The Quiet Man
• TOP NOTCH (my top choices)
• HONORABLE MENTION (well worth watching)
• YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER (I like them but you might not)
• CLASSICS (Great movies up through the 1960s - many don't have any rating)
THE QUIET MAN (1952) - NR - CLASSICS
John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald
Summary - A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love.
Cautions -A fierce and funny Irish fistfight ("donnybrook")
Commentary - Nominated for seven Academy Awards and winner of two, including best director for John Ford.
The Quiet Man is a near perfect entertainment that may indeed tonally echo some of Ford's Western themes, but which in its own way is a rather subtle remaking of Shakespeare's immortal The Taming of the Shrew. When Sean (John Wayne) returns to the tiny Irish village of his youth, he almost instantly sees Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara) dashing through a glorious field with a bunch of sheep, and it's not hard to see that the attraction is both magnetic and mutual. But she is a feisty lass who is not exactly going to go gently into that domestic bliss night with Sean.
The Quiet Man is probably the best pairing of Wayne and O'Hara, a film where their simmering romantic chemistry really found full flower, perhaps because of the Irish environment. But the supporting cast here is simply a marvel, a gaggle of the kind of character actor and actress we're unfortunately unlikely to ever see again.
Every time I watch The Quiet Man, I just fall in love with it all over again.
• HONORABLE MENTION (well worth watching)
• YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER (I like them but you might not)
• CLASSICS (Great movies up through the 1960s - many don't have any rating)
THE QUIET MAN (1952) - NR - CLASSICS
John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald
Summary - A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love.
Cautions -A fierce and funny Irish fistfight ("donnybrook")
Commentary - Nominated for seven Academy Awards and winner of two, including best director for John Ford.
The Quiet Man is a near perfect entertainment that may indeed tonally echo some of Ford's Western themes, but which in its own way is a rather subtle remaking of Shakespeare's immortal The Taming of the Shrew. When Sean (John Wayne) returns to the tiny Irish village of his youth, he almost instantly sees Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara) dashing through a glorious field with a bunch of sheep, and it's not hard to see that the attraction is both magnetic and mutual. But she is a feisty lass who is not exactly going to go gently into that domestic bliss night with Sean.
The Quiet Man is probably the best pairing of Wayne and O'Hara, a film where their simmering romantic chemistry really found full flower, perhaps because of the Irish environment. But the supporting cast here is simply a marvel, a gaggle of the kind of character actor and actress we're unfortunately unlikely to ever see again.
Every time I watch The Quiet Man, I just fall in love with it all over again.
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