The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene.
Audie Leon Murphy was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II, and has been described as the most highly decorated enlisted soldier in U.S. history. He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at age 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded.
Edward Geary Lansdale was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in clandestine operations and psychological warfare. In the early 1950s, Lansdale played a significant role in suppressing the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines. In 1954, he moved to Saigon and started the Saigon Military Mission, a covert intelligence operation which was created to sow dissension in North Vietnam. Lansdale believed the United States could win guerrilla wars by studying the enemy's psychology, an approach that won the approval of the presidential administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in consecutive years for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter of which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six.
Trình Minh Thế was a Vietnamese nationalist and Cao Dai military leader during the end of the First Indochina War and the beginning of the Vietnam War.
The Young Lions is a 1958 American epic World War II drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin. It was made in black-and-white and CinemaScope and was theatrically released by 20th Century-Fox. The film is based on the 1948 novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw.
Joseph Buttinger was an Austrian politician and, after his immigration to the United States, an expert on East Asia. He co-founded the American Friends of Vietnam, a Cold War lobbying group.
The cinema of Vietnam originates in the 1920s and was largely influenced by wars that have been fought in the country from the 1940s to the 1970s.
The Quiet American is a 2002 political drama film directed by Phillip Noyce, and stars Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan is adapted from Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name set in Vietnam.
Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 Southern Gothic psychological drama mystery film based on the 1958 play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. The film was shot in England and Spain. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Williams with cinematography by Jack Hildyard and production design by Oliver Messel. The musical score was composed by Buxton Orr, using themes by Malcolm Arnold.
The Hôtel Continental is a hotel in District 1, the central district of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hotel is located at the corner of Đồng Khởi Street and Lam Sơn Square, by the Saigon Municipal Theatre. It was built in 1880 during the French colonial period and named after the Hôtel Continental in Paris. The hotel has undergone refurbishments over the years, while still maintaining the essence of its original architecture and style. The hotel is owned by the state-owned Saigon Tourist.
The Gun Runners is a 1958 American film noir crime film directed by Don Siegel, is the third adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel To Have and Have Not, and starring Audie Murphy. Everett Sloane essays the part of the alcoholic sidekick originally played by Walter Brennan in the film's first adaptation, although Sloane's interpretation is less overtly comic. Eddie Albert delivers a bravura performance as a charismatic villain; other cast members include Jack Elam and Richard Jaeckel. Gita Hall, "Miss Stockholm of 1953", made her Hollywood film debut as Albert's girlfriend Eva.
Giorgia Moll is an Italian film actress. She was sometimes credited as Georgia Moll and Georgia Mool.
The 1954 to 1959 phase of the Vietnam War was the era of the two nations. Coming after the First Indochina War, this period resulted in the military defeat of the French, a 1954 Geneva meeting that partitioned Vietnam into North and South, and the French withdrawal from Vietnam, leaving the Republic of Vietnam regime fighting a communist insurgency with USA aid. During this period, North Vietnam recovered from the wounds of war, rebuilt nationally, and accrued to prepare for the anticipated war. In South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm consolidated power and encouraged anti-communism. This period was marked by U.S. support to South Vietnam before Gulf of Tonkin, as well as communist infrastructure-building.
In 1955, the Prime Minister of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm faced a severe challenge to his rule over South Vietnam from the Bình Xuyên criminal gang and the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects. In the Battle of Saigon in April, Diệm's army eliminated the Bình Xuyên as a rival and soon also reduced the power of the sects. The United States, which had been wavering in its support of Diệm before the battle, strongly supported him afterwards. Diệm declined to enter into talks with North Vietnam concerning an election in 1956 to unify the country. Diệm called a national election in October and easily defeated Head of State Bảo Đại, thus becoming President of South Vietnam.
In 1958, the upswing in violence against the government of South Vietnam continued, much of which was committed by the communist-dominated insurgents now called the Viet Cong (VC). In South Vietnam, President Ngo Dinh Diem appeared to be firmly in power, although many American officials expressed concern about the repressive nature of his regime. The United States continued to finance most of the budget of the government of South Vietnam. North Vietnam continued to campaign for reunification with the South while focusing on its internal economic development, but pressure from hard-pressed communists in the South was forcing the North to contemplate a more active military role in overthrowing the Diem government.
Audie Murphy was a highly decorated American soldier and Medal of Honor recipient who turned actor. He portrayed himself in the film To Hell and Back, the account of his World War II experiences. During the 1950s and 1960s he was cast primarily in westerns. While often the hero, he proved his ability to portray a cold-blooded hired gun in No Name on the Bullet. A notable exception to the westerns was The Quiet American in which he co-starred with Michael Redgrave. Murphy made over 40 feature films and often worked with directors more than once. Jesse Hibbs who directed To Hell and Back worked with the star on six films, only half of which were westerns. When promoting his 1949 book To Hell and Back he appeared on the radio version of This Is Your Life. To promote the 1955 film of the same name, he appeared on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town. He was a celebrity guest on television shows such as What's My Line? and appeared in a handful of television dramas. Murphy's only television series Whispering Smith had a brief run in 1961. For his cooperation in appearing in the United States Army's Broken Bridge episode of The Big Picture television series he was awarded the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.
When 1954 began, the French had been fighting the insurgent communist-dominated Viet Minh for more than seven years attempting to retain control of their colony Vietnam. Domestic support for the war by the population of France had declined. The United States was concerned and worried that a French military defeat in Vietnam would result in the spread of communism to all the countries of Southeast Asia—the domino theory—and was looking for means of aiding the French without committing American troops to the war.
Miriam Charrière, better known as Kerima is a French former actress best known for her role in the 1951 British film Outcast of the Islands. For publicity reasons, she was portrayed as having exotic origins including claims that she was Javanese or Algerian.
