So much for freedom of speech.
As is noted in Dangerous Edge, Greene was the first novelist to see that Vietnam was going to become of enormous global political significance. Mankiewicz perverted Greene's novel by justifying American involvement in the war by means of the Domino Theory. Greene was incensed. It compounded his suspicion of collusion between American political elites and Hollywood.
Harvey Weinstein initially refused to release the 2002 remake, which follows the book more faithfully, in the US on account of it being "unpatriotic". Why a non-American film maker would have to adhere to American patriotism is beyond me, but there you go. It was only after the film received critical acclaim at the Toronto film festival, and under pressure from the likes of Michael Caine, that it was given a limited US release. Collusion between American political elites and Hollywood is stronger than ever.
sharei wouldn't call it collusion
i'd call self-censorship. it's still bad and it's still a problem but there is a distinction to be made here.
Greene based the titular character played by Audie Murphy on C.I.A. agent Edward Lansdale, who, as head of the Saigon Military Mission, was organizing the Caodaist militias under Trình Minh Thế.
When Mankiewicz was in Saigon scouting locations, he met with Lansdale and struck up a friendship. It was Lansdale who was instrumental in perverting Greene's message in the adaptation of the book. In a letter from to Mankiewicz, Lansdale informs that it was Trình Minh Thế who was responsible for the explosion in front of the Continental Hotel, having obtained the explosives directly from the French. He goes on to write:
...in keeping with your treatment of this actually being a Communist action, I'd suggest that you just go right ahead and let it be finally revealed that the Communists did it after all, even to faking the radio broadcast...
Well, if Mankiewicz didn't agree with the book's point of view, he shouldn't have turned it into a movie. That simple.
And, Audie Murphy's rah-rah patriotism doesn't begin to make up for his stiff and unconvincing acting. Redgrave is a hundred acting levels above him.
Murphy killed hundreds of Nazis
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