From the 1950s: The Quiet Man

1952 Romance Comedy Drama

From Republic Pictures

Directed by John Ford

Starring

John Wayne

Maureen O'Hara

Barry Fitzgerald

Victor McLaglen

Ward Bond

Mildred Natwick

Francis Ford

Arthur Shields

Sean McClory

This is a John Ford film more than anything else.  It belongs to him.  It is personal.  It was a long-time dream coming true where he would return to his birthplace.  His Irishness meant everything to him and this film represented all that he was, all he wanted to be, all he thought, all he felt.   Of all his many films, many of them classics, The Quiet Man was his favorite.  He felt triumphant about it.

He first came across the story in 1933 in the Saturday Evening Post and purchased the movie rights three years later.  He sat on it a number of years and once he acquired a writer to rework the story, it took Ford eight or more years to get it made.  One studio after another turned it down, usually whining about who wants to see a little Irish romantic comedy?  Well, it is certainly that.  He felt certain that the screenplay was indeed that salute he wanted to show to the Irish country people, the poor and the proud.

If one didn't like his finished product, they could blame Ford.  If one does like it, credit Ford.  No one on any Ford film, not even the formidable Duke Wayne, could change one word or raise an eyebrow or raise an objection or offer a suggestion.  These folks knew before they stepped a foot on the set the first day what Ford knew... it was his film and it was done his way.  Funny thing is this was obviously okay with everyone or why would so many return to work for him again and again.  It should be surprising that this was the director's favorite of all his films.

The story concerns an American boxer Sean Thornton (Wayne) who returns to the village of Inisfree, the place of his birth, after he accidentally kills his opponent in the ring.  His dream is for peace and quiet and to hopefully purchase the cottage, White O'Morn, where he was born.  As it turns out, the Widow Tillane (Natwick) owns it and is willing to sell it to Thornton because she is touched by his story and history.  Annoyed by her decision is the town loudmouth, Red Will Danaher (McLaglen) who not only wants it since it borders his own property but because he is smitten with the widow.

Danaher is further irritated when his sister Mary Kate (O'Hara) falls for Sean at her initial sighting.  He didn't know the feeling was mutual.  That scene is marvelously and nearly wordlessly played out.  When Sean asks Will for Mary Kate's hand in marriage, the aggrieved Will says no.  But the townspeople are rooting for the new couple and they concoct a lie that leads to Will giving his reluctant blessing.  At the reception the lie is unspooled and Will is livid and says he will not give Mary Kate her dowry.  Sean, unschooled in Irish customs, doesn't give a hoot but Mary Kate is shaken to her core.  She tells an unhappy Sean there will be no intimacy until she gets her dowry.

The newlyweds get into a big fight and the following morning while he's still asleep, she decides to leave town on the train.  Sean yanks her off the train and drags her over hill and dale, bumps and ruts.  Sometimes she's able to keep up with him as he pulls her along and now and then she falls but he continues to drag her.  All the while a huge crowd gathers and keeps up with the pair, growing ever larger.  It is one of the film's most famous scenes.  And the most famous comes when he reaches the destination.

    Wayne & McLaglen  trying to out-butch one another

That is a field with Will looking large and imposing.  When Sean again asks for the dowry and Will again declines, Sean pushes Mary Kate to her brother's feet.  Sean tells Will no dowry, no wife.  It's the Irish custom.  Will gives them the 350 pounds and they promptly burn it.  After all the trouble, Mary Kate said she didn't need it; she just didn't want her brother to keep it.

As she leaves, Mary Kate, with a gleam in her eye, tells Sean she'll have his dinner ready for him, Will slams a good one in Sean's face and so begins one of the longest, most colorful, fun fights in movie history.  They slam one another through field and stream, haystack and door, street and pub.  Ford liked his fight scenes in all his films to have an element of humor which is apparent here.

Of course, it all ends well.  Sean gets the quiet life he's looking for, Mary Kate is thrilled with her marriage, Will and Sean become tight,  Will marries the widow and the townspeople are happier for the experiences that brought them all together.

The couple enjoys a perfect love scene in a cemetery (on a set in California) where they run for cover due to a sudden downpour.  Standing under an arch Sean takes off his jacket and wraps it around Mary Kate.  As the rain drenches them, Sean's white shirt clings in spots to his body and becomes translucent.  That and the passionate embrace makes for a very sexy scene indeed.  O'Hara said that it was the most passionate moment the pair shared in the five films they made together.

While there were moments on the film to cause consternation (there always were on Ford films), it was generally a very happy experience for all concerned.  One reason why that was so was because there were so many friends and family on the production.   

Ford's older brother, Francis, from whom he was essentially estranged, plays a dying man who jumps out of his sickbed to see the big fight.  His son Patrick is second assistant director as is McLaglen's son Andrew who would one day be a director himself and helm several Wayne movies.  Another assistant director is another Ford brother, Edward.  His brother-in-law Wingate Smith is a first assistant director.  His future son-in-law, Ken Curtis (the future Festus on Gunsmoke), sings a song in the pub.

O'Hara's two brothers acted in the movie and Wayne's four children at the time (one day and two wives later there would be three more) played a scene at the horse race with O'Hara in a wagon.  Dubliners Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields are brothers.  Producer Merian Cooper and cinematographer Winton Hoch and his assistant Archie Stout were Ford's war buddies.

In the cast listing there are the Irish Players, many of whom were members of Abbey Theater.  Of course, there was such obvious typecasting when the townsfolk were hired to play the townsfolk.

In addition to Wayne and O'Hara, up to this point Bond had made 19 films for Ford and would go on to make four more.  This was the 12th and last Ford film to feature McLaglen, who had won the best actor Oscar for their 1935 film The Informer.      

            

The Quiet Man became one of the most important films Republic Studios would ever release.  It was one of Hollywood's other-side-of-the-track studios that specialized mainly in B and C westerns, war films and comedies.  Its main contract players were Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and a young John Wayne.  Studio head Herbert Yates knew that other studios had turned the film down but he thought having Ford make a film at his studio was a feather in his cap.  It was, too, in that it is the only film the studio ever made that was nominated for Oscar's best picture.

Yates told Ford there was a proviso to Republic making the film.  The director had to make a western of his choosing before starting The Quiet Man.   So Ford made Rio Grande (1950), the first of his cavalry trilogy, which also starred Wayne, O'Hara and McLaglen.   Yates, who never stopped battling with Ford, imagined he'd somehow be in charge since he was providing the money but he hadn't reckoned with the feisty director.  It was the last film Wayne made for the company.

Fitzgerald seated with (L-R) Wayne, McLaglen, Ford

The acting ranges from very good to adorable.  If Irish-born O'Hara can't pull off a fiery colleen, who can?  She is delightful in every scene she's in.  McLaglen, who was ill during the production and whose fight scene was choreographed very closely, was the brute he needed to be.  He received a supporting Oscar nomination for playing Will.  Fitzgerald as a combo matchmaker-bookmaker, is the adorable one and Natwick's starchy widow is fun.  Bond as a feisty priest and Shields as a kindly minister lend great support.

Most notable, of course, is Wayne in what is undeniably one of his best films.  This is not a western nor a war film and comedy was not one of the actor's strong suits but he pulls it off here.  It's worth noting there are few Wayne-isms.  His character is very likable and it's amazing how many scenes he does more reacting than I'm accustomed to seeing in his acting.  He said it was a tough role for him... probably because he didn't rely on those isms, his numerous acting tricks.

Along with her director, O'Hara claimed this was her favorite flick, too.  Wayne certainly had a sentimental spot in his heart for The Quiet Man and was aware it was his great buddy Ford's favorite.  It is the best of the five Wayne-O'Hara pairings, the others being Rio Grande, The Wings of Eagles, McLintock and Big Jake.  Each was the other's favorite costar and their platonic love for one another lasted a lifetime.

Along with The Quiet Man, the Oscar nominations for best picture went to Ivanhoe, High Noon, Moulin Rouge and The Greatest Show on Earth.  I loved the latter but by no means should it have won best picture.  Puh-leeze.  Neither should Ivanhoe or Moulin Rouge.  I have never understood the acclaim of High Noon or the fact that Gary Cooper won an Oscar for it.  And add to all of this that Singin' in the Rain wasn't even nominated and in some quarters it's considered the best musical of all time.  When one knows that Ford did win his fourth Oscar, it seems all the more that The Quiet Man should have won.

Victor Young's musical score is all a film about Ireland should be.  It's been said that when O'Hara passed away in her home in 2015 at age 95, she was listening to Young's soundtrack of the film.

The only other Oscar winner(s), out of seven nominations, is for Hoch and Stout's gorgeous photography and I mean gorgeous.  Ford and his cinematographers knew exactly what they were looking for.  The claim is The Quiet Man was the first American film made in Ireland.

Exterior scenes, those everyone loved so much, were filmed in Cong in County Mayo and a few in nearby County Galway and County Clare.  Interior scenes, of course, were filmed at Republic Studios.  When the company was in Cong, it was little more than a sleepy little village with no electricity.  Largely due to the film, things have changed.  Tourism went wild after the film's release and for years to come.  Ford, Hoch and Stout saw to it.

In 1994 The Quiet Man Cottage Museum was opened in Cong.  It is an exact replica of the cottage in the film.  In 2013 a bronze statue of Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne by Mark Rode was unveiled.  These dates certainly testify to the lasting appeal of this immensely entertaining movie.

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The eternal 50s starlet