THE QUIET AMERICAN (1958; 2002)

During his lifetime, Hollywood adaptations of Graham Greene’s more prestigious titles (as opposed to his ‘entertainments’) ran roughshod over core ideas.  THE FUGITIVE/’47 lost its defining alcoholism; the miracle at THE END OF THE AFFAIR/’55 is missing; and in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s adaptation of Greene’s prescient Vietnam novel, set near the end of French involvement, THE QUIET AMERICAN’s presumed guilt as an agent of war is revealed to his British war correspondent rival as misread innocence.  This flip, along with the shallow inadequacy of Audie Murphy in a title role requiring more layers than an onion, all that’s remembered about the film.  (Yet didn’t Greene do much the same sort of reversal when he adapted his own short story into THE FALLEN IDOL/’48?*  A motivating crime now revealed as an accident.)  If only Phillip Noyce’s relatively faithful remake of 2002 cleared up our choice.  Instead, swings & roundabouts.  More atmosphere and a young Asian beauty as the mistress clouding the thinking of two rivals in ‘03.  Mankiewicz, shooting in Rome, hired an Italian actress to play this mutual obsession.  Yet it’s Robert Krasker’s photo-journalistic b&w that gives the nearly contemporary-with-events 1958 version an of-the-moment/newsworthy vibe.  Surprisingly, the film’s major action set piece, when communist forces from the North attack a military lookout tower where the rivals are stuck overnight, is better organized under Mankiewicz.*  In the remake, Brendan Fraser far outdistances Murphy as the not so naive and sentimental American, his fat, friendly baby-face growing progressively leaner and less flushed from the tropical heat, signaling his connection with a new military force splitting the difference between Communist North & French-supported Capitalist South.  The choice trickier between Michael Caine, very good but a tired 70 when this was made, and the often astonishing Michael Redgrave, a lean 50 and the more believable newsman.  Lastly, in easy hindsight, the use of cascading Vietnam headlines from the '60s to wrap up the 2003 version feels cheap. 

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: See Greene reverse his own work (probably for the better) in THE FALLEN IDOL/’48.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/fallen-idol-1948.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *More typical of Mankiewicz’s disinterest in visually getting story or character points across is a telling goof when Murphy & his new dog call on Redgrave at home.  The camera starts on Murphy before panning down to show he’s got a dog with him.  How much more effective to have started on the dog before panning up to reveal Murphy as the owner.