NFR Project: 'The Quiet Man' (1952)

 

NFR Project: “The Quiet Man”

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Frank S. Nugent

Pho: Winton C. Hoch

Ed: Jack Murray

Premiere: Aug. 21, 1952

129 min.

In contrast to the tough guy director John Ford portrayed himself as, he was really a big softie. And, though born in Maine, he was an Irishman who had a deep reverence for his Irish homeland and the traditions of its people. In fact, Ford’s Ireland is a dreamland, an idealized, fabulous emerald-green countryside, photographed expertly here in living Technicolor by Winton C. Hoch and represented by a fine set of character actors, members of Ford’s “stock company.”

Into this picturesque, enchanted territory drops John Wayne (as Sean Thonton), who shows he can play the lead in a romantic comedy. His opposite number is the beautiful and talented Maureen O’Hara (as Mary Kate Danaher), who had grippingly played Angharad in Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. Here, she’s a fiery redhead, full of sass, who will not take no for an answer. The two fall in love at first sight.

Sean is a man who has returned from America to purchase his boyhood home (how he gained his money we do not at first know). He does so, to the consternation of Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen), who is the brother of Mary Kate and the man responsible for giving her away in marriage. He refuses to sanction her engagement – which the two promptly ignore. Danaher then refuses to give Mary Kate her “treasures” – her dowry of goods and money.

Everyone is spoiling for a fight except Sean. In a flashback, and later in confession to a minister, Sean reveals that he killed a man in the ring and swore never to fight again. (Presumably his financial resources are a result of his boxing career.) Mary Kate gets a tongue-lashing in Gaelic from the local priest (the always-fabulous Ward Bond). Sean and Mary Kate reconcile, and finally sleep together.

In the morning, Mary Kate stomps off to the train station, leaving Sean a note stating she doesn’t want to live with a man she’s ashamed of. Sean tracks her down, pulls her off the train, and in an epic sequence drags her in front of an admiring and ever-swelling crowd across the landscape, the five miles back to her brother’s estate.

He throws her at her brother’s feet. “No fortune, no marriage!” he cries. Danaher relents, angrily throwing down the money. Sean picks it up; Mary Kate opens the boiler of a nearby steam engine, and Sean chucks the money into its fire. Satisfied, she goes home. Now, at last, Sean can overcome his fear of fighting. He and Danaher now duke it out, conducting an epic throw-down that travels up and down the streets of the town, punctuated with frequent dashings of buckets of water. The low-comedy hijinks of the humorous donnybrook bring the film to a smashing conclusion.

Now, it has been bandied about that this is a chauvinist film – and it is. But it is Wayne who, as the male lead in a typical romantic comedy, forced to come to terms with the daft world he finds himself in. Tradition is tops here; the “old ways” are honored – as is fist-fighting, drinking, singing loudly, and betting. It’s a man’s world, an Irish world, Ford’s world is.

But he paints his female characters with loving strokes. Both O’Hara, and Mildred Natwick as the Widow Tillane, are given scope, depth, and wit. Ford brings us Ireland personified as Barry Fitzgerald playing the stereotypical son o’ the sod, Michaeleen Og Flynn. The little man wanders through scenes, tipsy and eloquent. He sees a bed he thinks wrecked by marital passion and exclaims, “Impetuous! Homeric!” Here too is a young Jack MacGowran who perfectly delivers the drunken line, “God bless all here.” And there is even Ford’s long-time associate, his brother Francis, as the comic old man of the village. (It was Francis who succeeded first in Hollywood, and who brought John out West to work in the film industry, back in the silent days.)

But yes, it is sexist. A woman eagerly proffers a stick to Sean, “to beat the lovely lady.” There is no feminism present, save perhaps for in O’Hara’s scrappy characterization. Still, she is shown as being pleased that her husband fought for her, and is more than happy to tend to the menfolk after they’ve had their little row. She really wants to be a good wife. In those times, that was perceived as the height of female ambition.

So all ends well, as it does in all comedies. Sean and Mary Kate are together, complete. Danaher and the widow begin to court – even the local minister is given support from the Catholics in town to keep his tiny parish open. Ford’s dream world is restored to a state of equilibrium; everyone fits into their new roles in life. Time marches on, and human beings, those curious creatures, progress and change.

Ford gives us life as it is really lived – with the boring parts cut out.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Singin’ in the Rain.