ABSTRACT
‘The Quiet American’ seems like an oxymoron. Aren't Americans supposed to be loud? The title reflects Graham Greene's anti-Americanism, aimed above all at Monroe-doctrine foreign policy and the stealthy off-stage involvements in the affairs of other nations. ‘Quiet’ here means more than personal qualities of reserve or modesty, suggested for instance by John Wayne's ‘quiet’ man, and points in all three versions (novel and two films) to political strategies of interference and manipulation. Fowler, the English journalist soon to be embroiled in the ‘quiet American's’ political meddling, describes him in a way that underlines his superficial deviation from stereotype, but the reader is intended to look ahead beyond stereotype towards political meaning: ‘He's a good chap in his way. Serious. Not one of those noisy bastards at the Continental. A quiet American’ (Greene 2001: 17). The novel carried in their pockets by every journalist covering the Vietnam war (French 2002: 9), met with predictably negative reviews in the USA on its publication in 1955. The release of the first film version (Mankiewicz, 1958) fared little better, though Bosley Crowther, noting its moderation of the American's ‘villainy’, finds reasons for approval (1970: 3042). Even more recently, Andrew Sarris continues to dismiss it as a ‘movie with a message’ (2002: 13). Although Godard thought it was the best film of the year (Lower and Palmer 2001: 17), and Eric Rohmer considered it ‘admirable’ (1958: 46), British reviewers of the time tended to be uncomplimentary, especially over its reformulation of the ending, absolving the American from any involvement as a covert CIA agent in the political fortunes of a country facing a communist challenge to French colonial rule in the early 1950s.
