THE QUIET MAN is one of my favorite love stories on film. It reunites John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara who made such an engaging couple in Ford's RIO GRANDE (1950) and appeared in five films altogether. Wayne and O'Hara are one of the penultimate celluloid romantic couples, sparring and kissing with equal measure in THE QUIET MAN. The other interesting thing about THE QUIET MAN is it's one of John Ford's rare films set in modern times (early 20th century) and in another country. John Ford was an American director and although immigrants play a huge part in many of his films (THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE SEARCHERS), the setting was usually in the United States. THE QUIET MAN takes place entirely in Ireland (although most interiors were shot in Hollywood) although the central plot of the film is an American returning to his ancestral Irish birth place.
A steam train (late as usual) arrives in Castletown, Ireland with a passenger from Massachusetts. American Sean Thornton (John Wayne), an ex-boxer has returned to Ireland to settle down in the tiny village of Inisfree, his birthplace. Sean's picked up by local matchmaker, bookie, and buggy driver Michaleen Oge Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald). On the way to Inisfree, he sees the house he wants to buy, the home he was born in, a white thatched cottage called White of Morn. As Flynn stops to chat with the local Catholic priest and avid fly fisherman Father Peter Lonergan (Ward Bond), Thornton catches sight of a pretty redhead herding sheep through a field. Her name is Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara). It's love at first sight for Thornton. Mary Kate's brother Squire "Red" Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) owns the land around the house. He has eyes for the house and the woman who currently owns it, the Widow Sarah Tillane (Midred Natwick).
Thornton visits the Widow Tillane about buying the house. Danaher storms in, matching every offer Thornton makes. Out of spite for Danaher, the Widow sells the cottage to Thornton, immediately making the Yank Thornton an enemy of Danaher. On Thornton's first night at the cottage, he catches Mary Kate cleaning up the place. As a storm brews outside, Thornton and Mary Kate have their first kiss (in a famous scene later recreated in Steven Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTIAL). Thornton sends the matchmaker Flynn to ask Mary Kate for a date. When she agrees, Flynn brings Thornton the next day to court her. But according to custom, Thornton needs his nemesis Will Danaher's permission to court his sister. Not surprisingly, Danaher refuses, breaking Mary Kate's heart.
Father Lonergan, Oge Flynn, the Reverend Cyril Playfair (Arthur Shields), and his wife Mrs. Elizabeth Playfair (Eileen Crowe) spring a plan to help Thornton and Mary Kate become engaged. At the Inisfree Cup, a local horse race, Ogre Flynn and Lonergan convince Danaher that the Widow Tillane will only be interested in him once Mary Kate is out of his house. If Danaher will give his permission for Thornton to court Mary Kate, the Widow Tillane would be more inviting to Danaher's marital wishes. Only no one tells the Widow about the scheme. Thornton wins the horse race that's run partly on the beach and partly across fields. Soon after, Danaher gives his blessing to Thornton and Mary Kate. They get married. Danaher turns to ask the Widow Tillane for her hand in marriage. The Widow says no, walking away in disgust. Danaher figures out he was lied to by Father Lonergan and Oge Flynn. When Thornton professes to know nothing about the deal, Danaher hits Thornton when he's not looking.
Knocked out cold, Thornton has a flashback (economically shown by Ford in less than two minutes) revealing a secret from his past. As heavyweight fighter Trooper Thornton, he accidentally killed another boxer in the ring. Thornton retired from boxing because of the incident, vowing to never fight again. Danaher won't give Mary Kate her dowry out of spite (which includes all her family's heirlooms and 350 gold coins). Mary Kate wants Thornton to fight for her honor, her dowry. Because of his secret, Thornton won't, causing a rift in their very early marriage. Mary Kate confides to Father Lonergan that she and Thornton haven't consummated their marriage yet. Thornton talks to Reverend Playfair who figures out who Thornton is and his secret. Both religious men provide enough advice that Thornton and Mary Kate make up...briefly. The next morning, Mary Kate sneaks off to the train for Dublin, ashamed to love a man who won't fight for her honor. Thornton goes to the train station and pulls Mary Kate off the train, dragging her to her brother Danaher. The two men begin one of cinema's greatest fight scenes that involves the whole town and traverses the countryside to decide the fate of Mary Kate's dowry and each man's honor.
THE QUIET MAN may be one of the most romantic films ever made by a director not known for romance pictures. John Ford is best known for his Westerns like FORT APACHE (1948) or SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949) and historical dramas like THE INFORMER (1935) or HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941). Many of his films had some kind of romantic subplot but Ford found his perfect romantic protagonists with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in RIO GRANDE and reunited them for THE QUIET MAN. Ford equates love and passion with stormy weather, turbulent and mercurial. Thornton and Mary Kate's first physical encounter occurs in his cottage during a windstorm, the wind whistling through the home. Mary Kate's secretly trying to clean it up when Thornton surprises her. Thornton grabs her, she tries to flee, he pulls her back to him for their first kiss. No words, just actions. Later, as they court, the two love birds wander up to the local cemetery where they're caught in a rainstorm. This time it's a rain drenched kiss between Thornton and Mary Kate. I have always found windy days and rainstorms romantic ever since I saw those two scenes from THE QUIET MAN.
Ford doesn't have the lovers talk much about their love for each other. It's all in the gestures, they eyes, the postures of their bodies. A hand on a shoulder. A gentle lean against one another. Ford has fun with the censors in THE QUIET MAN. After a wedding night fight where nothing is consummated and Thornton throws Mary Kate into her big bed before sleeping in another room, Oge Flynn wanders into their room the next morning to see her bed torn apart. "Impetuous!" he mutters. When the two newlyweds do finally consummate the marriage, Thornton has a big grin on his face as he walks out of the bedroom. But his wife has run away to the train station headed for Dublin. When dealing with affairs of the heart in a John Ford film, nothing comes easy.
Religion pops up from time to time in THE QUIET MAN but Ford steers away from any political statements. The Catholics and Protestants get along fine in Inisfree. Both Mary Kate and Thornton even have confessional scenes (done outside the usual confessional) with Father Lonergan and Reverend Playfair respectively as they grapple with some early marriage crisis. A major theme both in THE QUIET MAN and John Ford's personal life is family. Thornton returns to Ireland where his family lived and he was born. Mary Kate and Will Danagher are brother and sister. Will holds her dowry over her head as ransom when he doesn't get what he wants. The entire village is one big family, looking out for each other, helping one another, going to church and celebrating weddings together. But the family ties in THE QUIET MAN are even deeper behind the film.
Director John Ford got started in the film business during the silent era because of his older brother Francis Ford who was an actor and director. Younger brother John repays the debt casting Francis as the white bearded town elder Dan Tobin in THE QUIET MAN. Ford's son in law Ken Curtis has a cameo as an Irish singer. Both Maureen O'Hara's brothers appear in the film: her brother James Lilburn plays Father Paul and other brother Charles Fitzsimons appears as solicitor Hugh Forbes. All of John Wayne's children appear in the horse race sequence (Melinda, Michael, Patrick, and Toni Wayne). Actor Barry Fitzgerald's brother Arthur Shields has a prominent role as Reverend Playfair. Victor McLaglen's son Andrew was the 2nd Assistant Director for THE QUIET MAN (and later became a director himself). Whether it was real family or Ford's family of actors who had worked for him before, Ford surrounded himself with people who knew his style and could work with him.
John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara may be the human stars of THE QUIET MAN but the real star of the film is the countryside of Ireland itself. I'm from the very green state of Oregon but when I first saw THE QUIET MAN, I was stunned by its emerald beauty. Shot beautifully by cinematographer Winton C. Hoch, the film is a travelogue of western Ireland's rolling green hills, stone walls, Irish crosses, bubbling streams, wild bays, rugged beaches, and quaint villages. In the 1950s, movies were beginning to move away from Hollywood sound stages and taking audiences to far away locations. John Huston made 1951's THE AFRICAN QUEEN (another great romantic adventure film) in Africa. Ford's film about a Welsh coal mining community HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY was filmed at Malibu State Park in California not Wales. For his dream project THE QUIET MAN, Ford knew he had to make the film on location in Ireland and nowhere else. It paid off.
Screenwriter Frank S. Nugent could be considered responsible (along with director Ford) for two of John Wayne's finest performances. Ford's THE SEARCHERS (1956) is one of the greatest Westerns of all time and Wayne's performance as ex-Confederate, racist Ethan Edwards is one of his most complex. Nugent wrote THE SEARCHERS and probably had a good take on Wayne's range as an actor from THE QUIET MAN (made four years earlier) also written by Nugent based on a story by Maurice Walsh. Wayne is so likable as Sean Thornton, American boy returning home to his Irish roots. It may seem like an easy role to play but Wayne brings depth to Thornton's lighter side with a shocking past (accidentally killing a fellow boxer in the ring). The darkness that comes over Wayne's face when Reverend Playfair almost guesses his former life is all played on Wayne's face. Like director Ford, Wayne knew that words weren't always necessary. Wayne was one of the best actors to convey emotion with face and eyes. Sean Thornton in THE QUIET MAN is one of Wayne's best performances right up there with his Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERS, Thomas Dunson in RED RIVER (1948), and Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT (1969).
If John Wayne was Ford's preferred leading man, red haired Maureen O'Hara was the prototype Ford female lead. Feisty and fetching, O'Hara was every bit an equal to Wayne in THE QUIET MAN as Mary Kate Danaher. Her love scenes with Wayne are among the most romantic on film but she's tough and strong willed as well. O'Hara comes off as both beautiful and one of the guys, willing to take a swing at her husband or pull her weight with labor if needed. When Sean drags Mary Kate back from the train station, it's really O'Hara who's dragged through the fields as the town follows them. No stunt woman for her. O'Hara first worked with director Ford in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and would make four other films with him including RIO GRANDE and THE WINGS OF EAGLES (1957). Like many of my favorite films, I fell in love with Maureen O'Hara watching THE QUIET MAN hence my fondness for the film.
Two of Ford's favorite character actors have meaty parts in THE QUIET MAN. Victor McLaglen as Will Danaher in THE QUIET MAN worked with Ford early in his career appearing in Ford's THE LOST PATROL (1934) and THE INFORMER (in which McLaglen won Best Actor as an Irish informant). Will Danaher is the villain of THE QUIET MAN and yet McLaglen adroitly makes him likable. As tall and stout as John Wayne, the two actors play off each other perfectly culminating in their climactic fist fight in and around Inisfree (a fist fight that is more humorous than vicious). McLaglen actually did some boxing in his youth and fought heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in 1909.
Ward Bond who plays Father Peter Lonergan in THE QUIET MAN is another good luck charm for director Ford. Bond is one of the all time great supporting actors, appearing in hundreds of films and working with some of the best directors in the business besides Ford including John Huston, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, and Frank Capra. Bond played college football with John Wayne at USC. Bond's role as Lonergan in THE QUIET MAN reminds me of Claude Rains' Inspector Dreyfus in CASABLANCA (1943). He plays it against type. In CASABLANCA, Dreyfus is the local authority in Casablanca yet he gambles and womanizes and helps the hero outwit the Nazis. In THE QUIET MAN, Bond's Lonergan is a Catholic priest who performs mass and takes confession but enjoys fishing and gambling. When his counterpart the Protestant Reverend Playfair may be reassigned from the village, Lonergan hides his collar and encourages the town to cheer for Playfair as he drives his visiting bishop out of town. Bond was a pro at playing irascible but decent characters.
Barry Fitzgerald may be the poster boy for what we think all Irishmen look and sound like with his diminutive stature and Irish brogue in THE QUIET MAN. Fitzgerald worked with Ford on HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Leo McCarey's GOING MY WAY (1944). But Fitzgerald will always be remembered as John Wayne's wingman aka matchmaker in THE QUIET MAN. Ford hired many Irish actors for THE QUIET MAN. One that stands out is Jack MacGowran (who looks like Ray Bolger) memorable in only his second film role as Will Danaher's right hand man Ignatius Feeney. MacGowran would have a long career appearing in everything from Tony Richardson's TOM JONES (1963) to William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST (1973). Mildred Natwick who plays the Widow Sarah Tillane in THE QUIET MAN also had a decades long career. She appeared in two previous Ford films THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (1940) and 3 GODFATHERS (1948). One of Natwick's final roles would be opposite John Malkovich and Uma Thurman in Stephen Frears DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988).
I just rewatched RIO GRANDE which John Ford had to make before he could make THE QUIET MAN. Both films were made under the Republic Pictures banner, produced by Ford and his partner Merian C. Cooper who gave Ford lots of artistic freedom. RIO GRANDE and THE QUIET MAN couldn't be more night and day yet both films are magnificent examples of Ford's artistry. RIO GRANDE is shot in black and white in the dusty landscape of Moab, Utah. THE QUIET MAN is shot in glorious Technicolor on location in the very verdant west of Ireland. RIO GRANDE is the third and last of Ford's Cavalry trilogy featuring the U.S. Army fighting Indians in the U.S. West. THE QUIET MAN is a one off romantic comedy that every studio turned down before Republic Pictures President Herbert J. Yates said yes. John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara are the leads in both films. In RIO GRANDE, Wayne and O'Hara play an estranged husband and wife trying to reconcile during an Indian War. In THE QUIET MAN, they're two stubborn single adults who fall in love at first sight despite the rules of courting in Ireland. In many films, you'll find actors playing the same type of character over and over. Wayne and O'Hara are completely different in RIO GRANDE than they are in THE QUIET MAN. It's a testament to how good of actors they both were and John Ford's direction.
THE QUIET MAN would lead me on my cinematic Irish odyssey over the years as I sought out other films made in Ireland. Gillies MacKinnon's THE PLAYBOYS (1992), John Sayles THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), and Neil Jordan's ONDINE (2009) are just a few of the journeys I have taken to Ireland via film (yes I still need to watch David Lean's 1970 RYAN'S DAUGHTER also shot in Ireland). But no film has captured my heart for Ireland like THE QUIET MAN. I will eventually travel to the Emerald Isle and hopefully experience some QUIET MAN wind and rainstorms as I meet the locals and toast a dark Guinness to them. THE QUIET MAN ends with several short two and three shots of the Irish supporting actors in the film, Ford's final ode to Ireland's inhabitants. As Wayne and O'Hara wave goodbye, I feel sad waving goodbye to them...until the next time I sit and enjoy THE QUIET MAN.
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