The Quiet American

In the early 1950s, the English journalist Thomas Fowler finds himself caught between the fronts of the Indochina War when he meets the young American Pyle, who works for an American economic aid organization in Saigon. Because of him, Fowler is in danger of losing his beautiful Vietnamese girlfriend Phuong, which reinforces his mistrust of his young rival. He believes that he has a hand in bloody bomb attacks in Saigon, and this has deadly consequences.Four Pipes of Opium" was filmed with its exterior shots in Vietnam. It is said to have been the first (Western) feature film to be shot in this country. The interiors were created in the studios of Cinecittà (Rome). The German premiere of the film, which was shortened by 17 minutes compared to the US version, was on October 31, 1958.While Graham Greene deliberately gave his novel a critical tone towards the USA, the highly nationalistic, highly decorated former World War II soldier and actor Audie Murphy was only prepared to take on the title role of the nameless American in the film if the supposedly anti-American tone would disappear. And so the characterization of the title character in this Greene adaptation is completely different from that in the novel, and instead of criticizing American behaviour in Southeast Asia, this adaptation has a strong anti-communist bias.Like the original novel by Graham Greene, the film is called "The Quiet American". Even if Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film deviates from Graham Greene's original at the end, it is still one of the most successful Greene adaptations: The evocation of an uncertain political climate and the portrayal of the two main characters in particular - Audie Murphy as Pyle and Michael Redgrave as Fowler - cannot be undone even by the film's mendacious, because propaganda-driven, ending. in 2002, director Phillip Noyce remade the Greene story under the title "The Quiet American". He slipped into Murphy's role and Michael Caine received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his brilliant portrayal of the unscrupulous journalist.