L'homme tranquille

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...

Maureen O'Hara in Technicolor is surely any Irishman's dream, and "The Quiet Man" would be timeless for that alone. But O'Hara's performance is all the more indelible for the great good humor she bestows on her character, Mary Kate Danaher. Let's face it; with any other actress, this could have been a disaster.

Sean Thornton (John Wayne) comes back to County Mayo, his birthplace, to find a peace he lost tragically back home in America. He immediately discovers some old friends, and a new one, too, Mary Kate, who while herding sheep stares back at him in what James Joyce might have called "a significant manner."

Director John Ford elects to shoot O'Hara from an odd angle, and with an unusual overhead shadow crossing O'Hara's face, that in anyone else's hands would have totally blown the shot but here creates something, well, "Homerific." It's one of many amazing shots in a film that seems more painted than photographed, and is perhaps the most strikingly lovely film ever made.

The shot of O'Hara looking back at Wayne also clues you onto something else, that this is going to be her story as much as it is Thornton's. In fact, it's really more about her than it is about him, a film about romance and a woman's liberation at the hands of her lover. We call them "chick flicks" today. But since John Wayne is the nominal star and no one ever confused Ford with Douglas Sirk, "The Quiet Man" isn't popularly regarded this way.

It's fun to read all the comments about poor Mary Kate and how this film glamorizes the mistreatment of women. They have one thing right, it's a film about spousal domination, but it's the wife ruling the husband. Think about it: She makes her lover do just about everything he does in the film, even risk bodily injury at the hands of her brutish brother (she doesn't know about his past and thinks she married "a coward.") People complain that he drags her across a dung-covered field, while a helpful woman hands him a stick "to beat the lovely lady with." But of course it's Mary Kate who's in total control of the situation. She wants Thornton to fight for her, in every sense of the word, and won't make it easy. She wants him to adapt to her culture, rather than adapt to his. (She's not one to be "honked at," as she puts it.) It's not surprising she trips and falls at one point while Thornton pulls her across a field; probably one of those puppet strings of hers got in the way.

But there are worse things in life than being enslaved by the likes of Maureen O'Hara, like not being enslaved by the likes of Maureen O'Hara. She's not only beautiful and pure-hearted, but such a hilarious joy to be around. O'Hara plays up the comedy of her scenes very well; she could have opted for a more regal distance from the slapstick but plays it as rowdy as the rest instead. The scene when she spits in her hand before shaking with matchmaker Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald, who gives the next-best performance after O'Hara) tells you who she is better than any of her many sexy moments on screen. It also gets back to the point of why she's so essential in this film. She is Ireland, the spirit of Erin, and you want her to win, not because she's so pretty but because you know she's good and right for Sean, too.

About the only things wrong with the film are the action sequences, the horse race and the fistfight between Sean and Mary Kate's brother. It's not because the scenes aren't terrific, but because they are so abbreviated, especially the fistfight, which feels likes its building to something even funnier and more rousing than what's come before when it just sort of stops. Ford apparently had to do some cutting to get his film in at the required length, and with his focus as much on Mary Kate as possible, probably preferred to trim the scenes that had the least to do with her. But since the focus on O'Hara is what makes the film anyway, this is a small matter. Wayne fans wanting more action will just have to content themselves with almost every other film the Duke ever made.

Seeing this film for the first time reminded me a lot of "Local Hero," the 1982 comedy. Not only is "The Quiet Man" also a fish-out-of-water story about an American in the British Isles (Scotland in "Local Hero"), both films maintain a very delicate balancing act between whimsy and pathos, with "The Quiet Man," siding on the former direction and "Local Hero" the latter. Definitely worth checking out the one if you saw and liked the other. But "Quiet Man" was there first.

One of the best directed by John Ford. An emotional, humorous look at an American, played by John Wayne, going back to his native Ireland and trying to fit in with the present culture. Sensational scenery and the grand music by Victor Young support this classic among classics. Breezy and rowdy. Too beautiful to turn your back on. A great illustration of romance. The interaction between Wayne and Maureen O'Hara is magical and hard to beat.

Other classic performances are turned in by Victor McLaglen, Ward Bond and Barry Fitzgerald.

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?