Word: mankiewicz
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...ease with which the Englishman wins it, and by the oafishness with which the American loses. It is a cheap debating trick, and it cheapens the picture as it did the book. But the picture, in the last reel, suffers at the hands of Scriptwriter-Director Joseph Mankiewicz an even more drastic devaluation of its intellectual currency...
Despite the letdown at the end, the picture is well worth seeing for the buildup that precedes it. Mankiewicz is an intelligent director, and he keeps his actors on the jump and his story on the move. Moreover, for Americans, the picture carries a moral they will long have need to ponder: if it is more blessed to give than to receive, it is also a damned sight more difficult...
Hollywood Magic. Like Greene's naive hero himself, few Americans are capable of understanding the devious ramifications of Cao Dai, and it is doubtful if their number includes Hollywood Producer Joe Mankiewicz. On location in South Viet Nam to film the Greene novel, his concern was simply to get a good shot of the Holy See at festival time. Cao Dai's Pope Pham Cong Tac was in Cambodian exile when Mankiewicz arrived, having deemed it wise to flee the country after some trouble with the government last year concerning his Vestal Virgins, but Vice Pope...
...There will be no need to prepare anything," he told Mankiewicz. "Just come with your cameras and film our annual procession." Last week, trailed by a motorcade bearing some 50 technicians and actors, all well-armed with pith helmets, salt tablets and quinine pills, Mankiewicz journeyed to Tayninh. Meanwhile, prompted to some extent by the wishful thinking of the exile himself, word had spread among the Cao Dai faithful that Hollywood magic had somehow arranged for the return to Tayninh of Pope...
...Saigon last week to make a film of Greene's book, Hollywood Director Joe Mankiewicz was having trouble. He searched all the roads for miles around Saigon, could find not a single guard tower. Most towers have been dismantled; the rest have fallen into dilapidated ruins (Mankiewicz had to order one built). Greene's scruffy waterfront slum had also disappeared; Mankiewicz had to rebuild its shacks and dirty up the streets before he could begin filming...