The Quiet American is a 1958 American drama romance thriller war film. It was the first film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name, and one of the first films to deal with the geo-politics of Indochina. It was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and stars Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, and Giorgia Moll. It was critically well-received, but was not considered a box-office success.

Plot

In 1952 Saigon, the body of Alden Pyle, a young American, is found dead near a river during the Chinese New Year celebration. Thomas Fowler, a British journalist, had invited Pyle to his flat. Inspector Vigot, who is investigating the drowning murder of Pyle, interrogates Fowler, who declines to verify whether Pyle and Fowler's former Vietnamese lover, Phuong, were engaged. At a morgue, Fowler identifies the corpse is indeed Pyle. As Fowler recollects, a flashback occurs.