How to Watch John Ford's The Quiet Man
There are few John Ford movies as personal to him as his Oscar-winning gem, The Quiet Man. It features John Wayne, of Irish descent, as an ex-pugilist who leaves his stodgy California home to return to his ancestral Ireland.
Wayne plays the quiet, steady Sean Thornton who falls for spirited redhead Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara). Their romance is complicated by her belligerent brother, Red Will, and their town’s strict customs.
1. It’s a John Ford movie.
Ford was one of the most famous filmmakers in Hollywood. He made films that won three Academy Awards, and four more nominations (The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, Stagecoach and How Green Was My Valley).
Ford often used his unique visual style to create an atmosphere of fantasy and illusion. It’s a style that many directors have copied. But Ford had a particularly sophisticated approach to it.
In most of his films, the hero enters a “visionary world,” a new world where they can interact with other people and experience things without being physically present in them. This approach is also a major element of his anti-war films.
Some of the best examples of this technique can be found in his films about the railroads: The Iron Horse, Pilgrimage and The Quiet Man all have scenes with train men on the track, in uniform. The hero runs and jumps on a train, and suddenly finds himself inside that world, where they’re working together to build the railroad.
Another example is the movie Hell Bent, which has a montage of scenes showing a young man’s life. He gets adopted by a fake family, which is a deliberate deception: they give him a false image of a tough mother, to make the tough woman look more appealing and get her to accept him into the family.
It’s a surprisingly surreal story, but it does have elements of the visionary approach to storytelling. The young man is in a world that is not his own, and he’s trying to figure out where he belongs.
The film’s anti-war message is a bold one. It denounces the munitions industry, an aspect of American culture that is still protected by conservative Americans who think war is good.
There are other Ford movies that have a similar anti-war theme, including Seas Beneath, and The Searchers. But Upstream is perhaps the most famous of these.
Early in the film, there is a scene where the hero pats the cowboy on the butt, a kind of idealized gay relationship that he liked very much.
2. It’s a John Wayne movie.
The quiet man is a classic John Ford movie and one that remains highly regarded to this day. In it, John Wayne plays Sean Thornton, an American boxer who returns to Ireland to rekindle his love of the country.
The movie is based on the 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story “The Quiet Man,” by Maurice Walsh. It’s about a retired boxer who comes to the town of his birth in 1920s Ireland and falls in love with a local farm girl.
It’s a very well-made movie, and Wayne is a great actor in this role. It’s also a very fun film to watch.
Wayne’s character is strong, silent, patient, and good-natured – he’s the kind of man every woman wants to be with. He’s also willing to forgive and move on when things get complicated.
There’s a lot of action in this film, too. It’s a great example of John Ford’s ability to bring the audience in and keep them there throughout the film.
You’ll definitely want to watch this movie if you like the western genre. It’s also a great example of Ford’s ability to tell a compelling story that’s easy to follow and enjoy.
It is also a very funny and entertaining movie to watch, with some amazing car chases. It’s an old-fashioned western that harkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and is one of the best movies to watch if you’re a fan of classic movies.
Moreover, it has some great performances from actors like Victor McLaglen and Ward Bond. You’ll also love Winton Hoch’s beautiful photography of the Irish countryside.
Overall, this is a great movie to watch if you’re a big John Wayne fan. It’s a must-see for both old and new fans.
If you’re interested in seeing more of John Wayne movies, there are some streaming services that offer a variety of them. These include Amazon Prime, Starz, Hulu, and HBO Max. They all have a large selection of classic movies and TV shows and are easy to use. You can search for a specific film by genre, release year, or IMDB rating to find a great choice of films to watch.
3. It’s a Maureen O’Hara movie.
O’Hara was born in Dublin, Ireland, in a Catholic family and grew up with aspirations of becoming an actress. She trained at the Rathmines Theatre Company from the age of 10 and at the Abbey Theatre from the age of 14. Her first screen test was unsuccessful, but Charles Laughton saw potential in her and arranged for her to co-star with him in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 film Jamaica Inn.
She moved to Hollywood the next year and appeared with Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a role she won an Academy Award for. She was also given a contract by RKO Pictures.
One of O’Hara’s most memorable roles is in John Ford’s 1952 drama The Quiet Man, in which she plays a woman who has returned to the small village of her birth. The plot isn’t too complex, but the movie was a big hit with audiences and has a cult following to this day.
During the film, O’Hara makes several references to her Irish roots. She was from an Irish aristocratic family and her mother remarried after her death, so she knew a lot about the country and its traditions.
It’s easy to see the influence of her Irish upbringing on the way she acted in this movie. She plays a spirited redhead who falls for a boxer (John Wayne) who is returning to the town where he was raised. But her brother, who is a pugilist himself and whose boxing career was cut short, has a hard time accepting their love.
She is very effective in this role, demonstrating her determination to not let herself be a tomboy. She also displays a harshly certain and managerial quality, which makes her a great character actor.
Her most notable performances in this movie include the scene where she snatches a baby from a cradle and a scene where she is teary-eyed as she tries to defend her mother, who has been attacked by the Nazis. She also has a scene where she has to tame a group of rowdy men in dance class.
4. It’s a John Ford and John Wayne movie.
The Quiet Man is a film that John Ford called one of his “favourites among his own films.” The movie won Wayne his first Academy Award (Best Actor) and also earned him two nominations (Best Director and Best Cinematography).
In The Quiet Man, Wayne plays Sean Thornton, a former boxer who has accidentally killed his opponent during a bout. He decides to flee the United States and return to Ireland to claim the family farm where he was born. But when Thornton falls in love with the fiery Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara), her overly possessive and violent brother Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) tries to keep them apart.
Ford made The Quiet Man over sixteen years after optioning the story from Maurice Walsh, a filmmaking legend who had written and directed many of the great westerns of the early 20th century. He spent the next decade shaping and reworking the story before finally bringing it to the screen.
Like Walsh’s original, The Quiet Man focuses on an ex-boxer who moves to Ireland to buy his family’s cottage. But Ford reworked the story into an emotional, engrossing tale that was ultimately more about the enduring bond between two men than it was about a fight.
As a result, The Quiet Man is an incredibly romantic movie. Wayne and O’Hara both give memorable performances.
The film is replete with moments that have stood the test of time, including the most touching scene in all of cinema: a romantic scene between Sean and Mary Kate after they’ve fled their chaperone, Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald). They draw together for shelter in a sudden downpour, with Mary Kate’s head resting on his chest. This is a scene that no other actor could have captured more eloquently or with more tenderness than Wayne did.
Another standout is the musical score by Hollywood composer Victor Young, who also composed the film’s theme song, the upbeat “Rakes of Mallow.” In addition to the song’s prominent role in The Quiet Man, it is also a staple in other Ford movies. It is a beautiful melody that is often played during the opening credits or at other climactic moments in the movie.
