The Quiet American (film)

Infobox_Film
name=The Quiet American


caption = The movie cover for "The Quiet American".
imdb_id=0052106
writer=Graham Greene (novel)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
starring=Audie Murphy,
Michael Redgrave
director=Joseph L. Mankiewicz
music=Mario Nascimbene | distributor=United Artists
released=February 8 1958
runtime=120 min.
language=English
movie_series=
awards=
producer=Joseph L. Mankiewicz
budget=|

"The Quiet American" was the first film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling novel, released in 1958. "A haunting portrait of US-backed terror in 1950s Vietnam," Richard Phillips, World Socialist Web Site, 2002, webpage: [http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/tqam-d17.shtml WSWS-TQA-d17] .] The film, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, and Giorgia Moll, was critically well-received, though not considered a box office success.

The film script was written by Mankiewicz, with uncredited input from CIA officer Edward Lansdale, who was often said to be the actual inspiration for the American character "Pyle," played by Murphy.

The film was also dedicated to Ngo Dinh Diem,Fact|date=November 2007 the U.S.-backed president of South Vietnam who took office shortly after the novel's publication. In a Hollywood still recovering from the blacklist of American communists, the film stirred a controversy, as Graham Greene was furious that his anti-American message was excised,and he disavowed the Mankiewicz film as a "propaganda film for America."

Plot

Set in Saigon during 1952, as the Vietnamese national liberation forces are delivering some major strikes against the French colonial rulers, the film unfolds along the framework of a complex love story and murder mystery with political intrique.

The film departed from Greene's premise at the end of the book, sanitizing Pyle's moral culpability, and portraying the Communists as actually responsible for the terrorist acts that, in the novel, were provocations by anti-Communists. This removed the anti-American sentiment of the book. It is also important to note that the movie refused to allow Fowler to win back Phuong at the end.

ee also

* "The Quiet American" - the novel upon which the movie is based.
* "The Quiet American (2002 film)" - 2002 film adaptation.

Notes

External links

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* [http://thedisparate.blogspot.com/2007/05/quiet-american1958.html An Article About 'The Quiet American']
* http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/20/specials/greene-quiet.html