The setting is the present day in Sarkhan, a fictional Southeast Asian country roiled by civil unrest and divided between the Communist North Sarkhan and South Sarkhan. Americans and Sarkhanese are building a "Freedom Road" in Sarkhan, which anti-American Sarkhanese view as an exercise in American imperialism of no value to the people. As the film begins, saboteurs murder a U.S. worker on the highway and send his truck plunging down an embankment, making it look as if he were drunk. A local worker is killed. One of the saboteurs rails against the death and ascribes it to American imperialism.
In Washington, hearings are held on a new American ambassador to Sarkhan. The nominee is Harrison MacWhite, a journalist and World War II veteran who had become acquainted with Sarkhan during the war. At the hearing, Senator Brenner grills MacWhite about his qualifications, including his links to Deong, an old friend of MacWhite he had met during the war. Deong has become Sarkhan's most prominent revolutionary leader. Brenner reads an article quoting Deong sounding hostile and anti-American; MacWhite says the quote is old and taken out of context and that he believes Deong is a man of honor.
When MacWhite and his wife arrive in Sarkhan, a mob of rebels swarms the airport and attacks his car, even crashing a wooden board through the window close to his wife. The furious MacWhite asks why his staff didn't warn him about the danger and threatens to fire them if they fail again.
That night, MacWhite is pleased to reunite with Deong at his home.They get drunk together and discuss politics, leaving MacWhite disturbed. He drives around the city, thinking about it. When MacWhite returns to Deong's home late that night, the men fight bitterly over politics; MacWhite leaves believing Deong is a Communist.
MacWhite decides that the Freedom Road should be rerouted to a more provocative location, close to the border with North Sarkhan. He convinces the Sarkhanese government to go along with this. Its prime minister reluctantly agrees, on condition that the U.S. Seventh Fleet intervene if necessary.
MacWhite and his wife travel to the countryside where they encounter Homer and Emma Atkins, a benevolent American couple running charity operations benefitting the people. Homer tells him that the Freedom Road the Americans are helping to build is seen by many Sarkhanese as an imperialist project. He says the planned rerouting of the road is a bad idea, but MacWhite insists.
Deong secretly visits Communist leaders―Soviet, Chinese, North Sarkhanese―in a forest, saying he'll consider their offers of arms and other aid. He demands that they eschew violence.
Rebel cadres led by Deong sabotage the Freedom Road opening, attended by Sarkhan's king and by MacWhite and his wife, causing a fiasco and casualties.
Foreign parachutists land in Sarkhan. The prime minister asks MacWhite for American military intervention, and he proves to MacWhite that there is a Communist plot to assassinate Deong after Deong has seized power. He says that Deong has been betrayed; he is not a Communist but a "dupe". The prime minister is willing to form a coalition government with Deong, who is holding a vigil demanding immediate ouster of the government.
MacWhite visits Deong and convinces him that the Communists plan to kill him. Deong is shot in front of MacWhite; as he dies, Deong tells a deputy to form a coalition government.
The Seventh Fleet intervenes. MacWhite realizes he misjudged Deong, was too simplistic and arrogant about his own beliefs, and had not credited Deong with the same drive for independence as held by America's own founders. MacWhite discusses this during a television address in an appeal to every American; as he is about to discuss what would be good American policy, an "average American" TV viewer turns off the address in mid-speech.
Cast
Marlon Brando as Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite
The film version of the novel was made in 1963 and starred Marlon Brando as Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite. Reiko Sato was cast as Rachani at the urging of Brando, who had dated her years prior.[5][6]
The screenplay was written by Stewart Stern, and the film was produced and directed by George Englund. The film was shot mainly in Hollywood, with Thailand serving as the inspiration for the background sceneries. Parts of the film were also shot on locations in Bangkok, Thailand, including at Chulalongkorn University, one of the leading institutes of higher learning of the country.
Critical reaction
The Ugly American received mixed reviews and was completely overwhelmed by a number of more popular films that year.[7] The film won no Golden Globes and was not nominated for an Oscar. It did poorly at the box office and was not among the top 25 grossing films of 1963.[8]
The New York Times reported that Brando “moves through the whole picture with authority and intelligence,” and the New York Daily News said it was “one of Brando’s best performances.” But the negative view was reflected by the critic in Time who wrote that Brando “attempts an important voice but most of the time he sounds like a small boy in a bathtub imitating Winston Churchill” and called it a “lousy picture.”[9]
Having analyzed six reviews written between 2003 and 2021, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes categorized four of them as being positive, for an overall rating of 67% with a rating average of 6.1/10.[10]
Of twenty-three reviews examined by historian Jon Cowans, fourteen were positive, five negative, and four neutral or mixed. Brando had given interviews where he questioned American Cold War politics, and some reviewers agreed, but few of these reviews mentioned that the film was set in a country very much like Vietnam.
Only a few mentioned the point that, as The Dallas Morning News put it, one should “not assume that nationalism is inevitably anti-American,” and The New Republic was unusual in adding that “American blindness ... has driven many people particularly Asians, towards communism.” Some called Senator Brenner the real “ugly American” and objected to his McCarthyite tactics. The New York Post wrote that the film presented the dilemma that when Americans supported dictators, the Communists “make common revolutionary cause with the downtrodden.” Many East Coast reviews, however, objected to the film’s “oversimplification” of the issues.
The Washington Post wrote it was “nothing more than a western about the bad guys and the good guys.”[9]TV Guide in a review says 'Although well-intentioned, THE UGLY AMERICAN simply isn't a very good film. Part of the problem is that producer-director George Englund, a friend of star Brando, isn't much of a director, and as a result the film is static and ponderous. Brando once again turns in an interesting performance, but as demonstrated in many of his films of this period, one good performance does not a good film make'.[11]
Political impact
Kukrit Pramoj, a Thai politician and scholar, was hired as a cultural expert/advisor to the film and later played the role of Sarkhan's Prime Minister "Kwen Sai". Later on, in 1975, he, in fact, became the 13th Prime Minister of Thailand. Probably because of this, the word "Sarkhan" entered the Thai language as a nickname of Thailand itself, often with a slight self-deprecating or mocking tone.[12] Much of the 'Sarkhanese' spoken in the film is actually Thai.
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References
↑ "Top Rental Films of 1963", Variety, 8 January 1964 p 37. Please note this figure is film rentals accruing to distributors, not gross takings.
1 2 Cowans, Jon (2010). "A Deepening Disbelief: The American Movie Hero in Vietnam, 1958-1968". Journal of American-East Asian Relations. 17 (4): 324–351. doi:10.1163/187656111x564306., p. 333-339.
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