Philip Noyce's film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American was a huge success. He remained faithful to the script and maintained the core essence of the characters; taking them out of the pages of the book and visually transforming them into marvels on the screen. The previous film based on the book was made in 1958 by Joseph Mankiewicz. Fowler was played by Michael Redgrave, with Audie Murphy as Pyle. This version was, however, forced to reverse the political stance Greene took in the book, meaning it didn't have nearly as much of an impact as Noyce's production. Noyce chose to film in real, uncompromising Vietnamese locations, boldly sticking to the novel and not letting the Americans out of the story too kindly. The Vietnamese conflict, its roots, its effects and its way of life, were captured brilliantly with Brendan Fraser portraying the deceptively innocent but devious Pyle, and Michael Caine as Fowler, the elderly and unhappy journalist. The most obvious problem encountered when translating this story which has been described as a Drama/Thriller/Romance/War all rolled into one is the fact that the book was written in first person and the film is presented in third person. This meant that extra scenes were added into the film that weren't actually part of the novel itself, although that being said they filled in gaps and made certain aspects of the film much more obvious and easier for the audience to understand. Films are obviously made based on the type of audience they are aimed at and Noyce naturally decided to aim for a more mainstream audience. To satisfy the demands of the mainstream audience he had to adapt the story in third person, in order to give a more balanced or better complete representation of the events, and to allow us to discover more clearly what is happening. other characters were doing and thinking. It also allowed for what turned out to be slightly different interpretations of the main characters. Thomas Fowler is the most sinister character in the novel. Despite his obvious wit, he is very cynical and has an almost pessimistic view of human relationships. In the novel we are slightly softer towards Pyle, because Fowler is quite bitter. He says he doesn't care about Phuong's interests, he just wants her and her body, and that he would rather have a woman he doesn't love in the room with him than no woman at all...