The Quiet Man

What's not to like about this picture? A classic directed by the legendary John Ford. John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara light up the screen. Wayne's performance is brilliant, but what really stands out is that he is playing a regular guy with real feelings and emotions--no army uniforms, no indians to fight, no cavalry coming to the rescue--just a great performance. The supporting cast is unmatched--including great performances by Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald and Ward Bond. Look closely for Ken Curtis (Festus, from Gunsmoke) in an uncredited role. The scenery is absolutly breathtaking--it makes me want to go home to Ireland--and I'm not even Irish. To top it off The Quiet Man has the greatest fist fight ever captured on film. This is one of my two favorite John Wayne movies. The Duke should have gotten an Oscar for this one. Movie viewers won't be disapointed by this one.

I'll spare you with the plot description (others on this page have done so), but there are reasons why I love this film.

First, the performances. Wayne as the re-patriated Irish-American, O'Hara as the fiesty Mary Kate, Fitzgerald as the sly little old man, Bond as the strong-willed priest, and McLaglen as the blustering blow-hard. Directed by John Ford, they were unconquerable.

Second, the cinematography. The landscapes are lush and rolling. The interior shots are filled with little details that add so much to the scene. You can almost imagine what the Cohen's pub must smell like ("Over here, we pronounce it, CO-han!"). And in almost every shot, there is the color green.

Third, the writing and the lines. My family quotes the film like gospel. I was helping to move a bed into a house, and as I entered through the front door, I somberly spoke "God bless all here." We all got the joke.

Fourth, the music. So perfectly chosen and composed. It adds to each and every scene.

Fifth, the fight scene. A classic Irish donnybrook!

So many things about this film I cherish. Also, it's one of the few films that John Wayne doesn't shoot a gun! A marvelous, marvelous film! In their book "The Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness", the Von Hoffman brothers called this film one of the "top 25 greatest guy movies of all time". Who am I to argue?

The filming of The Quiet Man was the culmination of a dream by John Ford to make an Irish picture in Ireland. He bought the rights to the story over a decade before and peddled it to every studio in Hollywood and was turned down.

He went to Republic Pictures partly because John Wayne was just winding down his contract with them and he wouldn't have to pay him extra, and partly because Herbert J. Yates's small studio was the last stop. Ford got the permission for The Quiet Man on the condition he do a sure fire moneymaking John Wayne cavalry picture first. So Ford, Wayne, and Maureen O'Hara did Rio Grande first before setting out for Ireland.

In her recent memoirs O'Hara said that this was her role of a lifetime, she knew it would be before one frame of film was shot. She'd been playing in a load of ridiculous Hollywood drivel films as a redheaded Bedouin princess and she did them essentially for the money. This one was to be a labor of love.

Love yes, but a labor nonetheless. John Ford was a talented, but strange man to work for. He could be a bully and a tyrant on any set he was on. She was grateful to him for the career making roles she got with him, but recognized his faults. She relates in her memoirs that Ford used his influence to knock her out of an Oscar Nomination for Mary Kate Danaher in 1952 over some trivial offense Ford thought O'Hara committed and took umbrage.

It was a family affair for Wayne of sorts as well. His kids came to Ireland with him and you can see them at the horse racing scene as extras. Young Patrick Wayne spoke his first movie lines. He also had with him his second wife, Esperanza Baur who was not his kid's mom. She was a tempestuous sort and they would soon part in a very ugly divorce.

Sean Thornton who was born in Innisfree, but went to America as a toddler, has come back to his native Ireland after making a name for himself as a prizefighter and killing a man in the ring. He and Maureen O'Hara have an instant attraction for each other. However Wayne does run afoul of her bully of a brother, Squire Will Danaher played by Ford regular Victor McLaglen.

Wayne and O'Hara marry, but McLaglen won't turn over the bride's dowry. And Wayne won't contest him for it.

So with a little help from The Taming of the Shrew and a bit of Falstaff thrown in, things are put right in Innisfree. More I won't say.

As in all of John Ford's films and this is one of the best, he got some grand performances from some of the most minute characters in the film. Some of his regulars like Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick, Ken Curtis, Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields with the rest of the roles played by Dublin's acclaimed Abbey Theatre players. One of my favorites is Jack McGowran who played Feeney, Squire Danaher's little toady factotum.

The music was arranged by Victor Young who did a grand job of using traditional Irish melodies in the score. One song, The Isle of Innisfree was recorded by Bing Crosby for Decca and sold a few platters for him the year The Quiet Man came out.

The Quiet Man is an annual classic for St. Patrick's Day, the same way It's A Wonderful Life is for Christmas. At least in America it is. I've wondered if it is as well received in Ireland as it is here. I think John Ford, the former Sean O'Fearna, was hoping it would turn out that way.

Mr. Ford, you got your wish.

"The Quiet Man" is an Irish village version of "The Taming of the Shrew," the tamer being an ex-pugilist Sean Thornton (John Wayne) retired to the land of his fathers where he purchases "that little place across the brook, that humble cottage." But no sooner does he arrives on a soft spring morning than he falls in love with Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara).

Sean courts and weds her easily enough, but he has not worked out on the anger of her heavy and hard rich brother, the farmer Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) who holds an envy against him for having bought the very property that separates his spread from that of the wealthiest widow in Innisfree Sarah Tillane (Mildred Natwick) whom Danaher strongly desires...

Danaher refuses to supply the traditional dowry, and Mary Kate accuses Sean for his apparent cowardice in not fighting for what is rightfully theirs...

The battle that follows (considered to be the longest recorded on screen) has Sean and his strong brother-in-law engaging in a climatic fight the townsfolk have long been anticipating with effervescent...

Maureen O'Hara is totally in her element as the fiery Irish girl whether as the bare-footed attractive woman looking after a number of sheep in the meadow, or as the troubled colleen trying to explain her problem to the devoted salmon-catching Catholic priest (War Bond) or as the proud beauty whom Wayne lets fall at her brother's feet... Maureen would play Wayne's love interest in four more features ("Rio Grande," "The Wings of Eagle," "McLintock," and "Big Jake"). Their screen relationship emphasized the strength of their chemistry...

Barry Fitzerald is simply superb as Michaeleen Flynn, the village matchmaker and cart-driver who can't seem to tell anyone something without winning a black beer from them first...

With an exciting Innisfree Races along the beach, a titanic fight from the farm, across the hillside, through a haystack and into a stream, and with emerald environments and great music, John Ford's romantic comedy is a marvelous entertaining film, painted beautifully, simply told with love and humor...

With 7 Academy Award Nominations, the film earns Ford his 4th and last Oscar for Best Director establishing a record which is still unbeaten and won another Oscar for the outstanding Technicolor for Best Cinematography...

It's not only the fact that I'm actually from County Mayo in Ireland where most of the outdoor scenes from The Quiet Man were filmed in the summer of 1951, that makes it my favorite movie of all time. This film has damn near everything for everyone in it without being offensive to anyone (Though the occasional hypersensitive Irish person or Feminist or "Yank" might take unfounded offense at the various pokes of fun that are made at various traditions!)

For the romantics this has romance in abundance and probabaly some of the most famously erotic (and much copied - A further indication of how hight in esteem this movie is held) scenes ever put on celluoid (without ever more that an absolute minimum of bare flesh being exposed to satify the puritans). Steven Spielburg most famously gives the cottage kissing scene the nod in "ET" and it was said of the "Wet shirt" Graveyard kissing scene in the rain that, during the many takes it took to get it in the can, Director John Ford only got John Wayne to do everything he wanted to do to Maureen O'Hara himself.

For the action brigade it has probabaly the longest and one of the most enthralling fight scenes of any movie.

For the comics the entire film is laced with Irishisms and good humor and wild banter and loads of "craic"

For the weepies it has tragedy and death and a haunting from the past.

And for the pure sentimental including myself the film has my beautiful country lavishly and lovingly displayed in glorious technicholor compliments of Winston C Hoch amnd Archie Stout which deservedly won it an Oscar for cinematography.

And it has all this and more...

If one cares to delve deeper it touches on themes of Shakespeare (Taming of the Shrew) and the best traditions of Irish literature (JM Synge and WB Yeats).

Testament to it's greatness are the many books and documentries that have been created about it in it's wake (Try Des McHales "The Complete Guide to the Quiet Man" or Gerry McEntees' "In the footsteps of the Quiet Man" for starters!) along with the many tourist that still visit Cong, County Mayo in search of their own dream Inishfree.

I've lost count how many times I've seen this movie both in Ireland and in Exile both here in the US and in England, but suffice to say that at this stage I can now quote liberally from such classic lines as Feeney's: "Silence if you please, Parlimentary procedure, Squire Danagher has the floor" or Micheleen Og Flynn's "Homeric, impetious" upon viewing the marriage bed of Sean and Mary Kate and coming to his own conclusions on the events that may have occured in it.

After owning a variety of VHS (both Pal and US versions) of the movie I've finally purchaced the DVD also which allows one (If one so wishes) to watch every frame of the movie digitally remastered - If you are a fanatic like me or Quiet Maniacs as we are sometimes known this allows you to catch a glimpse of such things as a fly landing on Maureen O'Hara cheek during one shot or (In a daring unintentionally risque scene for the 1950's) her momentarially exposing her underwear whilst jumping over a trunk.

If you haven't seen this movie (and I'm increasing surprised how many of the younger Blockbuster New Release weaned movie viewers haven't) get yerself down to yer local video store now and look in the Classic Shelves for one of those classics that is sure to be there alongside Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind and Casablanca and rent it out for a great nights entertainment. Better still go and buy a copy 'cos once you've viewed it once like me you'll most likely be hooked and will want to watch it again and again (Even sometimes late at night, round Christmastime, sipping a hot Irish whiskey!)