The Quiet American

The next thing to do after seeing The Quiet American is to see the version done 44 years later. The novel by Graham Greene is set in French Indo-China in 1952 and this version is prophetic. The other one surely has the advantage of a whole lot of hindsight. This film done in 1958 has a lot of foresight.

I don't know what to make of Audie Murphy's character, it's never brought out, but he seems to be a CIA man. In the novel he's from the Ivy League, but due to Murphy's speech pattern, his character is from Texas. He's bringing in plastic for industrial purposes purportedly, but we see how the 'plastic' is really used.

The political picture of Indo-China in 1952 has the United States already seeing the French won't hold on and they're getting ready to put in their own surrogate in when the French do fall. Murphy is forever talking about a 'third force' who will bring western style democracy.

Murphy also becomes romantically involved with Giorgia Moll who is also the mistress of British newspaper correspondent Michael Redgrave. The rivalry between the two prevents either from acting coherently though Redgrave has a much better idea of what's really happening.

Interestingly enough the United Kingdom was also fighting to hold on in Malaya the same way that the French were trying to hold on to Indo-China next door. The British were far more successful though.

The Quiet American should have been seen by policy makers in Washington through six administrations in America. A lot of valuable lessons could have been learned and a lot of valuable lives might never have been lost.

Graham Greene did not have a comfortable vision of the world--or at least of the activities of human beings in the world. While very few movies do justice to books on which they are based, the Quiet American is a chilling forewarning of what the United States would be letting itself in for in the years to come. Murphy, always an appealing figure on the screen but not noted for truly great acting depth and breadth, is ideal for this understated role. A very well done thriller which addresses racism, colonialism, various "economic"isms, all the while focusing on the individual human impacts of high level decision-making. Are we just pawns, forced into just following orders, or do we have the responsibility to take action on the side of what we know to be right, in spite of the personal cost?

The Quiet American has a lot to live up to, because it is adapted from possibly the best book that Graham Greene ever wrote. However, it is a very well made and literate film which manages to make a reasonable stab at living up to the forbidding reputation of its source material.

Audie Murphy gives a career-best performance as the title character, an American living in Vietnam during the French incursion into the country. He believes that he can make a difference by providing funding for arms, but his political and economic beliefs often lead to death and destruction. A British journalist named Fowler (Michael Redgrave) befriends him, but soon their friendship is damaged when the young American has an affair with Fowler's Vietnamese mistress. In the end, Fowler ponders whether to betray the American to his enemies as an act of revenge for what the American has done to his love-life.

The film is powerful, absorbing and well-acted. It perhaps could be criticised for the extraordinarily high amount of dialogue (it's one of those films where if you stop listening for 30 seconds, you'll lose the plot) but that is probably the only true weakness. The themes of betrayal, colonialism, and the wisdom of interfering in the affairs of other nations, are handled thought-provokingly, and the moral dilemma facing the characters at the end are emotionally shattering. Redgrave gives a great performance, conveying the pain of his dilemma with aching conviction.

I loved the Graham Greene novel. I admit I picked it up secretly from my father's library when I was 15. It stayed with me. I knew about the existence of this 1958 version written and directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz but I had never seen it until now, thank you TCM. I had seen the 2002 with a terrific Michael Caine but the film - a more faithful version of Greene's novel according to the critics and it may be true but the 2002 version left me pleased but unmoved while the 1958 version is much more unsettling, in spite of some hard to understand choices by the filmmakers. Audie Murphy plays the quiet American, and he is, very quiet. Good looking a real life American war hero but he is not an actor and here he is sharing the frame with Michael Redgrave. Michael Redgrave! The other oddity is the casting of Italian Actress Giorgia Moll as the Vietnamese girl-in-the-middle. She's lovely but I repeat, she's Italian. No, the power force here is Michael Redgrave, A marvelous, fearless performance and that alone makes The Quiet American an absolute must.

It's 1952 Vietnam. The French are helping the locals fight the communist insurgents. They find the dead body of Alden Pyle (Audie Murphy). Thomas Fowler (Michael Redgrave) sees it but doesn't tell young Vietnamese girl Phuong (Giorgia Moll) who is desperately waiting for Alden. Inspector Vigot (Claude Dauphin) questions Fowler who tells him that Pyle was a quiet American. There was a love triangle between Phuong, world-weary Brit Fowler and wide-eyed do-gooder Pyle from a private aid organization. The movie is told in flashback as Pyle and Fowler meet a few months before. Pyle is importing plastics to replace production in China. Pyle wants to marry Phuong making Fowler jealous.

There is no excuse for changing the Graham Greene novel 180 degrees. They should have the decency to change the title although it's understandable in the Hollywood red scare era. Also it's still a time when white people play Hollywood lead ethnic characters. On the other hand, there are some good qualities. Redgrave is doing solid work. He gets that perfect cynicism. It also has some scenes in Vietnam which is very rare at the time. This has some of the murky morality but it turns that murkiness on its head. This has some good stuff but it is not Graham Greene's book.