This is the book I mentioned a few weeks ago, about the making of first film version of The Quiet American. I'm not sure where the notion that it was about the government meddling with the film came with, whether my dad misunderstood what was in it or I misunderstood what he said about it, because that's not evident in the text.
A lot of things went wrong with this film, but the kind of things that go wrong with a lot of movies. Mankiewicz originally wanted Laurence Olivier and Montgomery Clift for his two leads, and went 0-for-2 for various reasons. I've never been all that impressed with Clift in the things I've seen him in, but if you want Clift and get Audie Murphy, that's probably not ideal. Murphy coming down with appendicitis shortly after reaching Saigon, which limited his availability, and what he was physically capable of doing, as Mankiewicz apparently had more action in his script originally. They really didn't use much footage from the months spent in Vietnam, with most of the scenes that go in the film being shot in Italy.
Russo also explains why we saw so little of Pyle and Phuong's courtship in the movie, because Murphy and Giorgia Moll couldn't demonstrate any romantic chemistry in the scenes filmed. Which tracks with Murphy's inability to fake it if he doesn't feel it. Although Mankiewicz apparently wanted it to be a torrid, passionate romance between young lovers. I've tended to picture Pyle, in the book and the film adaptations, as too straitlaced for that. Like, he's got to marry Phuong first.
But the script seemed to be the single biggest issue. From how Russo writes it, no one except Mankiewicz was actually happy with the script. Redgrave and Murphy, in possibly the only thing those two agreed on, felt the script was way overwritten. Both wanted edits made to the script, and both received assurances there would edits be made. But it doesn't seem like any edits were made until the film itself was hacked to pieces in an effort to trim it from over 3 hours of material to around 100 minutes.
The book is organized roughly chronologically, starting at Mankiewicz trying to get his two stars, but within that broad outline there are some curious choices. Russo will spend most of a chapter detailing Graham Greene's displeasure with the movie based on what he'd heard about the script (as they hadn't even started filming yet.) Then he'll spend the last handful of pages in that chapter discussing the choice of Giorgia Moll to play Phuong, and whether Mankiewicz actually entertained choosing a Vietnamese actress for the role, or if that was just another of those things he paid lip service to. Which feels like it would have been better saved for a chapter focused on Moll, if Russo had taken the approach of devoting each chapter to specific people, as they became relevant to the filming.
The book could also use some editing. Awkward transitions abound, and just a lot of phrases that are clunky or poorly arranged. Russo will mention a particular event once - some of the crew using a day off from shooting to visit Angkor Wat - in the context of a rare moment where Redgrave seems in good spirits. Then he'll mention the same event again in a later chapter, in reference to some other person, but write it like he never mentioned it before. It's just strange, and pulls me out of the narrative.
'Though Mankiewicz had agreed during their courtship period that Redgrave could edit the verbose script to his liking, by the time they were in Saigon, the director had changed his mind. The one pattern made clear during the preliminaries of the picture was that Mankiewicz made grandiose promises to all members of the cast and production staff about altering the script. He gave the impression he spent hours in re-write. In fact, the director seemed to have simply stonewalled all the requests. Mankiewicz never intended to change a word of his script.'
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