jeremy3 Brando appeared a bit over the top in films like The Wild Ones, On The Waterfront, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now. Having just seen this film for the first time, I compare this role to The Chase (1966) where Brando plays a sheriff in a Texas town humbled by his duties. In The Ugly American, based upon the 1958 novel, Brando plays an LBJ like journalist who becomes ambassador to the fictitious southeast Asia country of Sarkan (but very clearly really Vietnam). The film was made while JFK was President, but there are great similarities to Brando's Ambassador MacWhite and LBJ. Brando plays a moderate to liberal Democrat who faces an uphill confirmation hearing due to the skepticism of hawkish Senator Brenner (Judson Laire). Laire is a virulent anti communist who is both wrongly and rightly concerned that a journalist who just fought the Japanese in WWII in Sarkan has any experience to be the ambassador of the country of Sarkan in the late 1950s. The main argument MacWhite makes is that he is good friends with Deung (Eiji Okada), the powerful nationalist opposition leader in Sarkan. MacWhite is confirmed but he is nearly killed by a mob that greets him at the airport. MacWhite may be liberal leaning politically, but he is still 100% a former military man. MacWhite naively believes that it is all about America being the "good" force for progress against "Communism". MacWhite meets his old friend Deong, but then foolishly starts an argument over the value of building the "freedom road" to the north border of the country, which MacWhite sees as progress, and Deong (with wide popular support) sees as American imperialism. MacWhite denounces Deong as a "communist" and they become enemies. MacWhite insists on continuing the building of the "freedom road" to the border with the communist neighbors, despite several people telling him that it will just provoke the paranoia of the communists and be seen by the majority of Sarkans will resist it as cultural and economic imperialism. Eventually, his stubbornness and persistence results in a civil war. Prime Minister Sai (Kukrit Pramo) demonstrates that he is a very wise leader, in contract to MacWhite's foolhardy arrogance. Prime Minister Sai finally convinces MacWhite that Deong is not a communist, Deong himself will be betrayed by the communists, and that Sarkan may fall to the Communists unless the U.S. military intervenes. I really liked this movie, because Brando's character does realize, albeit probably too late, the errors of his thinking. MacWhite saw everything in "black" and "white" and failed to see what was truly going on in Sarkan. MacWhite tries too late to warn the American people to go back to the principles of our own revolution and show the World that we are for these principles, not lecturing other cultures about how to live.

elshikh4 I have been cheated. The film's title, the name of (Marlon Brando) – as the star who refused the Oscar for the way the red Indians were portrayed in Hollywood – , and as a film about how America was treating the Asian nations during the cold war, all of that fooled me perfectly, giving me false hope to watch an objective work. Because after all, it's just a piece of propaganda from the 1960s.It tried to be a story about the friendship of 2 good men with 2 different points of view in an ocean of big problems. It tried, a bit, to display that the American hero isn't all flawless. But it ended up as a Hollywood film about the goodness of America and the evilness, or the stupidity, of the rest! Let's simply review what it did say : the American is a peace-loving man, America got no military greed whatsoever in Asia (HA HAA HAAA !), the eastern bloc is bad, just bad, and doesn't want anything but to kill and seize, the Asian developing country's public leader is so deluded, knowing nothing about America's kindhearted face, thinking "wrongly" that they cared about his country just as a new playground for the cold war ??? (Actually he isn't an idiot, but maybe the writer of this film is !).The first half is so powerful with 3 great scenes; the congress's open session for interrogating (Mac) the nominee ambassador, the first meeting of this new ambassador with his staff, and surely the master scene of that bullfight of a squabble between him and his good old friend/the public leader (Deong) over America's real aims.After that, things grew less solid. I totally couldn't accept the agreement between the eastern bloc and (Deong). The approval of the last was fast and forced. I don't believe for a second that this man, who rejects truthfully and publicly that his country turns into a grass for the east or the west, can be incredibly dumb to hand his very country over a full gang of communist nations so easily !?? Let alone that the absence of "Munsang", the local communist leader, out of the drama weakened (Deong)'s character and darkened his change.Then the adolescent reaction from the American ambassador which pushed things to explosion; I felt it extremely unwise for his character to think like this. And it was strange that the Asian president approved it as well. Anyway, not the monologue of "what happened to us" that the lead tells his friend by the end could set things right. With fabricated, nearly incomprehensible, moments like executing the poor local farmer by the hands of the communists in front of his wife and kids it became clear what kind of loud propaganda we're watching (25 years later, watch the capitalists do the same crime with the same people while nearly the same days, however in Oliver Stone's movies about the filthy American war in Vietnam!). And it can't get any clearer when the dying public leader says to his people and us, after murdering him by the hands of his closest right hands (not any other !), that "Mansang" is the enemy not the American ambassador, as if it's "The eastern bloc is bad. America is good" !!!Maybe this kind of movies was bearable at the days of Kennedy (even the lead's wife is so similar to Kennedy's), where the noble aims weren't killed in the daylight yet. But after Vietnam then Iraq (and during the cold war itself) they're nothing but big colorful and so polished lies. It's electrifying to listen to the speech of (Deong) about America that makes the tyrants then overthrows them, not for the pure profit of their people, but for America's one. I believe after 50 years hearing hot lines like "Wall street that sells tanks" or "your democracy is a fraud" became so bitter. It took some years and couple of wars to make the American real aims, that (Deong) talked about, naked and true. So naked and true to an extent uncovers how (Brando)'s character is very naive ! Hence while the finale's harangue that (Brando) gives, completes the work's basic mission as ideal liberal advertisement, it didn't hold a candle to the image that we saw for the non-Americans in the film, and the American we know out of the film, the real ugly one !Artistically it's watchable and classy. I loved the most the scene in which (Brando)'s character discovers that his wartime buddy isn't and wasn't a communist, the big cadre embodied the enormity of his surprise shockingly; part of my love comes from the fact that this kind of cadres has become no fashion in Hollywood nowadays. And despite how terrible the English of (Eiji Okada) as (Deong) was sometimes, but he was utterly believable, and his enthusiasm along with his rage were untouched. I only thought that (Brando) did his best at the first half, then did the opposite at the second; he stopped talking from his heart anymore and began speaking from his throat, as if he wasn't satisfied with the material he does. If I assumed honesty in it; then it was another time, with utopian spirit. And accordingly its only value that could stay over the years would be its theoretical bona fide. Otherwise, I have been cheated. And after ages of these movies – and nothing else them –, so the rest of the world. It's hard to see America treating the developing nations this nice, since experiencing it with these nations in reality assured how "treat" and "tread" are almost the same thing. In all cases, they should have called it (The Very Beautiful American), the one we don't see unless in films !

kdobronyi I was in Viet Nam from June 1963 to March 1964. We saw "The Ugly American" at the American movie theatre in Saigon, the Capitol Kinh Do.There were many Americans and their dependents in Saigon and in Viet Nam at this time--most were isolated with cocktail parties, teas, and American activities. Most American children went to the American Community School outside of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Their parents belonged to the exclusive Cercle Sportiff, hobnobbing with the Vietnamese elite who monetarily benefited from the war. There were opportunities for American civilians to teach the Vietnamese English, but I never knew of any opportunities for Americans to learn Vietnamese or national customs.Many of the children of the diplomatic corps were instructed that if their shirt tails hung out or if they ate with their fingers when eating implements were available, they would be considered "ugly Americans." Nothing was said about the teenage boys drinking, whoring, and racing their motorcycles through the darkened Saigon streets in the early morning hours. Nothing was said about how we knew the way to "win" the war against the popular nationalist freedom fighter known as Ho Chi Minh who organized the successful campaigns against the Japanese and French occupiers.Perhaps if we had listened a little more, learned the language and customs, and understood that the desire for national freedom is not communism, we wouldn't still be trying to "win" the Vietnam War.

x_hydra Years ago, I loved reading "The Ugly American," so when I saw this film at the video store, I had high hopes. Unfortunately there is little similar between Lederer and Burdick's work and this cinematic dreck.The book is a story of the complexity of diplomacy, and of the multiple ways some people get it right and some people get it wrong, set it a fictional Indo-Chinese country.The total sum of the movie's attempt to represent complexity are people with different opinions about the state of affairs in the country. And in the end we find out exactly how they were all along. This is not complexity, this is not the ambiguity present in the wonderful book. The screenwriters have taken a plot about fundamental errors in approach, empathy, and understanding, and made it into a movie about people who have minor disagreements on the facts (and eventually are shown the 'correct' interpretation).The book follows a multitude of characters. The movie follows one character, a very hammy Brando, and barely even references anybody else as being significant.The ugly engineer from the book has a total of about 5 minutes screenplay in the movie! The sleazy, foolish newspaper man the same! These were CRITICAL and CRUCIAL characters in the book, and they are given barely a mention in the movie! The title of the book/movie was in part referring to these characters as well! It is a bad sign when a movie practically eliminates the title characters from the book it is based on.The book was a tremendous statement about the difficulties of diplomacy and the errors made in Indo-China just before the outbreak of the Vietnam war. The movie is an hour and a half of barely watchable crap. This is perhaps one of Brando's worst performances -- he is practically a parody of himself with eyebrow raised, head titled musings and statements about the lessons his characters learns.The book was complicated, subtle, and had incredible depth. The movie is simple, base, and shallow. If you liked the book, you'll hate it. If you haven't read the book, you'll still get nothing out of it. There are far too many better films out there on this topic to waste time with this one.