John Ford’s THE QUIET MANThe Making of a Cult Classic

Jordan R. Young

JOHN FORD’S THE QUIET MAN

The Making of a Cult Classic

Past TimesFilm Close-Up Series, Vol. 3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any informationstorage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. Copyright © 2012 by Jordan R. Young Cover: Maureen O’Hara, Francis Ford and John Wayne on the set of The Quiet Man (courtesy ofLarry Edmunds Bookshop) Title page: Den Tavse Mand (Dutch souvenir booklet)

Contents

PrefaceOne Too Many Trips to the WellCast of CharactersFinding the CastFrom Page to ScreenFor Your ConsiderationTriviaSelected Bibliography

Preface

When I first visited Cong, County Mayo, in the 1970s there were no guided tours of The Quiet Manlocations to take, no Quiet Man Museum to visit, no Michaeleen's Manor Bed & Breakfast at which tostay. There was however, a village pub named Clarke’s that was shown in the film, where theylocked the door at curfew and continued serving the porter to quench a visitor’s terrible thirst, untilthe wee hours of the morning. Better yet, there were a number of people who recalled the location shooting from the summer of1951, before the company left to film the interior scenes in California. Among others, I met ashopkeeper who told me, “When John Wayne slugged Vic McLaglen in Hollywood, and he fell intothe street in Cong—that was the first space shot.” I began researching the film in 1973 for a biography of actor Jack MacGowran, whose role asFeeney, McLaglen’s sidekick, helped launch him on a career as a stage and film actor of internationalrenown. I didn’t succeed in interviewing John Ford (who died that year, shortly after I sent him aletter) or John Wayne; I did, however, eventually speak with six of the principals involved in themaking of the film. Thanks are due to Maureen O’Hara, Jack and Gloria MacGowran, Charles FitzSimons, Winton C.Hoch, Sean McClory, Eileen Crowe, Peter O’Toole, John Carradine, Billie Whitelaw, Micheál OBriain, Keith McConnell, Des MacHale; Ned Comstock, Cinema-Television Library, DohenyLibrary, University of Southern California; Mike Hawks, Larry Edmunds Bookshop; Orange PublicLibrary. Jordan R. YoungAugust 2012

One Too Many Trips to the Well

John Ford made one too many attempts to shoot a film in Ireland. Young Cassidy—an adaptation ofSean O’Casey’s memoirs—was an attractive project nonetheless. The legendary Irish playwright hadintrigued the film director for years. It was a little noncommercial project and Ford was offered amere $50,000 to direct. “Nevertheless, he jumped at the chance,” said grandson-biographer DanFord. The part of the young O’Casey was offered to Peter O’Toole, who turned it down. “I refused the titlerole because the script was so bad,” recalled the actor. “I called Ford and suggested he get eitherHugh Leonard or Paul Shyre to write the film. Ford said he wouldn’t be dictated to by an Irishfaggot.” Producers Robert Graff and Robert Emmett Ginna then cast an unknown Scottish actor namedSean Connery in the role—only to lose him when he was chosen for the first James Bond film, Dr.No, which would make him a major star. Connery was replaced by Australian actor Rod Taylor. When Ford flew to Dublin in 1964 to meet Graff and Ginna and scout locations, the encounter did notgo well. The director felt they were “neophytes, inexperienced upstarts who knew little about Irelandand less about filmmaking. Convinced they would be no help whatsoever, he began to have secondthoughts about Young Cassidy,” noted Dan Ford. Thirteen days into the mid-1964 shoot, Ford was replaced by cinematographer Jack Cardiff.Officially, the director was stricken with viral pneumonia. Film historian Anthony Slide contradictedthe widely reported cause of his departure. “Because the producers would not agree to end the film asFord had wished, the director became conveniently ill,” he stated. Peter O’Toole was more blunt in his assessment of what transpired. “Ford didn’t leave because hewas ill, “ asserted the actor. “He got out because he knew he had a piece of shit on his hands.”

Things were decidedly different when Ford visited Ireland in 1951 to film The Quiet Man. But then itwas a project dear to his heart, a dream nearly two decades in the making. He initially came upon thestory by Maurice Walsh when it was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in February 1933.Three years later he bought the rights—for $10. By the time Ford invested a paltry ten-spot in what would eventually become one of the most belovedfilms of all time, he had been working in Hollywood for over 20 years. The child of Irish immigrants,John Feeney Jr. graduated high school in Portland, Maine, in 1913 and made a beeline for the film

capital. Here he toiled in anonymity as an assistant, prop boy and stunt double for his older brotherFrancis, who had taken the surname Ford and was under contract to Universal Pictures as an actor-writer-director.

Maureen O’Hara, Francis Ford, John Wayne, Barry Fitzgerald, Micheál O Briain, CharlesFitzSimons, Jack MacGowran and James Lilburn relax between takes.

Cast of Characters

JOHN WAYNE — Sean Thornton, aka “Trooper” Thorn, a former boxer who returns to hisbirthplace in the West of Ireland. Or as writer Frank S. Nugent describes him in the shooting scriptdated April 30, 1951, “a big man with a light tread, an easy smile and the gift of silence …a QuietMan seeking forgetfulness of all the wars of the human spirit.” MAUREEN O’HARA — Mary Kate Danaher, a red-tressed spinster first glimpsed herding sheep, “apicture of fresh, unspoiled and completely natural beauty,” according to the script. BARRY FITZGERALD — Michealeen Flynn, marriage broker and village bookie. Nugentcharacterizes him as “an impish man… master of all trades, none of which he follows… he has hisnose in everything, his heart in the right place…”

VICTOR McLAGLEN — Red Will Danaher, “a giant of a man with… arms like a gorilla and fists thesize of catcher’s mitts,” says the script. “We already know of him he is a skinflint, a large farmer and—by some freak biology—the brother of lovely Mary Kate.” WARD BOND — Father Lonergan, parish priest and avid fisherman, the narrator of the film: “…astern but kindly man… at most times elegantly dressed.” MILDRED NATWICK — Mrs. Sarah Tillane, a widow of four years and, notes the script, “a womanof breeding with a slightly bitter humor, great practicality and a severe manner.” The script also tellsus she is “essentially a highly-sexed woman,” though there’s little in the film to indicate same. FRANCIS FORD — Dan Tobin, an elderly villager with a long white beard, acquainted withThornton’s grandfather. His scripted “aversion to all men in uniform,” notably constables, was moreapparent in footage that ended up on the cutting room floor. ARTHUR SHIELDS — The Rev. Mr. Cyril Playfair, the local Protestant minister, a sports aficionadoand, it turns out, a amateur pugilist in his youth. Nugent: “Bears an uncanny resemblance to BossShields,” an apparent reference to the actor for whom the role was presumably written. EILEEN CROWE — Mrs. Elizabeth Playfair, “a rangy woman with… the brightest eye in the world,a rattling tongue, the kindest of hearts, a vast joy in living…” states the script. CHARLES FitzSIMONS — Hugh Forbes, retired Commandant of the I.R.A. whose “revolutionaryrole [was] completely sanitized” in the final version of the film,” noted self-described Quiet ManiacDes MacHale, “and reduced to just a few fleeting references.” JAMES LILBURN — Father Paul, “a young dark-eyed athletic curate,” per the script. Often seen inthe company of Father Lonergan. JACK MacGOWRAN — Aloysius Feeney, Red Will’s obnoxious, toadying sidekick, who keeps aledger of names that displease Danaher. Per Nugent: “his shadow and Greek chorus… a man with allthe independence of a chameleon.” (And handy with a quip: “Is that a bed or a parade ground?”) SEAN McCLORY — Owen Glynn, a pipe-smoking upper-class Irishman, and Forbes’ “former right-hand man,” according to the script.

MAY CRAIG — The Fishwoman, a grey-haired lady with a basket of fish first seen on the railwayplatform, and again when Thornton drags Mary Kate through the field. Craig also plays thedisembodied spirit of Thornton’s mother, heard in a voiceover during his first glimpse of Inisfree. JOSEPH O’DEA — Mr. Malouney, the conductor on the train. (“Do you see that road over there?Well, don’t take that one, it’ll do you no good.”) ERIC GORMAN — Mr. Costello, the engine driver of the train. (“Ah, now, don’t be sending the poorman to Knockanore… sure the fishing is finished there entirely.”)

Finding the Cast

“John Wayne, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald and myself had a shake-hand contract to do thepicture with Ford in 1944,” stated Maureen O’Hara. The film’s leading woman was the last of TheQuiet Man’s principal players to enter the director’s orbit. One by one, they came to his attentionover the decades.

Victor McLaglen (Danaher) and Jack MacGowran (Feeney). The fledgling filmmaker didn’t make many masterpieces in the 1920s, but Jack Ford was furiouslybusy learning his craft. As fate would have it, three major components of The Quiet Man cast fell intoplace during the decade. Ford directed Victor McLaglen for the first time in The Fighting Heart, oneof six silent films he made in 1925. The ex-prize fighter—who would become one of the most reliablemembers of Ford’s stock company, and win an Oscar under his direction for The Informer a decadelater—got a taste of the director’s sly technique in his first scene, opposite George O’Brien, when“John tried to bait his two actors into fighting for real,” said Dan Ford. “They began to spar and dance around the ring, according to a prearranged routine. After they had runthrough it, John yelled through his megaphone, ‘Cut, cut. Cut. What the hell do you think this is, a

dance? Give me some goddamned ACTION.” Ford wasn’t satisfied until they’d gone four rounds andMcLaglen’s eye was bleeding and swollen shut. A 1928 film about Ireland called Mother Macree, which featured McLaglen, served as Ford’sintroduction to an ambitious young man named Marion Morrison, who worked as a prop boy on thefilm and appeared as an unbilled extra. Ford took a liking to the University of Southern Californiafootball player who would soon change his name to John Wayne, and gave him a bit part inHangman’s House, another picture he made that year. “He was the most awkward prop man we ever had. He’d drop lights and knot up cables and ruintakes, but he was a nice big kid, and tried hard to please. I liked Duke’s style from the very first time Imet him,” recalled the director. “Sure he was callow and untutored but he had something that jumpedright off the screen at me. I guess you could call it star power. I wanted to keep an eye on him.” “Ford knew a little about football, and that created an admiration in me,” said Wayne. “Finally Irealized this was the first artist I’d known. I studied him like a hawk. I’d never seen a genius at workbefore, but I knew I was seeing one now. The man was a perfectionist, and I wanted to be like him.” In 1929 Ford asked Wayne to recruit ballplayers for his film Salute. Wardell Bond, a USCacquaintance Wayne considered “a big loudmouth who thinks he can play football,” was not one ofthem. Bond muscled his way into the job despite his associate’s assessment that he was “too ugly tobe in the movies.” They became lifelong friends. “You couldn’t help but notice Ward in a crowd,”observed Wayne. “He was always getting himself in trouble by opening his mouth before he knewwhat he was going to say. But he was really fun, and right away Jack kinda took to him.”

Barry Fitzgerald (nee Will Shields) visits Arthur Shields on the set of Gallant Journey. When Ford filmed Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (1937), he not only had to fight RKO tomake the film, he had to fight to bring the celebrated Abbey Players to Hollywood. Chief among themwere Barry Fitzgerald, reprising the role of Fluther Good he had created at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre adecade earlier, his younger brother Arthur Shields, and Eileen Crowe. The film, however, was afiasco, and Ford reportedly refused to view the finished product. Fitzgerald. Shields and Crowe had appeared in the 1924 Abbey premiere of O’Casey’s Juno and thePaycock, and often worked together over the years. Fitzgerald, whom O’Casey dubbed “the greatestcomic actor in the world,” went on to become the movies’ quintessential Irishman. Shields (who keptthe family name) was held in equal if not higher esteem by some of their Abbey associates, though hemade less of a splash in Hollywood. The brothers matriculated as reliable members of the director’sstock company; Crowe’s husband, F. J. McCormick, widely considered to be the finest Irish actor ofhis time, was soured on Hollywood and cinema by the experience of his film debut in The Plough andwas persuaded to appear in only two additional pictures during the course of his career—decidedlynot for Ford.

The movie version of Eugene O’Neill’s The Long Voyage Home, which starred Wayne (in one of hismore unlikely portrayals, as a Swedish sailor) alongside Fitzgerald, Shields and Bond, was not asuccess for Ford. However, the 1940 box office flop provided stage actress Mildred Natwick notonly with her introduction to the director but her first film experience as well. How Green Was My Valley (which featured Fitzgerald and Shields) brought Maureen O’Hara into theFord family the following year, with an encounter strange even by Hollywood standards. A few daysafter inviting her to a party at his home, at which they spoke only briefly, the director summoned her

to a meeting with a group of executives at 20th Century-Fox. “I felt very confident going into themeeting, naturally assuming I had already won Ford over,” recalled the actress. “Instead, Fordintroduced me with a horrible accusation and lie.” Despite her protests, the director asserted—and insisted—she had insulted him at the party by callinghis relatives “a bunch of shawlees.” O’Hara was mortified. “What he was accusing me of wasterrible. In Ireland, a ‘shawlee’ is a poor country peasant who wears a shawl because she can’t afforda coat. It’s an unforgivable insult.” Only after they had argued back and forth—“No, I didn’t”… “Yes, you did”—would Ford discuss the film project he had in mind. The next day, the role was hers. “So with a bizarre confrontation and my subsequent casting in How Green Was My Valley, an artisticcollaboration began that would span twenty years and five feature films,” said O’Hara. In 1944, thedirector visited her on the set of The Spanish Main and formally offered her the lead in The QuietMan. He and his wife then invited the actress to spend a weekend on their yacht, where O’Hara usedher secretarial skills to take down the initial scenario for the film in shorthand as Ford dictated it, andacted as “his muse” by sharing her experiences growing up in Ireland. The process continued until thecameras rolled seven years later. O’Hara’s brothers, Charles FitzSimons and James Lilburn, also appeared in the movie. FitzSimons, abarrister (as attorneys are known in Ireland), helped find the locations and also assisted Ford incasting the film. “He cast—or brought—all of the people from the Abbey Theatre and presented themwithout comment,” noted O’Hara, “because if he commented or praised any of them, that meant theywould lose the job.”

Webb Overlander (Bailey), Joseph O’Dea (Malouney) and May Craig (Fishwoman). Among the then-current or former Abbey actors seen in the cast—in addition to O’Hara, Fitzgerald,Shields, Crowe, FitzSimons and Lilburn—were Jack MacGowran, Sean McClory, May Craig (whohad been at the Abbey since 1907), Eric Gorman (who made his Abbey debut in 1909) and JosephO’Dea. Non-actors who were prominently billed among the Irish Players in the movie’s openingcredits were Paddy O’Donnell (the railway porter), a taxi driver often employed by Ashford Castle inCounty Mayo, and Kevin Lawless (the fireman), who was actually a chauffeur for O’Hara’s parents. FitzSimons knew MacGowran long before they appeared together in 1he 1946 Abbey Christmaspantomime Fernando agus an Dragan, with FitzSimons and Lilburn cast, respectively, as Fernandoand the titular dragon, and MacGowran (in his Abbey debut) as a leprechaun. They first met as kids,when the FitzSimons family lived on Upper Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh,MacGowran on Lower Beechwood. “We had a playhouse in back of the garden where we did plays,”recalled FitzSimons, “and the neighborhood children were in them.” Many Abbey actors appeared unbilled among the extras and bit players, including Micheál O Briain,Brian O’Higgins and Rita Foran. O Briain doubled for Sean McClory, who appeared only in theHollywood-filmed interiors; coincidentally, he hailed from Ford’s ancestral home of Spiddal, CountyGalway, where the director had spent holidays with relatives in his youth—and originally wanted tocenter the film before he selected Cong for practical reasons.

More visible in the film, though likewise sans billing: Webb Overlander, John Wayne’s longtimemakeup man, who did double duty on screen, playing Bailey, the mustachioed stationmaster in theopening sequence, and doubling for Fitzgerald in long shots; Ken Curtis, who played Dermot Fahy,the accordionist who sings “The Wild Colonial Boy” (a role originally scripted for a fiddler); andWayne’s children by his first wife, Melinda, Michael, Patrick and Toni, who are seen at the InisfreeRaces. Ford had many family members working on the film, including brother Edward O’Fearna, one of threesecond assistant directors; brother-in-law Wingate Smith, first assistant director; and son Pat, a stuntdouble for Victor McLaglen. The unrelated cast and crew members were themselves “like a family,with Ford the father, the peace-time admiral,” said cinematographer Winton C. Hoch, who worked onfive films with the director.

From Page to Screen

The original story by Maurice Walsh that set John Ford aflame with its cinematic possibilities wasabout one Shawn Kelvin, who left his native County Kerry at the age of 20 to seek his fortune inAmerica. He returns home 15 years later—after working in a Pittsburgh steel mill and sparring in aboxing camp—to find himself the lone survivor of his clan, and the family farm now part and parcelof a ranch belonging to Big Liam O’Grady. Kelvin is “a quiet man, not given to talking abouthimself,” and though O’Grady acquired his farm in a less than honorable way, the docile Kerryman“had had enough of fighting and all he wanted now was peace.” Kelvin buys a little farm in Knockanore Hill but has no thought of marriage, even after he spots anattractive redhead in church—a Miss Ellen O’Grady. Herself has no hope of getting hitched; after all,she’s housekeeper, cook and maid to her brother, Big Liam, and the arrangement suits him just fine.Things change only when his neighbor is widowed, but Mrs. Carey is in no hurry to remarry and moveinto O’Grady’s domicile with another woman in the house. Big Liam tells Shawn he wants “to see Ellen settled in a place of her own,” and offers him a dowry of200 pounds. Ellen resigns herself to the bargain and marries Shawn, but then Mrs. Carey abruptlymarries her cattleman instead of Big Liam. When Ellen’s promised dowry is not forthcoming, shepresses Shawn to demand it from her brother; Liam refuses to pay and Shawn tells him, “If you breakyour bargain, I break mine… keep your sister.” Liam grudgingly pays the money, only to have thecouple throw it into the firebox of a threshing machine—leading to a violent round of fisticuffs, withShawn easily besting Liam. Walsh soon expanded the original story into a five-part novel titled The Green Rushes, with the tale’sminor characters inhabiting their own loosely affiliated stories—somewhat in the manner of JohnSteinbeck’s early novel, The Pastures of Heaven. In the process of expansion, Walsh added apolitical element to the story of “The Quiet Man” that had to do with the bloody War of Independencebetween the Irish Republican Army and the Black and Tans, the amateur soldiers in mismatchinguniforms brought in to quell “The Troubles” raging in the streets of Dublin. The political aspect remained when Ford hired Richard Llewellyn, author of the novel How GreenWas My Valley, to turn the Walsh yarn into a novella. But most of it disappeared when the director

decided the tale he wanted to tell was above all a love story. He then brought in film critic-turned-screenwriter Frank S. Nugent, who had scripted Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and otherfilms for him. Politics wasn’t the director’s strong suit anyway. “The real lesson of The Plough and the Stars wasthat Ford’s Irishness would always be a thing of romance and fantasy, and could never encompass the

political and social realities of 20th century Ireland. That is why The Quiet Man succeeds—as apoetic comedy, a fairy tale,” observed director Lindsay Anderson. “Ford wanted it to be a romance,the joy of Ireland and the joy of being Irish,” said Maureen O’Hara. But for all his success as a filmmaker over the decades, the director couldn’t sell Hollywood on the

idea. “It was presented to 20th Century-Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and RKO studios,” recalledO’Hara, “and every one of them, they all turned it down and said it was a silly little Irish story thatwould never ever make a penny.” Actors weren’t the only ones typecast in the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood; directors also fellvictim to the lazy thinking of studio executives. While he excelled at bringing history to life (DrumsAlong the Mohawk) and bringing out the human element in a drama (The Grapes of Wrath), Fordwas best known for westerns like Stagecoach and Fort Apache. To his disadvantage, he made themalmost too well. He had directed a number of films with Irish themes and several comedies, notablythree with Will Rogers. But he was such a master of action and adventure, the studios apparentlydidn’t feel he was capable of turning out a romantic comedy on the order of It Happened One Nightor The Shop Around the Corner, anymore than they would trust Frank Capra or Ernst Lubitsch with awestern. The filmmaker also stood in his own way at times. “Ford was no company man,” observed filmhistorian Leonard Maltin. “He made movies to please himself.” If ever there was a film that met thatdescription, it was The Quiet Man. It was in the forefront of his mind when Ford formed his owncompany, Argosy Productions, with Merian C. Cooper (best known for King Kong) in 1946. Sir Alexander Korda, the Hungarian-born producer who has been characterized by film historian JohnWalker as “more than any other man the savior of the British film industry,” came to the rescue andagreed to finance the project. But the deal fell though when Korda and Cooper couldn’t come toterms, after quarreling over matters of money and percentages.

Cooper, who had enabled Ford to make The Informer at RKO Radio Pictures, then put together athree-film deal for Argosy at the same studio. “Its key provision was that if the first picture mademoney, then RKO would let John make The Quiet Man,” said Dan Ford. However, The Fugitive(1947) was an artistic success but a commercial failure, dooming Ford’s pet project at RKO. Despitea premature announcement in the trades in 1948 that Ford and Cooper planned to make the picture“with frozen funds, as provided for in the Anglo-American film agreement,” the project itselfremained in the freezer. The Quiet Man might never have seen the light of day if John Wayne hadn’t pitched it to HerbertYates, who ran Republic Pictures, where Duke made B-westerns. He knew Yates was concerned thattelevision was going to usurp the audiences for the low-budget fare he was grinding out, and hewanted to upgrade to quality pictures. “I went to him and told him he should get Jack Ford to come to Republic. If he got him, the other bigdirectors would follow,” said Wayne. “Yates liked the idea. He said, ‘OK, what do I have to do?’ Isaid, ‘Let him make a property he owns called The Quiet Man. Give him 15% of the gross and tellhim nobody checks his budgets.” The czar of Republic had the same opinion of the Irish rom com as everyone else in Tinseltown but“Yates was a shrewd businessman who knew the value of having a director like John Ford on hislot,” recalled O’Hara, “and that’s when he said the magic words: ‘I’ll finance the picture if you makeme a western first… to make up for the money I’m going to lose on The Quiet Man.”

John Ford, Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne on the set of Rio Grande. Rio Grande (1950) was not a film Ford or Wayne wanted to make. “To them it was just a path to TheQuiet Man. It was understood by all of us that this was the only reason we were doing it,” saidO’Hara, who co-starred opposite Wayne for the first time. The actors made a happy discovery whenthey realized they “looked like a couple who belonged together,” said the actress. “Did I know wehad that special erotic chemistry together that would be so magical on screen… No, I did not; neitherof us did. There were no kinetic sparks from which to duck. But when we saw ourselves together onscreen for the first time—oh yes, we knew.” Despite the success of Rio Grande, Yates felt he’d been bamboozled into making a “phony art-housepicture,” which at one point he proposed to retitle The Prizefighter and the Colleen. He told Wayneit would hurt his career, and not until the actor agreed—at Ford’s behest—to do the film for a flat feeof $100,000 and waive his percentage participation did Yates approve the $1,750,000 budget. O’Hara accepted $65,000, “because we had all waited so long and so badly wanted to make themovie.” Fitzgerald was paid $60,000 ($7,500 a week with a guarantee of eight weeks); McLaglen,$25,000 ($5,000 a week for five weeks); Bond, $20,000; Natwick, $8,000; Shields, $7,500; andFrancis Ford $500 for one week’s work. The production company headquartered themselves in the picturesque town of Cong, County Mayo,where they stayed at Ashford Castle, the former estate of the Guinness family. The town itself played

a starring role as the village of Inisfree, named for William Butler Yeats’ famous poem, “The LakeIsle of Innisfree.” Though completed in 1893, the poem reads like a statement of Sean Thornton’sinnermost thoughts: “And I shall have some peace there, and peace comes dropping slow… Theremidnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow.” Ashford Castle, seen in the film’s opening credits, provided many of the locations. The scene whereWayne and Fitzgerald first ride out to the cottage was filmed on Ashford’s golf course, as was thescene where O’Hara is first glimpsed herding sheep. Much of the scene where Wayne drags O’Harathrough the field was also shot there. When the couple begin courting, the sequence where they firsttake a walk together was filmed on the grounds of the castle and the nearby Ashford Farm; theDanaher house is also on Ashford grounds, as is the church seen early in the film—one of the fewinterior locations filmed in Ireland. The Ballyglunin Railway Station (or “Castletown,” as it’s called in the film) still stands, betweenTuam and Athenry, County Galway, some 30 miles from Cong. The Inisfree Races were filmed onLettergesh Beach in Galway, about 20 miles north of the town of Clifden, glimpsed a few times in the

film. Toor Ballylee, a 13th century tower once owned by W. B. Yeats, is another location seen in themovie.

A handful of exteriors were filmed at RepublicStudios, in Studio City, California, including thescene where Michaeleen Flynn and others deliverMary Kate’s furniture to White O’ Morn, and thegraveyard scene where Sean and Mary Kate kissin the rain. “Through a series of takes, Fordexhorted his stars to make their kisses morepassionate, their embrace even tighter. Eventually,Duke could feel every line and curve of Maureen’s

body through her soaked clothes, and he suspectedshe could feel every line of his,” observed PilarWayne, the actor’s third wife, whom he met in1952. “When I asked Duke years later how Fordcould have prolonged the shooting of thatparticular scene with Maureen, Duke replied,‘Hell, Honey, Ford just had me do all the things hewanted to do himself.” According to O’Hara, the only thing wrong withthis story is that the scene was “shot only once—not over and over.” As for the director’s vicariousdesires, Ford sent O’Hara a series of bizarre loveletters over the years. But was he really in lovewith her? “I honestly believe the answer is no,”the actress declared in her autobiography. Hemight’ve thought he was, but he was only in love

with an image. John Ford was in love with MaryKate Danaher, and I was his image of her.” Charles FitzSimons and Lee Lukather, the film’sunit manager, scouted locations and gavesuggestions to Ford, who made the final selection.Although Lord Michael Killanin took credit forhelping to find locations (such as the White o’Morn cottage in Tiernakill, Maam, CountyGalway), O’Hara has stated that he was notinstrumental in these efforts, contrary to what hasbeen reported in numerous books. “Killanin is alsonamed as an uncredited producer,” noted theactress. “It is not only absolute rubbish, but alsoshameful. There was only one producer of TheQuiet Man, and that was Merian C. Cooper.”

Cong had no electricity and only one telephoneline when it was selected as Ford’s base ofoperations. “Ford didn’t allow physical problemsto interfere with the dramatic quality of the film,”said Winton C. Hoch. “The scenes were merelyindicated in the script. Ford preserved thespirit of what was there and built on that—if asituation presented itself, he would takeadvantage of it.” “We rehearsed scenes as they were written,”recalled Sean McClory, “but by the time we shotthem they were different. They were muchimproved, stamped with Ford’s own personaltouch.” While Ford was one of the movies’ greatest

directors, he was also one of most difficult. “Hewas an odd man to work for,” said JohnCarradine, who gave the finest performance of hiscareer under Ford’s direction in The Grapes ofWrath. “If you suggested something you wanted todo that hadn’t been rehearsed, he’d give you thatcold fish eye and say, ‘You want to direct the restof the picture?’ or he’d announce to the company,Mr. Carradine will direct this scene.’ ”

Cinematographer Winton C. Hoch on the set inIreland. Winton C. Hoch’s first assignment for Ford, 3Godfathers, was almost the cameraman’s last.“Jack had heard raves about Winnie’s skillwith color film, so he was in a little troubleright there,” said actor Harry Carey Jr., whorecalled Hoch’s first-day-on- the-job trek to the

top of a sand dune, where he suggested cameraplacement to enable “a beautiful trackingshot.” Ford turned on him: “Do you want to gohome right now? Who in the name of Christ doyou think you’re talking to? I mean, Jesus,you’re going to lecture me about yourgoddamned picture postcard shots? Well,we’re not having those kinds of shots in thispicture. And I tell you where the camera goes!” O’Hara got a taste of the trickster during thecasting for How Green Was My Valley, but“clearly saw the darker side of John Ford, themean and abusive side,” when she filmed RioGrande. “One minute he was my best friend andthe next he was insulting me,” she recalled. Moreshockingly, “he was extremely severe and cruel to

Duke on the set. It was horrible treatment, unlikeanything I had ever seen… It made me sick to mystomach and more than once I had to excusemyself from the set so I could go to the bathroomand vomit.” When William Wyler directed the tempestuous Margaret Sullavan in The Good Fairy, he tried tomake peace with her over dinner and ended up promptly falling in love with and marrying her.Director Henry King slapped French chanteuse Ketti Gallian across the face to get what he wanted,when she couldn’t cry on command for a scene opposite Spencer Tracy in Marie Galante. John Fordcould turn on the charm, but was more likely to approximate King’s tactics than Wyler’s. “Ford didn’tpull any punches,” maintained Eileen Crowe. When wind machines were needed to get the desired effect during the filming of O’Hara’s shots at theInisfree Races, the actress found her hair lashing her face and eyes. She finally lost her cool when hebegan screaming insults at her. “Ford kept shooting the scene over and over, and she didn’t like it,”recalled Charles FitzSimons. “She said something to him and he said it didn’t matter, and she said,‘What would an old bald-headed sonuvabitch like you know about getting hair in your face?!’ Thatwas just what he wanted; he said, ‘Print it.’ ”

O’Hara at the races with Patrick and Melinda Wayne, with the wind machines blowing. The director had a strict rule that cast and crew would abstain from drinking while they were workingon a picture. “Oh God, no. John Ford would never tolerate drinking. He was very strict like that,”said O’Hara. “Ford was a stickler for that,” concurred Sean McClory, who added, “Off the set, I assure you therewas not a sober breath drawn in all that time.” Certainly, John Wayne appears to have had his fairshare of the drink during the filming. “I saw Wayne not able to stand up at times in the village andFord would get very annoyed with him,” said Cong villager Robert Foy, who worked as an extra onthe film. McLaglen was another heavy tippler among Ford’s favorites. Jack MacGowran would set a goodexample and be a positive influence in that regard—or so Ford hoped. As it turned out, Wayne andMcLaglen found a most willing accomplice and drinking partner in the young Abbey-trained actor. One night after a round of drinking, MacGowran was reprimanded by the director. He took off hiscoat and challenged Ford to a fight. A few smart-mouthed remarks followed when the challenge wasdenied. But Ford would not tolerate disrespect, and decided to make an example of MacGowran.

The next morning they were filming the scene where Wayne was to throw O’Hara’s dowry into thefurnace. “You go stand up there,” yelled Ford, instructing MacGowran to stand with his back to theblazing furnace. The actor had a dreadful hangover and Ford knew it; he held himself upright by sheerwillpower for three hours, swearing under his breath as the sweat poured from his brow. When thedirector thought he had suffered enough, he said, “I think you can move away now.” “The night before the company finished up in Ireland, they all went out on a binge,” rememberedEileen Crowe. Even after Wayne concluded filming his scenes, he was in no hurry to leave theEmerald Isle. “I believe he was the last to leave,” said his stand-in, Joe Mellotte. “I can’t say he hada tear in his eye—he talked about America so much you knew where his heart was—but I am certainhe was still under the influence of the Guinness.”

For Your Consideration

Sacrilegious as it may be to suggest, it’s not hard to picture James Cagney as Sean Thornton—especially when one considers the dramatic, non-musical moments in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)and his romantic comedy of the same period, The Strawberry Blonde. He’d have fit the role ofThornton perfectly, except he was too old for the part by the time the film was made. Wayne himselfwas too old, but not as long in the tooth as Cagney, who was eight years his senior. Although he felt he was “just playing a straight man to those wonderful characters,” The Quiet Manrepresents Wayne’s best performance. He’s out of his comfort zone as an actor here, far from thesettings and locales of films like Stagecoach and Red River in which he defined his rugged persona.He’s still John Wayne, he’s still got that machismo, but his fish-out-of-water character suppressesmuch of the screen personality familiar to moviegoers. He’s almost an anti-hero, as a man who’sdisgraced himself and left America and come to Ireland to try to find peace and contentment, and startlife over again. His Sean Thornton has a vulnerability that makes him credible and appealing. It is startling to realize Wayne did not receive an Oscar nomination for a film that garnered seven ofthem—or any other formal award recognition—much less the coveted statuette itself. “Duke’s politicsdefinitely hurt him that year,” asserted his longtime secretary, Mary St. John. Ward Bond pointed toWayne’s position as president of the anti-Communist organization, the Motion Picture Alliance for thePreservation of American ideals. Rubbing salt in the proverbial wound was the fact that Waynepicked up two Oscars at the 1952 Academy Award ceremony on March 19, 1953—John Ford’strophy for Best Director (he was in Africa filming Mogambo) and Gary Cooper’s for Best Actor(High Noon). It’s difficult to imagine another actress who could’ve touched the hem of Maureen O’Hara’s skirt inthe role of Mary Kate Danaher, the most memorable performance of her career. Though the power ofher personality had flavored How Green Was My Valley and other films, the “Queen of Technicolor”added an exotic element here. Although the film is “old-fashioned” and her character is manhandledby Thornton, there’s a feminist edge to her portrayal of Mary Kate; O’Hara somehow manages to beboth sexy and submissive at the same time. Yet she, like Wayne, received no awards or nominationsof any kind for her sparkling performance.

Actress Anne Baxter, a friend of O’Hara’s, called her after a committee meeting of the Academy ofMotion Picture Arts & Sciences at which she was present, to tell her she’d been nominated. WhenO’Hara discovered she wasn’t, Baxter (who had to leave before the end of the meeting) could notexplain “how or who knocked you out of the box.” Shortly after the award ceremony, Ford presentedthe actress with a gold bracelet, with a miniature Oscar statuette hanging from it and exclaimed,“Here! That’s for what they stole from you.” Noted O’Hara in her autobiography, “I knew instantlythat if what Anne Baxter had told me was true, it had been John Ford himself who knocked me out ofthe box.”

O’Hara in her opening scene, with Hoch behind the camera. In addition to Ford, Winton C. Hoch and second-unit associate Archie Stout won Oscars for theirspectacular color cinematography. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best SupportingActor (Victor McLaglen), Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Set Decoration (in color) and BestSound Recording. Ford also won the Director’s Guild of America award, the Venice Film Festival International Award,and a Golden Globe nomination. The picture won the National Board of Review award for Best Film;Frank Nugent won the Writers Guild of America award for his screenplay, and Victor Young picked

up a Golden Globe nomination for his memorable score.

Snubbed by the Oscars during his lifetime, Young was posthumously awarded the coveted statuettefor Around the World in 80 Days; he racked up an additional 21 nominations. To Quiet Maniacs thefailure of the Academy to recognize his contribution to the film is a slight equaling or even exceedingthat delivered to Wayne and O’Hara. While Barry Fitzgerald’s performance in Going My Way won the irrepressible scene stealer an Oscarand a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, his characterization of Michealeen Flynn wasseemingly too Stage Irish, too stereotypical, to merit Academy recognition.

James Lilburn (Father Paul) and Ward Bond (Father Lonergan). Ward Bond’s Father Lonergan is also a bit of “Stage Oirish,” one less acceptable than Fitzgerald’s—more akin to a leprechaun in a Lucky Charms commercial, his height and build notwithstanding. It’s anunpalatable piece of miscasting, but of course he was an esteemed member of the Ford stockcompany. It’s also difficult to accept Bond as a priest when he was engaged in conduct unbecomingone, unsaintly to say the least—as an ardent proponent of the blacklist, he shamelessly slanderedmany of his fellow actors on behalf of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).

That Ford himself was affectionately making fun of the Irish, caricaturing them in a way that woulddefine them for Americans for decades to come, apparently didn’t bother the Academy—though thefilm had its detractors then and now. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted that it was“once considered a font of offensive drinking-and-brawling stereotypes by many native Irish.” Ford’s The Rising of the Moon (1957), also filmed on location in Ireland, was denounced by D. P.Quish of the Limerick County Council as “a vile production and a travesty of the Irish people.” Thefilmmaker, said historian Anthony Slide, “never viewed Ireland as it is, or as it was, but as a land ofhis dreams… his vision of Ireland was that of a poet, but a decidedly second-rate poet, whose viewwas often patronizing and boorish.” John Ford was as outspoken as he was controversial. One suspects his response to the foregoingwould be the same as his rejoinder to the assessment that he was “the greatest poet of the Westernsaga”—“I would say that is horseshit.”

Trivia

In a recorded commentary track for the film, Maureen O’Hara attempted to clear up a number of mythsand discrepancies. She stressed the name of Sean Thornton’s cottage was White o’ Morn, “not Whiteo’ Morning, as in all the articles.” But while it is indeed White o’ Morn in the film, the nameconsistently appears as White o’ Morning throughout the April 30, 1951 draft of the shooting script byFrank Nugent.

** ** **

Filming began on location in Ireland June 7, 1951,and concluded there July 14; the shootingcontinued at Republic Pictures in the Hollywoodarea, where the interiors were filmed, wrappingAugust 3. The New York premiere was held at theCapitol Theatre, August 21, 1952.

** ** ** “Only four days of unbroken sunshine werecounted during the six-week shoot in Ireland,”claimed Frank Nugent, “,,,most of it spent in afine drizzle which Mr. Ford, as a patrioticIrishman, endorsed as the ideal condition forTechnicolor.” O’Hara disputed such reports as“rubbish,” noting, “The weather couldn’t havebeen better while we were filming.”

** ** ** On July 17, 1951, as exterior filming was about to wrap in Ireland with a cast largely comprised ofAbbey Players past and present, the legendary Dublin theatre itself went up in flames. It did not,however, burn to the ground, as commonly believed. Among the remnants that were auctioned offwere the distinctive front doors of the theatre; they were purchased and installed at the entrance to theConnemara Marble Factory in County Galway, not far from some of the film locations.

** ** ** The company stayed at the fabled Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip while they filmed the interiorsat Republic Studios. In the evening, a number of them could often be found in the bar of directorPreston Sturges’ nearby restaurant, The Players.

Sean McClory (McGlynn) and Charles FitzSimons (Forbes) at the Inisfree Races, in one of the fewexterior shots filmed at Republic Studios.

** ** ** While Ford had to fight Yates to go nine minutes beyond the Republic chief’s dictum of a two-hourmaximum running time, the Variety reviewer—who previewed the picture in May, 1952, three monthsprior to its U.S. release—expressed the opinion that Ford “dwelt too long on the countryside andvillage mores, with the result that the film is at least 30 minutes too long.” (Half an hour is invariablytrimmed for commercials when the film is shown on network television in the U.S.)

** ** ** Maurice Walsh earned a total of $6,260 for the film rights to the original—a film that was No. 12 onthe list of 1952’s top-grossing pictures. Herbert Yates eventually paid Ford and co-producer MerianCooper $546,000 apiece. Yates practiced some creative accounting on the film’s box-office receipts, according to author GerryMcNee. “The contract drawn up had agreed a 50-50 split of the net profits between Republic andArgosy. With word coming in from all around the country that the film was a smash nit, the cashshould have been flowing,” stated McNee. “But Yates’ accounts were showing just half theanticipated amount.”

** ** ** The shooting script has a lengthy conversation between Sean and Michaeleen Flynn, when they firstmeet at the train station and walk to the jaunting car, all of which Ford scrapped. Another line wasomitted in the sheepherding scene when Sean and Mary Kate first spot each other; the script has hercalling a greeting to Sean (“A bright good day to you!”) in Gaelic. Barry Fitzgerald improvised the line Michaeleen Flynn speaks when he sees the broken bed themorning after the wedding night: “Impetuous… Homeric!” The line was cut at the behest of censorswhen the film was shown in Ohio. Also not in the shooting script is one of the most frequently quoted lines in the film—and arguably themost controversial —the Fishwoman’s (May Craig) remark to Sean Thornton: “Here’s a good stick tobeat the lovely lady.” What does Mary Kate say to Father Lonergan in Gaelic while he’s fishing? “I wouldn’t let mytogether man [husband] into the bed with me… is it a sin?” The line that O’Hara whispers to Wayne at the end of the film has been the subject of muchspeculation. The unscripted line was Ford’s idea; the actress at first refused to say it, and then agreed“on one condition: that it is never ever repeated or revealed to anyone.” Says author Des MacHale,“Of course there has been no shortage of suggestions, printable and unprintable… one of my favoritesis an old Irish romantic suggestion that very well could’ve been used—‘How would you like to gohalves on a baby with me?’ ”

** ** ** The Quiet Man has been widely parodied and referenced. It is one of Steven Spielberg’s favoritemovies, witness the homage in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982); it was later lampooned in anepisode of TV’s The Simpsons. Chris Columbus wrote the role of Rose Muldoon in his film Only the Lonely (1991) with O’Hara inmind, wondering what Mary Kate might be like if she were a window living in Chicago with her son(played by John Candy).

A poster for the film’s French release.

Selected Bibliography

Anderson, Lindsay. About John Ford. London: Plexus Publishing ltd., 1981. Carey Jr., Harry. Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in The John Ford Stock Company.Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994. Carradine, John. Interview with the author, Apr. 25, 1979. .Crowe, Eileen. Conversation with the author, Jul. 27, 1975. Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman, OK: University of OklahomaPress, 1998. Dowd. Maureen. “Cowboys and Colleens.” The New York Times, Jul. 20, 2012. FitzSimons, Charles. Interview with the author, Mar. 23, 1976. Ford, Dan. Pappy: The Life of John Ford. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979. Hoch, Winton C. Interview with the author, Apr. 12, 1975. McClory, Sean. Interview with the author, Aug. 7, 1974. MacGowran, Gloria. Interview with the author, Jun. 22, 1975. Maltin, Leonard. The Making of The Quiet Man. Jessie Film, 1992. DVD. Nugent, Frank S. The Quiet Man. Shooting script, Apr. 30, 1951. Courtesy of USC Cinema-Television Library. __________. “Pubs, Pictures, and ‘Nice Soft Days’ in Eire.” The New York Times, Aug. 5, 1951.

O’Hara, Maureen. Interview with the author, Nov. 19, 1976. __________. The Quiet Man: The Joy of Ireland. Mogo Media, 2002. DVD. __________, with John Nicoletti. ‘Tis Herself: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster,2004. O’Toole, Peter. Interview with the author, Sept. 26, 1975. Roberts, Randy, and Olson, James S. John Wayne: American. New York: The Free Press, 1995. Slide, Anthony. The Cinema and Ireland. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1988. Wayne, Pilar, and Thorleifson, Alex. John Wayne: My Life With the Duke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Young, Jordan R. The Beckett Actor: Jack MacGowran, Beginning to End. Beverly Hills:Moonstone Press, 1987.