The Quiet Man (1952)

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  • Kevin- Thanks, I love anything connected with "the Quiet Man" movie.
    My favorite John Wayne Movie. I know, I know i have about 20 favorite John Wayne movies and this is one of them. On the
    old website there were many videos on Quiet Man. Are they still available somewhere?

    "A people that values their Privileges above it's Principles. Soon looses both." Dwight Eisenhower


  • Take it from someone who has viewed The Quiet Man 50 times, (at least...more or less...) the latest being this evening on TCM. There is NO scene in which John Wayne's character, Sean, hits Maureen O'Hara's character, Mary Kate, with any stick of any size or kind whatsoever. There are two scenes in which he is handed a stick to beat her. Up until quite recent times (maybe still) it was legal in Ireland for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as the stick/switch/cane was no bigger around than his thumb. The first time Sean is handed a stick, it is by Mary Kate herself, to demonstrate her contrition after she angrily drove home from town in the cart and left him to walk. The base of the stick appeared larger than a man's thumb (after 50 or so viewings one gets to thinking about such things), while the ends were maybe around the size of a man's thumb, but there were two of them (forked stick). Sean touches the stick to Mary Kate's flank (to show audience members unfamiliar with the custom the purpose of the stick) and then tosses it in the fire. The second time, when Sean was dragging Mary Kate home from the train, the lady from the railroad station, (the only female in the crowd, at least the only one to speak, and so should have been on Mary Kate's side,) after kindly helping a man return Mary Kate's shoe, turns traitor and offers him "a good stick to beat the lovely lady." Again, this is not a straight stick but a forked one equipped to damage several places at once. Sean politely accepts the stick with, "Thanks," and doesn't discard it right away, but neither does he strike her with it.


    The other physical "violence" from Sean is a swat on Mary Kate's behind just before they take the cart into town, perhaps ad libbed by Duke or directed by Ford without informing O'Hara, who looked shocked, and then gave a breathless little laugh so as not to ruin the take. She later said that Duke can't have known his own strength and how much the blow actually hurt. In the scene on the way home from the train, Mary Kate swings at Sean ineffectually and he turns and kicks her rear end. This was choreography carefully worked out between the actors which the director pretended to admire as wonderful improvisation. Those and a few times of Sean picking up Mary Kate bodily are the only instances which could be interpreted as violence. When he threw her it was on a bed and not anything hard and I believe that was the only time he even raised his voice anywhere in the film, other than jovially (very well thought out for a movie titled The Quiet Man--notice that even in his confrontations with Red Will his voice is quite low and measured and manages to convey serious menace and determination). The subtext here I think is that Mary Kate was "a fine healthy girl" who gave as good as she got and Sean didn't have to worry about her being a shrinking violet who would fade away on him. They would likely produce healthy and spirited children.

  • In Professor Des MacHale’s fantastic book “The Complete Guide To The Quiet Man” could you read this about Father Paul’s reading from a book.
    “We now switch to the interior of Dan Tobin’s cottage which is a studio scene. The gaffer himself is meant to be a deathbed, slowly expiring, though from the frontal camera angle he looks pretty healthy. By his bedside Father Paul is reading, not from the prayers for the dying as was originally intended but from a bloodthirsty Celtic saga. In the little bedroom are several shawled crying quietly and in particular there is Dan Tobin’s daughter played by Mimi Doyle.


    Is this from any real book? The only place I can find it is in a readable version of The Quiet Man.


    "And of a hundred battles, aye, and a thousand besides, stood alone on the victorious field, his buckler bent, his broken sword clutched in his mighty hand. The blood of a thousand wounds, oozing from his open veins, dripped on the bodies of the slain."

  • John Ford got his dramatic scene so he was very happy. But I haven’t could find anything about John Wayne’s feelings about Maureen O’Hara’s cracked bone. We can only guess about John Wayne’s feelings in that scene, but we know he was a really Gentleman, so I think he not was happy for her brooked bone in her wrist. That was a big happy for her when it happen in US and not here in Europe.
    Len


    I posted this some pages back, about nine years ago, but it's on the DVD commentary. Maureen said Duke apologized immediately afterwards for blocking her hand with his. Her hand was supposed to strike his face but he knew she was swinging so hard the blow would have broken his jaw. He asked to see her hand knowing hitting that hard would hurt. She had it wrapped in her skirt or apron and by the time he saw it the fingers were swollen like sausages. Ever since learning this it hurts to watch this scene, but it's good to know that though in roughhousing he may have accidentally hurt her, he was genuinely concerned when he knew he really had hurt her.

  • Too bad the cottage wasn't declared a protected structure years ago! Some sources made out the California owner to be the bad guy, he made out locals to be the problem, but I'm sure neither the owner nor the locals would have approved of people taking stones as souvenirs! If everyone who took a stone mailed it back, could they even figure where each stone went? Is enough of the structure even left for a restoration?


    Quiet Man Cottage Official Website

  • I saw that little tidbit, as well. But if you read the whole thing, it says that the film will be in theaters April Fool's Day, 2022. So, I'm wagering that it was meant as an April Fool's Joke. Please....please let it be an April Fool's joke!


    Mark

    "I couldn't go to sleep at night if the director didn't call 'cut'. "