The Quiet American (1958)

Directed by

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Genre

drama film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h

Rated

NR

Rating

5.8 of 10 from 34 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A British journalist in 1950s Vietnam observes an idealistic American newcomer whose covert actions have dangerous consequences. Both men compete for the affection of a local woman as the war escalates around them.

tenseromanticmelancholicpoliticalslow-burnthoughtfulsombersuspenseful

What happens

The Quiet American is a 1958 American drama romance thriller war film. It was the first film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name, and one of the first films to deal with the geo-politics of Indochina. It was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and stars Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, and Giorgia Moll. It was critically well-received, but was not considered a box-office success. The film flips the plot of the novel on its head; it turns a cautionary tale about foreign intervention into an anticommunist advocacy of the use of American power abroad. In writing the script, Mankiewicz received uncredited input from CIA officer Edward Lansdale, who was often said to have been Greene’s inspiration for the American character he had called "Pyle" in the novel. (In the 1958 film, this character, though unnamed, was played by Murphy). However, in fact, Greene did not meet Lansdale until after completing much of the novel. According to Greene, the inspiration for the character of Pyle was Leo Hochstetter, an American serving as public affairs director for the Economic Aid Mission in Indochina who was assumed by the French to “belong to the CIA”; they had lectured him during the “long drive back to Saigon on the necessity of finding a 'third force in Vietnam.'" The film stirred up controversy. Greene was furious that his anti-war message had been excised from the film, and he disavowed it as a "propaganda film for America." The Quiet American was remade in 2002. That version, directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine, was more faithful to the plot of Greene's novel. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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