REAL INSIGHTS INTO AUDIE MURPHY!

books:

	• A Thinker's Damn: Audie Murphy, Vietnam, and the Making of the Quiet American William Russo Xlibris Corporation, 2001 - 245 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What was going on?

I have an interest in war, Japanese and Asian affairs. Amazon recommended The Quiet American with Michael Caine. Somewhat a Caine fan, I ordered it and liked it for what it implied about early US involvement in Vietnam. Amazon then recommended the dvd version with Audie Murphy and Michael Redgrave which I tried. That was different. What was going on? What had Graham Greene really written? Ordered and read new Penguin edition. Both film versions took liberties. Why? Amazon suggested A Thinker's Damn by Willima Russo, which finally sorted out for me why the Murphy/Redgrave version differed from the Greene book. Russo also filled in a huge number of additional details and insights about this first film version. The two dvds and the two books provide a very good look at book to film adaptations, and three people's impressions about US policy in early Vietnam. I wonder if Russo has written about the Michael Caine version; it is the one I prefer, even though I am a fan of Michael Redgrave who portrays Fowler in the early film. A good number of photographs illustrate this book.

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Special Book!

What I like most about this book is that it takes a few months from 1957 on a film location and tells how it feels to be there. The movie was not great, and it was forgotten soon enough. Yet, the atmosphere of film making and the camaraderie of the crew and cast is just a wonderful experience. Yes, they had some terrible times, with ego clashing and scandals covered up, but it is such a nostalgic little story, reading like a novel. All the people in the story, Audie Murphy and Michael Redgrave, mostly are fascinating, and how nice to have a special look at them. I truly enjoyed this armchair escape to another time and another place. Thanks!

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A Thoughtful Damn

This really is a marvelous book--full of all the details and asides that you don't get to read elsewhere. I found it amusing as well as informative. The author, Dr. Russo, clearly knows his subject--and shares his knowledge in a very entertaining way.

REAL INSIGHTS INTO AUDIE MURPHY!

This book has info about Audie that is not anywhere else. The author interviewed people close to Audie who never have talked about him before for publication. The movie The Quiet American was a special project for him, according to his best friend Willard Willingham. He soon hated doing it because Vietnam, even in 1957, was not a pleasant place before the war. This book reads like a novel but is all true. If you really want insights into Audie Murphy, you must read this book. Despite all that happened, he knew what he had to do. He was not just an actor. He was a hero--and in the Quiet American, he played the part to perfection. There is another remake of the movie now filmed, but nothing can top the original.

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Special Book!

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reviews: page 1, 2

A tale of the unmaking of the first American movie filmed in Vietnam in 1957, the scandalous and disasterous undertaking is finally exposed. Surviving cast and crew members explain a contorted drama behind the scenes as Audie Murphy goes to Vietnam, foreshadowing the war-to-come. It depicts Hollywood at its worst!

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