiations, ‘stool-pigeoning’ and spying activities; his malignant attacks, lies, and belated apologies? Will he ever stop contributing his talent to purposes unworthy of a true writer? That is the question. Considering the man’s career, we can’t expect anything good from him. A [religious] conversion may have some value only in respect to its motivations, significance, and results. Graham Greene’s didn’t bring about any amelioration which could have made him study the problems of the Haitian people with more open-mindedness with a view to finding the root causes of a revolution which — like all revolutions — had its excesses, these excesses which we think are nothing as compared with what goes on elsewhere. But Graham Greene did not understand at all the Haitian revolutionary reality, this reality that would have ended up in plain anarchy had it not been for an eminently intelligent control by the Chief of the nation, Physician, Ethnologist and Sociologist, Dr François Duvalier. Greene is fretful because of the reserved attitude of a friendly Big Power [presumably an allusion to the United States] which has more than once stumbled against the complexity of our problems. Such reticence should have taught Greene a lesson. When one does not understand, either he asks for information or he shuts up.
Another contributor concluded his disquisition, ‘Graham Greene’s Swindle’, by decrying what he termed Graham’s physical description of Haiti:
The rusty colors of our crops deprived of water, the barrenness of our hillsides ravaged by erosion, misery, disease, illiteracy, and even the infirmity of our poor are more in keeping with the pessimistic vision of a Graham Greene or a Mr Brown in his novel than an unbiased consideration of under-development which is not specific to Haiti.
A fourth jeremiad branded Graham a ‘tormented racist’ on the ‘payroll’ of leading racists of the day. Another contributor proclaimed, ‘Graham Greene thought he was going to destroy Haiti’s prestige; he may now bite his lips, gnaw his thumbs; sooner or later, he will have to rid his sickly mind of the despicable comedians of his own kind.’ Still another diatribe asserted without elaboration, ‘Former torturer Graham Greene is annoyed no end upon finding that Haiti is the chosen land for social justice in this world of hatred and violence.’
Massillon, in his second blast at Graham, expanded on the theme that he was a secret agent at work to defame hapless Haiti. Massillon charged that Graham’s putative connection with the British Secret Service had just been brought to light in Moscow by Harold ‘Kim’ Philby who, while himself a British Secret Service officer, was also a Soviet agent. Indeed, Massillon pointed out that in the Latin American edition of Time, in the issue of 29 December 1967, on page 20 under the heading ‘Espionage’ one can read the following: ‘Between the caviar and cognac, Philby managed to sandwich in a few new fascinating revelations about his past activities. He had worked, he claimed, with such unheralded British spies as novelist Graham Greene … and the late Ian Fleming.’ Crowed Massillon: ‘Thus it is that the present is better understood through a study of the past; however, one must have a thorough knowledge of the past to understand why the novel The Comedians was written. Why millions were spent in the making of the film and why none other than Graham Greene was called upon for the work.’
The principle thrust of the Haitian Foreign Ministry broadside was that both the book and the film were part of some vast amorphous plot against Haiti. The expelled British Ambassador G.T. Corley-Smith was brought into the purported conspiracy, accused by Massillon of ‘insolent dealings’. Another essayist accused Graham of fostering ‘psychological preparation for a frantic counter-revolution’.
In a hyperbolic wrap-up, Clément Vincent of Duvalier’s protocol staff declared:
Once more the countries using Graham Greene and Peter Greenville [sic] as a cover-up have committed the crime of indirect aggression against the Black Republic which is only guilty of pride and dignity. Obviously Graham Greene and Peter Greenville are only puppets in a tragic-comic show put up by some well-known countries against Haiti which still faces some of the most strenuous hardships in its existence as a free and independent nation, after having fought unaided against the slavery system for three centuries and a half, broken its fetters, proclaimed its independence in the face of an astonished world 164 years ago, and paid with the blood of its people for the place it occupies among civilized nations.
We will not be caught off guard. Our knowledge of the fighting tactics of our opponents supports our beliefs that Graham Greene’s novel The Comedians as well as Peter Greenville’s movie inspired by the said novel constitute a prelude to some action that may be carried out on a large scale against our country. This unprecedented performance in the art of disparagement can be nothing else than the first step toward a bolder plan against Haiti.
If Duvalier thought his publishing offensive would intimidate Graham, he was sadly in error. Graham, although usually reserved and modest, revelled openly in the verbal assault coming from a tyrant such as Papa Doc. The whole charade appealed to Graham’s contrarian sense of humour, so he mischievously promoted the attack on his character. As an ingenious practical joker, Graham exploited Papa Doc’s canards to startle others. With Graham himself acting as a publicist for Duvalier’s bizarre broadside — spreading word among friends and interviewers about the ‘remarkable document’ — it quickly became a collector’s item.
The first I heard of Duvalier’s literary assault was in a letter from Graham, dated 20 February 1969, which I received in Mexico City. He could hardly conceal his excitement and mirth. ‘Have you seen his book about me in French and English called Graham Greene Démasqué (Finally Unmasked)?. If you haven’t seen it get somebody to ask for it from the embassy in Mexico City. It’s a treasure.’ In a letter to me two months later, Graham again recommended that I get a copy of the booklet before it disappeared. Still clearly elated, he wrote, ‘Papa Doc honoured me.’
Despite my efforts, I could never find a copy in Mexico. The Haitian embassy there said it didn’t have any. It was only years later, after the Duvalier dynasty collapsed in 1986, that I finally managed to locate one in the archiv
es of the Foreign Ministry in Port-au-Prince. (The Foreign Ministry collapsed into rubble along with its archives in the January 2010 earthquake.)
In an op-ed article in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday 3 December 1976, entitled ‘Black Humour in Haiti’, Graham commented:
If I had known the way the President regarded me, my fears would have seemed more rational. The Comedians, I am glad to say, touched him on the raw. He even attacked it personally in an interview he gave in Le Matin, a paper in Port-au-Prince — the only review I have ever received from a Chief of State. ‘Le livre n’est pas bien écrit. Comme l’œuvre d’un écrivain et d’un journaliste, le livre n’a aucune valeur.’ [‘The book is not well written. As the work of a writer and journalist it possesses no value whatsoever.’]
Was it possible I disturbed his dreams as he had disturbed mine? For five long years after my visit, his Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an elaborate and elegant brochure, illustrated, on glossy paper, dealing with my case. A lot of research had gone into its preparation, with many quotations drawn from the introductions I had written for a French edition of my books. Printed in French and English and entitled Graham Greene Démasqué (Finally Exposed), it included a rather biased sketch of my career. This expensive work was distributed to the Press through the Haitian Embassies in Europe, but distribution ceased abruptly when the President found the result was not the one he desired.
Graham even quoted from the booklet in which he said he was called ‘A liar, a cretin, a stool pigeon … unbalanced, sadistic, perverted … a perfect ignoramus’, accused of ‘lying to his heart’s content’ and of being ‘the shame of proud and noble England … a spy … a drug addict… a torturer’. ‘The last epithet has always a little puzzled me,’ Graham concluded. ‘I am proud to have had Haitian friends who fought courageously in the mountains against Doctor Duvalier, but a writer is not so powerless as he usually feels, and a pen, as well as a silver bullet, can draw blood.’
On 9 October 1968 I had received a brown envelope addressed in Graham’s small script. In it was a transcript of a British television programme, Twenty-Four Hours, which had a hilarious field day with the ‘official counter-blast from Duvalier against Greene’s last novel, The Comedians’. The commentator ends by noting, ‘All in all it’s the kind of accolade he [Greene] may well prize even more highly than his Companionship of Honour, his Honorary Doctorate and the other bits and pieces he’s collected since he began writing forty years ago. By the way,’ the commentator added in a final dig at Papa Doc’s literary chef d’œuvre, ‘there’s one misspelling the Haitians missed. On page 33 of their glossy book they call President Harry Truman President Hairy Truman.’
Naturally Graham was not about to retreat or apologize for The Comedians. For him the Haitian government’s published ‘bulletin’ and its essays proved only that he had bloodied Papa Doc with the pen, if not the sword, and he was even optimistic — overly optimistic, it turned out — about Papa Doc’s political demise. Graham ended a letter to me dated 6 January 1970 with the words, ‘Let’s hope that before the end of the year we can all meet again in Port-au-Prince!’ It didn’t happen — but not because he was anything like his uninvolved character, Brown. Papa Doc hung on to power until his death from natural causes in 1971 .
Alan Whicker of Yorkshire Television interviewed Papa Doc in 1968 while riding in the presidential limousine. He asked Duvalier what he thought of Graham Greene’s The Comedians. Duvalier is seen touching his right temple with his index finger while responding, ‘He is crazy, he is a poor man mentally … he didn’t say the truth about Haiti, because maybe they say he was out of money, he got money from people in Haiti or from political exiles.’
The MGM Distribution and Production Company, along with its owner— partner Maximilian/Trianon, released the film version of The Comedians in late 1967. The producer and director was Peter Glenville, with a screenplay by Graham. It was the first film made of a Graham Greene book in seven years, since the 1960 release of Our Man in Havana. Whether The Comedians was a good or bad film from a critic’s perspective, its star cast ensured that millions would see this feature production around the world. It would establish Papa Doc and his Tontons Macoutes once and for all as men of evil.
When I finally had an opportunity to see the film, while on assignment in San Diego, I found it extremely painful to watch. The reason Graham had written the script, the last he would write, he later told me, was to make sure that his arrow hit its mark, portraying the terror of the Duvalier years. To achieve maximum effect he had dropped the early part of the book, in which The Comedians are introduced sailing aboard the Medea to Haiti. He had also changed the ending. At the end of the movie, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) looks down from the Miami-bound plane and laments, ‘Poor Haiti.’ And the film makes it resoundingly clear that Papa Doc’s dictatorship and his Tontons Macoutes are responsible for turning this once beautiful country into ‘poor Haiti’.
The film opens with young voices singing praise to ‘Duvalier, President-for-Life, creator of the New Haiti, supreme leader of the nation, idol of the masses and spiritual leader of the nation’. While Papa Doc himself is portrayed only fleetingly, walking inside the Palace followed by two nurses, signs and references to him abound. Duvalier’s image and his red-and-black flag are plastered everywhere — on a billboard, even in a brothel. The atmosphere of terror is established near the beginning of the film as the camera pans along a row of photographs of grotesque corpses, all marked with a large red ‘X’ indicating that the victims have been eliminated. Captain Concasseur is seen tracing another red-pencilled ‘X’ across the photo of yet another victim. The Macoutes are real enough in their dark glasses and fedoras. Overlooking the nightmarish panorama, exuding its own haunting Charles Addams-like decadence, the replica of the Grand Hotel Oloffson was almost perfect.
Dr Magiot (who in the book is shot) has his throat cut by the Tontons Macoutes, collapsing dead on top of a patient on whom he is operating. The scene sent a communal shudder through the audience in which I was seated. There were reports of Haitian women, exiled in New York, fainting while viewing the film and being carried out of the cinema and others screaming and yelling when they saw the captured guerrillas Drouin and Numa being executed. The film was far too realistic for many expatriate Haitians, especially those who had lost relatives in the real world of Papa Doc’s Haiti.
Time magazine gave The Comedians a column-and-a-half movie review on 3 November 1967 entitled, ‘Hell in Haiti’. Noting that the film ran for two hours and forty minutes, the Time critic commented:
The Comedians has everything but economy. The director, Peter Glenville, has tarried with a story that might have been twice as good at half the length. Unlike the novel, in which Greene’s obsessive concern with mankind’s spiritual underworld is subdued, his scenario seems as overtly moralistic as a passion play … [However,] French Photographer Henri Decae’s location shots offer a remarkable re-creation of a land where images of Voodoo gods and the Virgin Mary are worshipped at the same rituals. The cast of supporting villains and victims — led by Peter Ustinov — is uniformly excellent. As a fading beauty with a Germán accent, [Elizabeth] Taylor is reasonably effective, but [Richard] Burton, playing an exhausted anti-hero in the same style as his memorable The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, seems to have stepped from the pages of the novel. Ironically, the film’s most stirring moments are not its overheated love scenes but the brief encounter between Burton and Guinness. In one, Guinness, a short day’s journey from death, recounts his wasted life of lies in a graveyard retreat. Priest-like, Burton answers the tortured confessions with a symbolic absolution. At such moments of transcendent drama — and there are enough to make it worthwhile — The Comedians is easily forgiven its other sins.
Similarly typical of the mixed reviews was John Russell Taylor’s assessment in The Times on 18 January 1968: ‘It is just loaded with production values. Unfortunately, loaded is the operative word. Under there somewhere is perhap
s quite an interesting little film trying to get out, but if so, it is smothered at birth.’
Graham, of course, had his own after-the-fact critique. He told Gene D. Phillips in a 1969 interview published in the Catholic World:
My biggest problem when adapting one of my novels for the screen is that the kind of book I write, from the single point of view of one character, cannot be done the same way on the screen. You cannot look through the eyes of one character in a film. The novel (The Comedians) was told from Brown’s point of view. Brown remains the character who is on the screen more than any of the others. His comments on others are often there. But we still do not see others completely from his point of view as we do in the novel.
As noted, Graham had changed the film’s ending from that of the book. ‘Brown is a beachcomber-type character. He has been washed up on the beach of Haiti,’ Graham explained in the Catholic World interview.
He is a person who could not be better than he is, although he would like to be. At the end of the novel, which is black comedy, he becomes an undertaker: he is just being washed up on another shore. In the film the ending is different but the point is the same. Brown is forced to join the guerrillas in the hills because he cannot return to Port-au-Prince. He does not want to go and he has no experience in guerrilla warfare, but he makes the best of the situation.
Discussing the film in a letter to me, Graham said he had hoped to have the film shot in black and white, feeling that colour gave it a phoney look. However, as a long-time film critic himself who was quite familiar with the industry, he acknowledged that the major film studios of the time wouldn’t support a black-and-white film. One of the reasons, he said, was television sales; colour television had arrived on the scene only a few years earlier. He thought black and white would have made it a better film, more of cinéma verite.
The Seeds of Fiction Page 17