Also, quick reader & listener poll: Does anyone listen to Amazon Music?
If so, do you listen to podcasts?
Here’s the link!
& here’s the news on upcoming episodes—on empire & freedom! I’ll be talking with Sam Goldman about America in Vietnam & Britain in Afghanistan.
Sam & I tend to talk novels & their film adaptations in parallel. This time, I proposed Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955), which was adapted in Hollywood twice. First, at the time, in a movie that turns Greene’s criticism of American do-gooderism into criticism of British cowardice!, starring Audie Murphy, the most decorated American soldier in WWII, as the American patriot, & Michael Redgrave as the corrupt Englishman. The movie makes no sense dramatically, the plot is frivolous & moralistic at the same time, but if you want to see Vietnam in 1958, it was filmed on location & it is a shock to think what followed only a few years later. The early scene of the Chinese New Year celebration is especially good:
Then, in 2002, the story was filmed as Greene intended it, with Michael Caine & Brendan Fraser, a movie I recommend warmly. Also, here’s the trailer—this is the nonsense studios were putting up in the 90s, which is part of the reason we have now ended up with even worse trailers…
Sam countered with The Man Who Would Be King, John Huston’s 1975 adaptation of Kipling’s story starring Michael Caine & Sean Connery. So we’ll be talking about that one next. Read the story, watch the movie—you’re in for a treat. Here’s a note: Kipling was 22 or 23 when he wrote that story. An astonishing talent. Huston was about 70 when he filmed it.
I do not use Amazon Music. Only Spotify. And yes, I listen to podcasts.