The Quiet American (1958)

Cast: Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, Claude Dauphin, Georgia Moll, Kerima

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Rating: NR

Running Time: 120 min.

Synopsis: The Quiet American was the first major American-financed film to touch upon the powder-keg situation in Vietnam (still referred to as Indochina in 1958). Audie Murphy plays an enigmatic American who comes to Saigon, ostensibly on an economic mission. He meets an embittered journalist (Michael Redgrave) who is living with an Indochinese girl (Giorgia Moll). The American falls for the girl and promises to marry her. In retaliation, the reporter tells the communists that the American GI's economist stance is a cover, and that he is actually selling munitions to non-communist troops. Graham Greene had intended his novel The Quiet American to be an attack against American influence in Southeast Asia. Producer/director/adapter Joseph L. Mankiewicz would have none of that, so he changed the ending into a pro-Yankee tract -- thereby killing any impact the film might have had.