Original subtitles

Making firearms is a piece of pie.

It's just a Java word.

This is my business,

my profession, the way that I

support my family.

I love the business.

I like the people.

I am not what is called a career

director.

I knew what great directors and

great actors were like.

But.

I have to honestly say he was the

best.

Really The best.

The meanest.

Oh, he could kill you.

He could hurt you.

We could, you know.

And when I come in on the set,

he used to ask the makeup man,

Jimmy Barker, who did my makeup

all the years in Hollywood.

And he'd say, How is she today?

How is she today?

And they'd say, Oh, she's in an

awful good humor.

She's wonderful.

She's feeling great.

And he'd say, Oh, God, help us, or

we're going to have a horrible day.

Or they say, Well, no, she doesn't

feel too well. She's got a terrible

headache. And he'd say, Oh, great,

great. That's great news.

We're going to have a great day.

The first name that I

saw associated with films

that I really reacted to in a strong

way wanted to be with

or they were on television or

movies, meaning I wanted to see

again and again and and Joy

was the name for it.

That was it.

I think what it is is more

to do with the relationship with the

people, the.

That is the the the warmth

and the

the warmth that I can feel from

behind the camera for the characters

and for the actors is no doubt.

My father looked up to John Ford

like they called him Pappy

Pappy for like he was his father

and he respected him so

much. And my dad knew

that he was talented.

And my my dad knew that John

Ford loved him

in his own way.

I was on every set

of the movies that he made from 1956

on. And I, John Ford, I remember

him a lot.

And, you know,

I tried to stay away from him

because he scared me as a kid.

He had the eyepatch on by that time.

And the the

cigar, which Maureen said it was

all on purpose.

Everything Ford did was

for a reason.

He had the cigar stub

with the with the tobacco

running down his face.

And that was just a scary thing for

a kid.

He was an immigrant who

was completely

at home showing the

American dream and the American

values of the frontier.

And he was a tough bastard,

you know.

I mean, he wasn't a fairly across

U.S., as people say.

He drank quite a bit, but I think he

could hold it.

And

he was like, you know, I always saw

him with that one with the eyepatch,

like a kind of,

you know, Cyclops, you know, and

their recyclables.

And I think he would have and he was

the best filmmaker from

that generation.

The American West as we know it from

the cinema, was almost entirely

the creation of John Ford.

Tourists come to Monument Valley to

see where he made John Wayne a star

in Stagecoach.

Where the cavalry rode out and she

wore a yellow ribbon

with the homestead burned in

the searchers.

He made nine films here.

Part of the landscape is named in

his honor.

Ford's point,

he loved it here, not just

because it looked like no other

place on Earth, but also

because it was far from everything.

He'd rather not deal with

Hollywood studio executives,

wife and children.

And it was here he allowed himself

to dream of a film he'd one

day like to make for himself

a very personal film.

Not that he'd ever admit it.

Don't you remember The Shining

and how it was?

The road lit up past the chapel

and his world.

And his world.

And there was the field where Dan

Tobin is coaching.

John Williams first came here

making the movie and they

came in the road and the

Janson car and they were just

an amazing film.

This is the most famous bridge,

and this is a picture of

John Wayne who has just

arrived here less

than a week ago.

But you can see him here sitting

there at this bridge

and all this former glory

he has. And they're so famous

and amount of busses, cars

every day here is unreal.

And it's just great to see it

being turned off

like this now.

And John Wayne is here behind

us, which is nice.

Vanya and hat and coat and.

Yes.

This is Sean Thornton, born

right here in this free home

from America.

It's just that ever since I was a

kid living in a shack

near the slag heaps.

My mother's told me about Innisfree

and why the Morne

Innisfree has become another

word for heaven to me.

His school is only

on his mother's

side.

And John.

So they

cut it all.

Bareilles wrote.

But the question of the girls

fortune. We were fortune.

Why everybody should

be worried. With that, I still say

no. Oh, come on, McLean.

I told you that you are no good.

I'll explain it to her myself.

I'll count three.

And if you're not out of the house

by then, I understand I was

on you. If you say three, Mr..

You'll never hear the man.

Count ten.

Just tearful.

Just within the scene of the fair,

De was held. He's sold across beds.

He's up the hill there about 200

yards.

And Sean and Mary Kate are sitting

in their little tub Cartier and

said. Go on, go on.

Ask them for more money.

Is that all you've done?

Or is ever think about money?

Money. Right at the seafront

there, the coffee shop that Emily

O'Connor opened front and an ad

for water on the window.

Lyons Tea.

That's the level of detail, folks

you got to get down to for your load

in this body.

That's what this.

Documentary found out,

huh? What's this for?

It's about the car.

Yeah, which is our first problem.

There is.

Twin.

Generations after John Ford brought

his cast and crew to come,

the village has become a place of

pilgrimage, a playground

for fantasies of a movie

made long before most of the

visitors were born.

Kong was the location for the

mythical Innisfree,

the place to which the returning

Sean Thornton comes

trying to escape the shadow cast

over his life by tragic events

in America.

Until Ford or Roy of the town had no

electricity and one telephone line.

It was a story by Maurice Walsh that

brought John Ford here.

A love story set during the Irish

War of Independence.

It was originally published in the

Saturday Evening Post and then

in a book called Green Rushes.

But it's better known under its

original title, The Quiet

Man.

He knew that Ireland was a metaphor

for a form of life that

he thought was rapidly disappearing

and tragically disappearing from the

modern world.

And he knew that if he went

to Ireland, he could find those

forms of life still alive

and that they could be remolded

into an imaginative form that would

awaken echoes in a lot of bosoms.

And so it was the the

imaginary island of the of the quiet

man that that he knew would

withstand the the the the

test of time.

Of course, every storybook Irish

village must have a cozy little pub,

and Ford put Collins Bar

right in the middle of Innisfree.

It's still here,

but it wasn't really called Co-heads

and it wasn't really a bar.

It was Murphy's Hardware store,

and the Murphys are still

here to.

So.

Yes.

Just as a crew just

doing a documentary about Detroit,

it reminds us of people wide

pipes.

It's just a wonderful movie.

Yeah. Boy, this appealed to your

heart. Why do you like it?

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

And good luck.

Right.

And I was a John

Wayne fan from long ago.

Yes.

So that's part of it.

It's got everything right.

Okay. Well, you want to see

the pictures?

What I really want is my brother

here. Okay, From here.

That's similar from the.

The name of the shop is John Murphy

for change, the name to

call ahead.

So I have to know

better known now as Pat Callahan

than it is John Murphy.

But I think the whole idea of put

that up there, I think it was a

joke for the Jews in America,

as he says of the film.

Over here, we predominantly.

Kohan and the

Jews call themselves Colons of

America. So I think that was a joke

I thought was the reason.

I think

over here we pronounce it

Kohan.

He he knew exactly

what he wanted and

he wanted you have to get that.

So he was a difficult man to work

with,

but he'd

make sure he wouldn't take any

shortcuts.

But he'd done what was well

done.

In this hotel

in New York City, the Algonquin.

Jack Hemingway, the son of Ernest

Hemingway, overheard two

gentlemen arguing vehemently,

and one of them saying, The greatest

writer of them all

is Ernest Hemingway.

And Jack

went over to the two gentlemen and

said.

I'm sure you gentlemen will be

interested to know.

The greatest storyteller of them.

All, my father used to say.

Was an Irish writer named

Maurice Walsh.

Oh, my Christ, said

one of the men on Maurice

Walsh.

And this, of course, was the Maurice

Walsh who wrote

The Quiet Man.

There was a sense that

he, Ford, was creating

a whole.

World.

Out of his head.

Out of his heart, out of

Maurice Walsh's.

Novel.

And.

Melding it into something that he

wished to be true.

When the film was completed in 1952,

John Ford made sure that it had its

world premiere in Ireland,

where his parents had been born.

Ford considered himself a journeyman

director.

He rarely even chose the subjects of

his own films.

But there was something about the

Quiet Man that made him

spend almost 20 years

trying to get it made.

In his long career, he made over 100

movies.

But this is the one that people took

to their hearts.

And we're still watching it.

We are.

I went to New York

for the opening of the film

and the people were were

going mad.

Absolutely mad.

They they

it was it was

the love of their life from the very

first time they saw it.

I'd like to tell you about the Quiet

man.

He's John Wayne.

In a picture you'll soon be sharing.

It's the story of Sean Connery,

a right hand man who came from

America to forget his past

and injury.

There he met a fiery red headed Lars

and the village marriage broker went

to work.

The picture has an extraordinary

feeling right from the beginning.

A warmth and intimacy.

Personal commitment.

That's rare in pictures.

I just feel that for

its heart is in this picture more

than in any other picture of the

native.

He never made a film remotely like

it. Nobody ever did.

That's a pretty bonnet

you have on it.

But you'll be talking to me about

Barnett after leaving mine stuck up

there. Like it?

Easy. You have the

good manners not to hit the man on

Tuesdays. Your husband and

your bag man or bully

of a brother. Read. Will Donna hurt?

Refuse to pay her rightful dowry?

It is poetry.

It is poetry.

I was Jack Nicholson, I said when we

were doing The Departed, he said.

God gave the Irish the words, the

Italians, the music.

I said, okay, so

that's Jack's idea.

But I said, But listening to the

words said, Yeah,

you know, we just listened

to and it sounds like music.

I say, And that film is filled with

it. The Quiet Man, It just is filled

with it. But it's very important

that that particularly

I don't know what's out of Ireland

or whatever, but particularly

one understands the nature

of tribal life.

I understand the clan in

order to understand the behavior of

the characters in that picture.

There will be no locks or bolts

between us. Mary Kate, Except

those in your own mercenary little

heart.

Mary Kate left him to go to Dublin,

but he caught her at the station and

brought her back with the whole

town, watching him do it.

I'll pay you.

Never.

The quiet man as it came out

is a permanent

way, really, in John Ford's

career of

saying about all the other films.

And I mean, here, The Grapes of

Wrath and I mean here How Green

Was My Valley, All the so-called

great films, the ones that are shown

in film societies.

I'm not that John Ford.

I remember where I came from

and I remember the values of where I

came from. And I've made a film to

show you what those values are.

It will survive me.

And it has.

His direction makes unforgettable

the performances of John Wayne,

Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald,

and Victor McGlothlin.

Ford made a silent film called The

Secret Man, and

he was sort of a secret man.

He was he was a quiet man

in the sense that he didn't tell

you what he was thinking.

And he was. I interviewed Ford once,

and he was the most difficult person

to interview. It was a fast

talking to him because he wouldn't

give you a straight answer to

anything.

And one of his friends said that was

his Irish trick to survive

in Hollywood, that if you run

around in Hollywood talking about

your art, people would have killed

you back then.

You know, he said, I poses in

illiterate. He said, Don't let this

get around.

We published a book I did about

John Ford called John Ford.

I had originally watched him

shooting Giant Otter in Monument

Valley. That's how we met.

We talked about the Quiet Man, but

not an enormous amount.

I couldn't get him to talk a lot

about anything.

And I did a documentary about him

after that.

He was not very cooperative, but we

did it anyway.

Isn't the sunshine's bright kind of

a little picture that you made for

yourself with that?

Yeah. Uh huh.

Can I ask you what what

particular element about the Western

appeal to you from the beginning?

Would you agree that the point of,

uh.

Fort Apache.

Was that the tradition, the

tradition of the Army was more

important than one individual.

Could.

I knew he was Irish.

How could you not?

If he'd seen the Quiet Man.

He'd have a party every Saturday for

the cast.

They'd sing.

I went there.

It was it was a it was a family

feeling.

He was the patriarch.

And he'd say things like.

Doby Carey.

Yes, sir.

Doby. Harry Carey.

Jazz. Stand up.

Sing the national anthem.

I didn't know what that meant.

So he sings the wearing of the

green.

Oh, Patti, dear.

And did you hear the news that's

going around?

The shamrock is forbidden

to grow in Irish ground.

And he sings the whole song

and forges, leans back, closes

his eyes, listens

to the whole thing.

That was the end of the party

one Saturday.

When I used to go to dinner to their

house.

John Ford made me sing for

my dinner and

we'd sit at the dining room table

and I'd have to stand up and he'd

say what song he wanted, what song

he wanted, and I had to sing.

And one time Mary Ford said,

Maureen's coming to dinner.

My God, we're going to get Ireland

all night.

And it

was true.

All he did was ever talk about

Ireland and his Irish

relatives.

You think he.

He created Ireland and farmed

it in the sea.

Fought it. Always plan to make the

film in Connemara in the west of

Ireland, from where his own people

had come.

John Ford was born.

Sean Feeney.

And Feeney was still a prominent

name in the Irish speaking village

of Spittal.

The region had been devastated by

the famine in the 1840s.

A century earlier,

death or emigration saw

the population of Ireland shrink

from 8 million to 3 and

a half.

John Ford's parents were among those

driven from the land.

While making the film, Ford

frequently visited his Feeney

cousins in the old family home,

the little cottage that had inspired

him to create a way to mourn

for Sean Thornton.

It was a lovely little house

shining.

And the.

Roses.

And her. Your father used to tease

me about them.

But he was that proud of them,

too.

And that's nothing but a

humble cottage.

Barrie Fitzgerald.

That's just a wee humble cottage,

but it's actually a lot more.

It represents the Irishness

of John Ford has tremendous

meaning.

It's clearly a memory image.

And you're in the head of John Wayne

and it's an expressionistic way of.

We're now entering into his

consciousness.

It's like his fantasy world.

Because I am Sean Thornton and I was

born in that little cottage over

there,

and I come home and the home I'm

going to stay.

Will. John Ford.

And my father.

Were first cousins.

I have great memories of John Ford

when he came to.

Ireland to film The Quiet Man.

He always had the prayer book on the

mouth organ.

I mean, he was always a kind

of wild man, but he was a religious

man.

Prayer book was.

Always he had it always with him

and, you know.

The mouth organ.

This is the film as a very rare

photograph of John Ford's father,

John Elliott wishes Feeney.

He went to America and settled down

in Portland, Maine.

He had to leave. There was no work

at the time and there was a big

family, so they had to.

They all left except my grandfather,

Newt Feeney.

There is one here.

John Ford.

My sister breeds

pet food.

Norah Connolly and my

other sister Mary.

I remember you were the youngest at

the time. He was only small and I

remember him one day on

Sunday and he sat in Maureen

O'Hara's lap.

She was she was a lovely person,

you know, She very nice,

very good memories

of visiting the house every swim

Sunday afternoon, John Paul would

drive with his entourage.

You know, all the

he'd be at the head of the posse,

you know.

Then

when they got here, I had to figure

it out myself.

Could you imagine?

Watching for any.

Yeah, Jorginho can

get our finish, Francis

said.

I just wish it was.

I didn't finish.

I guess we should get out.

Yeah, but Ed had

a collar. Yeah.

Of course. A chef's a shumba.

And then you have a

bishop for kitchen towel up

on bar on the side

of a hill.

EDIT Armed with that,

I guess we should have gone.

They'd gone in contact.

Mike. In Mike.

In every area,

to be sure.

Agip championship.

The Hawks and Tyler

that they'd been dead for the ED.

Really.

So they've got the same

edge.

Every Sunday, he'd bring them to

the.

House on Sundays, like, you know.

And of course, that the cartridge at

the time it was there wasn't a lot

of room there and there was a bed

there. And he said, That's the bed.

No, he said that my father was born.

And of course, it wasn't.

This is the painting of the old

house. This is the way the

house was when you turned for his

father. Left it.

See that big stone there which forms

part of the wall of the house.

It's a massive size.

It goes all the way in.

For just tonight and bragging to

John Wayne and Victor Mclaglen

every.

Sunday when they used to visit

areas. I point out that we've

stolen.

Just the.

Various from my cousins that's

stolen their.

Single handedly pushing

new.

New world at the Yang, said

believably, you know.

And

this is where the old kitchen was?

No.

And the fireplace was there.

There was a door into the bedroom

there.

And there was a back door to door

backdoor.

And the other bedroom was over there

on that side.

So this is where

John Ford's father, he walked out

this door on his way

to America, to

Portland, Maine.

I do not believe I

heard your name.

Tall man.

Thornton.

John Thornton.

And your father's

name Like

Michael Thornton. You used to live

here. Quite a morning.

Just bought the place back.

That's why I'm here.

Then your grandfather

would be all

charm.

All right.

Bless his memory.

So Jim Shelves were named after.

Well, now that being the case,

it is a pleasant evening and

we will have a great

time.

There was.

While Colonial

boy Doug

was his.

The dream of the Quiet Man began

a long way from Ireland.

Ford's parents, John Feeney and

Abby Curran, had left

Connemara for America when they were

15 years old.

Although born only a few miles from

each other, they didn't meet

until they got to Portland, Maine,

where they married and raised a

family.

Abby looked after the children,

and John set about making his way

in America.

At first, things in Portland

were hardly any better than the life

they had left behind.

The settled Protestant Yankees

bitterly resented the incoming

Catholic Irish.

John Feeney had a family to feed.

He needed a job.

But signs saying no Irish

need apply seem to hang

on every door.

Prejudice was rife.

The Ku Klux Klan was active in

Portland, targeting the Jewish,

black and Irish newcomers.

But these groups banded together

and stood up to the violence and

intimidation.

The old World was very, very,

very strong in my life.

And and there was a certain way of

doing things and behaving with each

other. And so the people

who felt that way automatically

responded to particularly the quiet

men because of that.

And don't forget, the Irish were the

in America.

They broke the ground for all the

other immigrant groups, really

taking all the abuse

and the extraordinary

prejudice against the Irish and laid

laid the groundwork for the others

to come in.

Whatever group it is

will always have problems.

But the worst that occurred.

Up to now, I think

had been with the Irish.

But John Ford's mother lost five

children when they were young,

five or 11, which was a similar

statistic. What would happen

tomorrow so that respect

her life wasn't.

Hugely different, but at

least there was hope.

There was a possibility through

honest work or through dishonest

work, to get ahead,

to get education for your children,

to get better medicine, to marry

your children.

And the woman was always the center

of the family in Connemara.

And I think that transferred across

the ocean where in Ford's household,

the mother was all powerful.

She made all the decisions.

Eventually, his father found work

selling bootleg liquor to the

Longshoreman and Portland docks.

He worked his way up to being a

saloon keeper and moved

his family to the more affluent area

of Peaks Island.

He was becoming a successful

American businessman.

But if his children were American,

their mother never stopped reminding

them that they were also Irish.

The Feeney children were raised in

an Irish speaking household.

Ireland, its history, its

stories was his real to

them as America.

Abby's favorite was her youngest

son, a short sighted

kid who was smart,

although bored by school.

But he loved the movies.

John Ford did

well in high school, but when

he went to college, he was treated

at the University of Maine with

contempt by some of the WASPy

boys there who called him Shandygaff

Irish.

Actually, he was a waiter in the

first week he was there.

He was he was serving

stew on a tray.

And one of the guys said, Hey,

Shanti, bring me the stew.

And Ford threw the whole

tray at these guys and quit college.

And that was it for him.

So he was a rebel.

We're here in Portland, Maine, at

Gorham's Corner, which was a

heavily Irish neighborhood.

I can guarantee

that Ford, as a boy, would

have been on the spot at

one point or another.

Some of the characters that

you see in his movies are characters

modeled on his own parents,

ones who who portrayed

a life that was not an easy life for

him. Big family,

a father who wasn't always the

greatest provider

in a tough time here in the city of

Portland, where work was solely

physical. Nothing else.

You can't watch all those movies

and not walk around and wonder

what he would have thought and what

he did and who

he met and what

trouble he might have gotten into.

All around the streets right here.

His older brother Francis had gone

to Hollywood, where he was working

as an actor and director in silent

movies.

Francis found that Irish names

didn't open many doors,

so the legend has it.

Inspired by a passing motorcar,

he changed his surname

to Ford, and when

his little brother Sean joined

him on the West Coast, he

did likewise.

He worked as a stunt man, bit

part actor, and finally

began to make his mark as a writer

and director.

Life was good,

but Ireland was on his mind.

In 1921, the

country was at the height of its war

for independence from England.

So John Ford decided he

was going to help.

He crossed the Atlantic and turned

up on the doorstep of his cousins,

the Thorntons.

John Ford when he went back to

Ireland in 1921 as a successful

Hollywood director, he had $4,000

expense money from Fox.

He was supposed to be scouting

locations, but I think he gave the

money to the Iraqis.

What happened then?

He wrote it off in his taxes, which

I thought was kind of clever.

When he arrived, the Thornton home

was burning good black and tan to

just burn the home.

And the old couple

were out on the on the road.

And it was like a scene that he

filmed later and films like

The Searchers where the Home Burns.

And then he went up

in the hills and found the IRA

guys and gave them some money and

supported him.

Very soon the British figured out

that Ford was there and they beat

him up and told him to leave the

country. So he was only there for

about maybe three days.

But the Thornton family meant a lot

to him,

and they were living adjacent

to the Phenix and Spittal.

And so that's why John Wayne and

The Quiet Man and Sean Thornton.

Ford returned to Hollywood, still

angry at what he had seen,

but also still caught up in the idea

of the whole thing as a great

adventure.

Many of his films were on Irish

subjects, and The Informer

won him his first Oscar in 1935.

Then he found Maurice Walsh's story,

and it seemed to offer the perfect

vehicle to express the feelings

of a proud Irish-American like

himself.

But before he could make his film

set during the Irish War of

Independence, another

war intervened.

There's something in the air.

Something behind that sunset.

When America entered World War Two,

Ford volunteered his services to

the United States Navy.

Captain John Ford relished the role

of Frontline cameraman,

both as a patriotic contribution

to the war effort and

as the fulfillment of a personal,

heroic fantasy.

This really happened.

He had tried to join the Navy during

the First World War, but

his poor eyesight had ruled him out.

He wasn't going to miss this one.

He got his wish,

but the reality was something

else.

Ford was wounded,

but he made it home.

Many others didn't.

Junior Stout, son of Archie Stout,

one of the cinematographers and the

Quiet Man was among

those who died under Ford's

command.

By the time he finally got to make

the quiet man.

He was older, and

the young man's daydream of heroic

deeds now rang

hollow.

Well, I Ford was extremely affected

by the war. I mean, he was in it for

four or five years.

He was there through the whole thing

and he was deeply involved

in it for fun.

He wouldn't talk much about it.

He'd seen the war close up.

So when he came to make The Quiet

Man a few years later,

the war experiences deepened

his sense of the tragedy

underlying the story.

Ford, since coming back from World

War Two in 1945,

had made 15 feature

films, and almost all of them had

something to do with war.

So he broke from the patterns to

some extent with The Quiet Man,

because it's about a man seeking

peace. And he took most

of the politics out of the story.

He had tried for years

to keep the IRA background in it.

So he progressively went away

from that commanding force.

You can forget about the commandant.

Sort of peace now, man.

Q But I haven't given up hope.

You've got to realize that he shot

this all over Hollywood first, and

none of the major studios wanted the

quiet man, they

said. I forget who it was,

but it was one of the studio guys

who was an old friend of hoards and

knew what he was. He said, You're in

Ireland and we're in America, and

I'm not going to pay for that.

Everybody thought I was just a silly

little Irish story.

It means nothing, you know.

And it was John Wayne

worked for a studio called

Republic Studios, and

the head of the studio was a man

called Herb Yates.

And Duke said, Well,

Pappy, he said, Let

me take it to Herb Yates

and try and see.

And Ford thought, well,

it's a waste of time.

We're never going to get the money.

And he let Duke

take it to her.

Yates and Herb

Yates read it and said

the same thing.

It's a silly little Irish story.

It'll never mean anything.

And doomed started

sweet talking them and everything.

And finally Herbie.

And he said, Well, he said,

All right.

Maureen O'Hara, John Wayne, John

Ford.

They they

fought together for

this.

People think that they come to you

with the script and everything's

ready, and then you just say yes or

no. But I believe

Maureen O'Hara and my my dad.

I had to do some finagling

to get the financing for it,

and that it was a real struggle and

took many years

and they finally really started

with a dream.

In 1949, John Ford

returned to Monument Valley

to make another Western.

Herbert Gates reckoned that Ford's

dream project was a folly

and would end up losing his studio

millions.

So he made a deal.

If Ford made Rio Grande cheaply

and in black and white, then

Republic Pictures would foot the

bill for him to go to Ireland

to make the quiet man.

Herbert Yates didn't want to make it

in Technicolor.

Ford said, I will only make it in

Technicolor.

It was much more expensive to do,

but he wanted the idyllic Ireland

that only Winnie Hoek, who was

a great, great cinematographer and

the first great color

cinematographer, could produce the

misty ness of a remembered Ireland.

Yates In Poetic Ireland.

The head of Republic, Herbert Yates,

was a notorious vulgarian.

Ford told me he considered him a

stupid man, is what he called him,

and he would send telegrams like

the film is to green, you know,

stop showing everything looking

green.

Look, this is the northern end

of the card that's cast on Kirk out

there. And it was filmed by Ford

quite deliberately in the

background.

But Ford put his own stamp on them,

you know, to pick that.

That is absolutely beautiful.

But

the nature of the photography of the

film, which I think was

greatly praised in its

time, I think, at one Academy Award.

And he, of course, won for best

director.

Which is the way the train comes

into the station.

The shade of forest green of the

train, I believe.

But you do feel a real

sense of warmth and a

love of character and the actors.

That's the key thing.

And the actors and place.

Sense of place.

Castletown Could you

tell me the way the image phrase

free. Oh, five miles

and maybe a half more.

Do you see that road over there?

Yeah. Well, I don't take that one.

It'll do, you know. Good.

All the best.

I will arise and go now

and go to Innisfree.

He would know that it was for Yeats,

a magical landscape

associated with a

kind of deep peacefulness

and almost

Irish cultural magic.

He knew he was writing a poem to

Ireland in The Quiet Man.

And one way of saying

that you're writing a poem to

Ireland is to to set

the story in industry.

I'll tell you. I'll tell you how

that turned out cinematically.

When in the opening sequence,

Sean Thornton gets off the train.

Everybody in the train crew starts

arguing about the best way to

industry.

Then McLean often comes and picks up

his baggage and he walks off.

He says This way to Innisfree.

They go through the deserted station

house and they disappear

into the dark.

And as they're in the middle of the

station house, what you see through

a window is McLean, O'Flynn, sitting

in his is his horse

and buggy.

And you realize that this is a path

from reality to to timelessness.

It's announced in cinematic terms,

but you're you're about to enter an

imaginary world that's been imagined

out of actual societies and people

and so on and so forth.

But it's going to take on a mythic

poet shape in

history.

This one is going to be,

from my perspective.

The moment that you see that window

in the train station.

That's the moment that you enter.

Innisfree

Innisfree belongs to the world of

the horses and buggy, and the train

belongs to the new world of steam

power. And you see one crossing

under you. Time these exactly

so that you've got in about a

ten second take.

Everything that's going to happen in

the film if you have eyes to see it

with.

I wonder now why a

man would go to Innisfree.

I sang Innisfree,

but a famous musician

heard the melody.

There were no words, heard the

melody, and played

it for John Ford, who fell

in love with the melody.

And they sent for me and

they played the melody for

me. And I fell in love with the

melody.

And then John Ford said, We

have to have words.

And John Ford, Charley

Fitzsimmons and me,

we sat and

John Ford would make a suggestion

for the words and we'd agree

with them or add a little bit,

or you wouldn't dare claim

that you were doing anything.

John Ford was the boss, believe

me, and I wrote

them down.

And those are the words that are

sung to the Isle of Innisfree.

They were written by John Ford

and Charlie Fitzsimmons

and

here and there from me.

Do you remember? Any words?

Oh, Innisfree my island.

I'm returning from wasted

years across the wintry sea.

And when I come back to my

own dear Ireland and

rest a while beside you

grow a mockery.

Those are the words or something in

the picture now.

And I didn't.

Oh, God, I didn't even have to

think.

Isn't that terrible?

No, it's not terrible.

It's wonderful.

Good.

Yeah.

There was much at stake as Ford

arrived in the west of Ireland with

his cast and crew

shooting in Technicolor.

On location was an expensive,

complicated process.

His production partner, Lord

Callanan, suggested Ashford

Castle as a suitable

base of operations.

It's just about every location the

story would need could be found here

or in the nearby village of Khan.

Ensconced in his castle.

The director decided that anybody

he met and liked most,

in fact, of fiction be his

cousin.

He was related to everybody.

It was a big family,

but he was the head of it.

And his word was law

in initial free.

Well, I don't know of any other

films that were ever made

that involved so much

of a family.

They were all in love with the one

thing Ireland.

You know, it was a love

affair.

Well, I'm Charlie Fitzsimmons.

I'm the son of Charles Fitzsimmons,

who played Hugh Forbes

in The Quiet Man.

And Charlie Fitzsimmons

is the brother of Maureen O'Hara.

Uh, my father at the time, we had

joined the Abbey Theater in

Dublin.

John Ford hired the Abbey Theater

players to be in the movie.

John Ford being Irish

of Irish heritage.

And then we have

John Wayne was also

has Irish heritage and of course

Maureen definitely does.

And then we have her brother

Jim played Father Paul

and Charlie Fitzsimmons played

Forbes. So we have Maureen

and her two brothers.

I think John Ford actually had the

most he had Francis.

There was a Patrick Ford, too, in

the cast list. So he did well with

his family.

And Reverend Playfair, who, of

course, was Arthur Shields and

his brother, Barry Fitzgerald.

We all know him.

In the Quiet Man, I think my brother

Michael and Patrick,

actually, I think all four of the

kids were in there, Michael,

Patrick, Tony

and Melinda.

And those are my dad's first four

kids. And I wasn't born yet.

I came next.

We stayed with them for six weeks.

They are the extras, you know.

It was good for everyone around.

And they traveled out with a convoy

of vans every morning out

tomorrow, places they were shooting.

And the average pay for a worker at

that time was £3

a week.

We were getting triple that.

We were getting £9 a week, which

is three times the national average.

And

it stayed that way for six weeks

and then disappeared.

It was like a home movie.

It was like a home movie in front

of the camera and behind the camera.

And and I think the whole world

felt that.

They couldn't articulate it, but we

all felt I was very young when I saw

them. They may have been 12 or

something or ten.

I think we loved it,

you know, And over the years

everyone laughed. It didn't matter,

Italian or Irish.

It just people reacted to it and

enjoyed it because again, they

identify with the people in the

world and the ritual.

I think the film is very personal

to Ford because I think on some

level Ford wanted to go back.

To Ireland. You didn't grow up

there.

The idea of an American who comes to

reclaim his land,

reclaim his heritage

and finds.

Strife.

And money problems.

Obstacles and also falls in love

the first time he sees

Maureen O'Hara as

so poetic.

Well, that's important at the first

moment of seeing her, because

the journey they're going to take

and I'm falling in love with each

other.

The issue is how would you register

the impression on Sean

that he sees?

Well, when Ford does

it, he does it from Sean's point of

view.

You don't see your type.

You don't see your clothes.

And after a while.

But you see this figure, this

this, this beautiful

goddess like figure in the pastoral

setting, you know?

And this is his impression.

It's not simply a figure of the

woman. It's everything around her

and where she fits in that world.

There wasn't any greater acting

because you didn't see us

acting or doing anything.

You just saw us walking through

me, walking through the fields with

the sheep.

But I wasn't supposed to be a look

of any extraordinary interest

at that time because I didn't know

who it was. It wouldn't be a

curiosity.

Look, then, who in God's name

is that child?

Even a girl today, if she turns

around and looks on.

It's a handsome looking man she's

looking at.

She'll give a special look.

It's very personal to and also for

other reasons.

I mean, the love of his life.

There were two loves in his life.

Two big lovers in his life.

His wife, his first.

His only wife, Mary

McBride Smith.

And Katharine Hepburn.

We called Cade.

So the fact that her name and

Maureen O'Hara's name in the picture

is Mary Kane is no,

no coincidence.

They wished all

the women in the world would be a

mary Kate.

But it wasn't because

his great friends were.

Katharine Hepburn was a great,

great friend of his, and he always

had her picture up on the wall.

Mary.

Forget it, Sean.

Forget it.

Ford definitely was enamored

of Maureen O'Hara.

There were stories about him on

the location for The Quiet Man,

crying about her and things like

that.

She writes in her book that he was.

Really over the top in his

pursuit of her.

And she

quotes letters that he wrote that

are somewhat disturbing.

And so he obviously had a

kind of a crazed

wish fulfillment passion,

where he identified with the John

Wayne character too much.

He had a definite fantasy

attraction to Maureen O'Hara.

I wouldn't call them amorous

letters. They were.

Strange letters about

how he was feeling and yet

sometimes think.

When. When did he write that?

What did he write that for?

And you'd think that he's up to

different.

He's up to something and you'd

try to out

guess him.

But you couldn't.

He was the devil himself,

believe me.

I suppose in the character of Mary

Kate Tanner, the red haired, fiery

woman, the strong woman with full

control over the household and

given out. The lads put their feet

up on the chair and so on, so forth.

That's the ideal model inside the

house. She's in charge.

She's in control.

She'll even fire her own brother.

You know, that sort of strong woman

was kind of Ford's ideal of a woman.

And they appeared in a lot of his

movies, but none so obvious,

I don't think, as Mary Kate Danaher.

So he bought quite a

morning in spite of you.

Good for a widow to land.

Oh, pay no attention to what?

A task for a diabetic.

Not always going to take no notice.

If you do want there to be a fine

week in this house tonight.

After all, he's got more right to

that land.

And you have this is a woman who

cannot be intimidated by

by individuals, male or female.

I mean, she is incredibly powerful.

The reason she's unmarried, although

she's beautiful, is that men are

scared of her. They're terrified of

her. Who would want to take on

somebody like that? Only it would

take a Sean Thornton and

a Sean Thornton who is willing to

fight the brother.

She's this tempest

of emotion and in power.

She's like Shakespeare's.

She's like Shakespeare's Kate in

Taming of the Shrew.

You know, she's just this force

of nature.

And the power of the woman

in the picture is very strong.

The nature of her,

the nature of her resistance.

And part of that being ritualistic.

And of course, resulting in one of

the great moments of all cinema when

the storm breaks there.

And basically it goes in the house

and there's that extraordinary.

One of the probably that and a

couple of other. But one maybe in

Hitchcock film

the best kiss in motion

pictures.

Is is that is that scene in The

Quiet Man.

Oh

my.

Well, win, love, murder, heroin, and

vice versa.

Wayne was quoted as saying she was

the greatest guy he knew,

and she loved that.

They had a very good relationship.

It was everybody sort of agrees

it was never romantic,

but they were one of the great

romantic teams.

They seemed to have a good chemistry

on the screen.

Maureen O'Hara, opposite John Wayne.

There weren't a lot of female

personalities

that had that kind of strength where

my dad could really just be himself,

and he knew that she was strong

enough to hold up.

And it was lovely on camera.

So bold. When you are home

again.

You need to be kissing me so you can

talk.

I can. I will. And I do.

And it's more than talk you would be

getting if you step a step.

Closer to me over.

You get a lot of.

You get over it. I'm thinking.

Well, some things a man doesn't get

over so easily.

Maureen O'Hara hit him

so hard that she

cracked a wrist in that scene.

What you see, they had to take her

to the hospital.

They had to take her to the

hospital. That roundhouse.

Right. She threw at him.

He catches it in his hand rather

than on his jaw.

When John Wayne wouldn't have been

with us for the rest of the film, I

don't think.

Duke came to me and grabbed my

hand and he said, Let me see your

hand. He said, You nearly broke

my jaw and I bet you hurt

your wrist.

And he pulled my hand up and looked

and all the pain was terrible.

And they hit and he said, Get the

car, get the car.

And they did.

And they took me over to the

hospital in the valley

and X-rayed my wrist.

And I had damaged

and I was put in a cast

and I had to work with my hand in

my skirt for a couple of days.

But that's true.

Tough Irish woman,

you know, like John

Ford. I mean, they were both I think

they were both the same type of

personalities.

They really were.

Because she was one you didn't want

to mess with either, you know?

I think Wayne was a kind of

idealization of himself in

certain ways.

Wayne was good looking, tall,

masculine.

Ford was not particularly good

looking.

Not that tall.

He wasn't sure, but

he wasn't any John Wayne.

On Stagecoach.

Ford showed him the dailies

and he came back. He said, How'd you

like it? He said, Well,

he said, It's great.

Everything's great.

Photography is great.

What did you think of yourself?

Well, I'm just playing

you. You know what that is?

And I said to him, What did you

mean? That he was playing you as

well? He said, I think if

you're Ford, Harvey, you know for

good. I have an idea.

And.

In his mind, he was like

me.

John Ford taught him how to walk.

You see, he was all like

me. Shoot. So, John four talk.

He was going around the corner all

the time, you know? I mean, he can't

walk because he's unusual.

We're walking.

He's that size

six. A woman would take bigger feet.

You watch Dow and the film

you see and you see his also

smoking.

I'm always you know,

this is a walk.

You know.

You just kind of you

jog to a walking side.

You turn to a corner all the time.

You watch him the next time you see

the soup.

Ford was the most difficult man

in Hollywood on

the set. He was like

a great conductor conducting a

great orchestra.

But the way he did that was by

being a mean son of a bitch.

There was a thing with John Ford

where.

It was like when somebody walks into

your home and you know that it's

the great, great grandparent.

When we were around John Ford,

there was just a level

of respect there that was

unspoken.

And Pappy was here.

And so and on the set,

I would try to hide behind anybody

that I could because I didn't want

to be in the line of sight with John

Ford,

because, of course, I saw him

directing my father

and the

other actors.

And it was quite scary.

The impression I get just from the

films is that

he didn't give a damn really, at

that point what people thought, I

mean, in a sense about

judgment.

On what he believed about the

relationship between men and women,

about mothers and fathers, fathers

and sons, fathers and daughters.

He believed a certain way and he

shot at a certain way.

But the question of the girl's

fortune was fortune

by everybody.

She didn't lead with that.

I still say no.

Oh, come on, MacLaine.

I told you that you are no good.

I'll explain it to her myself.

I'll count three.

And if you're not out of the house

by then, I understand.

I was on you.

Read Will. Danaher has begun to give

his loyalty to money

and to the kind of power that money

exercises.

I'm a man of industry.

And the best man And the best man

means a man who owns the best land.

He's a jumped up farmer.

He's a jumped up farmer.

He's a gambling man.

Well, Mary Kate.

Hey, we tried.

We'll see them again some other

time.

I thank you anyway, Sean Thornton

for the asking.

You don't think this changes

anything?

It's what you say that counts, not

him.

Know, Sean.

You've gone too far.

That's enough.

So what is this?

We're going to get married.

Are we?

I don't get it.

This is Ireland show.

Without her brother's consent.

She couldn't and wouldn't.

I'm sorry if.

He was in a state of mind where he

was between cultures at that point.

That sense of being between

societies and outside all

known systems of norms.

He's neither American or Irish is

precisely what provokes the rest of

the conspirators

to rearrange reality so that

so that read Will Danaher will allow

his just to record it. You've got to

remember that the father learning

and

the play fairs and

all of them and McLean all get into

this conspiracy to rearrange reality

so that he can so he can court her.

Michaeleen OGU is the local

matchmaker, bookmaker and wheeler

dealer and man and so

GC terms with the rules of reality.

He knows exactly where and when

they can be bent, renegotiated

or outright broken.

Ford knew there was only one actor

who could do this part justice.

His name was Barry Fitzgerald.

Tata Willow can

go ahead and a

large woman would come in to the

house with another woman.

And if he had got rid

of Mary Kate.

The window would have been.

Shut.

No, he's.

You had your chance.

You plugged it.

Later Guest Beach would be the

location for the initial free races.

It is here that a trick is played on

Red Will.

He's convinced that if he lets his

sister Mary Kate get married,

then he'll be in with a chance with

the object of his own affections.

The widow to learn.

Every marriageable woman in the town

ties her bonnet to the finish post

that the winning writer might take

his pick.

It was a sequence designed to bring

some scale to the little Irish

story.

The film that Herbert Jr.

Yates in Hollywood had already

written off as a failure.

In one morning.

Ford did not show up for work.

Wayne would later recall that he

went back to Ashford Castle and

found his director sick in bed,

suffering from exhaustion.

He said he was unable to carry on.

Word spread through the cast and

crew that something was seriously

wrong.

The naysayers were right, it seemed.

Filming would come to an end

and the project would be abandoned.

An expensive embarrassment.

But John Wayne had an

idea.

He would direct the beach scenes

until Ford felt strong enough to

return.

Content you took your.

John Wayne had saved the day.

Ford returned to work,

but the atmosphere on the set

remained fraught.

Even fell out briefly

with his beloved Mary Kate.

Only one time I insulted

him. We were doing a scene

and my hair was blowing

and blowing the wrong way.

And he didn't want it.

And I kept blinking,

you know, and in the sun.

And he kept yelling at

me and yelling at me to keep my

so-and-so. And I won't use the words

he used.

Keep my so-and-so eyes open.

Why do they keep my eyes open?

And I finally reached

a point where

I couldn't take it anymore.

I couldn't stand it.

And I put my hands on my

knees and I leaned forward and I

yelled at him and I said, What

with an old son of a bitch like,

you know, about keeping your eyes

open and all a bald

headed son of a bitch Like you know

about keeping your eyes open

in the sun.

And when I said it, I thought, Oh

my God, I'm going to be fired

or assassinated or something.

What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?

And the whole company gasped.

You could hear them.

Nothing moved.

Nobody. Everybody there didn't even

dare breathe because they thought

that's the end of Maureen.

He's going to kill her.

And.

He started to laugh.

And everybody thought, Oh,

thank God she's safe.

She's safe.

And it was amazing.

When's the happy day?

Sarah, darling.

Hi.

You lost a little since you were

born with.

Heavy gain in the darling.

Darling me cod.

Who gave you the right to make such

an announcement?

They trick Victor Maguire going

into.

Approving of the marriage and

there was a conspiracy of the priest

and the minister and other people.

They're too clever

and it backfires on them.

This is from the Congress.

Now, whatever.

Now get out of here.

What?

The Reverend, Sir.

Ladies and gentlemen,

get up.

All right. There.

The whole. I must go.

God bless. Without my fortune.

It's mine. Mine and my mother's

before me.

And I'm not

the money being from the floor.

It's an insult.

I mean, you cannot stay in that.

You cannot stay in that area unless

you deal with that.

You may not win it, but you've got

to deal with it.

The thing about the Quiet Man is

that it's a it's a very deceptive

film.

And it's a film where

before the film starts, John Wayne

has killed somebody

in a fair fight.

So Wayne has killed somebody in a

fair fight in America.

So he comes to Ireland basically as

a killer, as a need, a character

who's coming back to the land of his

bird, like Oedipus in the Greek

myth.

And Ford was coming back to kind of

say, look, here's the guy.

He's been to America, He's John

Wayne. He's coming back and he's not

coming back to free Ireland

politically, but he's coming

back to free the soul of Ireland.

And Maureen O'Hara from

the oppressive, bloody family that

she lives in.

Ford added the detail

to the Walsh, saying Nothing in

Walsh hits. It hints at

what ultimately happened.

He gave Ford the back story of a

prizefighter who's killed his

opponent in the ring.

That was all Ford.

John Thornhill.

Tony out for lousy

money. A piece of the purse.

He thinks that killing the man was

horrible. What we see in that

flashback is that it's the America

that uses this as grist for a

commercialized mill of

sensationalistic advertising and

cheap print journalism.

That that symbolizes the

falsity and the hollowness of the

of the the the values

to which Ireland in the film is the

entire antithesis.

Had a little bit to do there with to

a raging bull actually in the

I want to the effect in the fight

scenes to look like the color

flashback in quite

man but of course I was doing in

black and white but there was

something about the clarity of the

way the photographs are taken

and the way John Wayne is standing

there and the emerald green trunks.

There's just something the way we

shot. It's obviously a flashback.

It's obviously slightly stylized,

but it's real.

It's not dreamlike.

And so I wanted it was a kind

of inspiration, I should say, for

a lot of what I

want it to be in Raging

Bull.

It's a terrible thing. It kills a

man and a marine, and

he's a good man, Sean,

you know, and it's hard to live with

himself afterwards.

So he goes back to his roots

and then he

has to be accepted in those roots

and within those roots.

And he has to then he has to play

out the ritual.

It is a pretty cottages.

Yeah.

I think so.

Don't touch me.

You have no right.

What do you mean, no?

Right.

I'll wear your ring.

I'll cook and I'll wash.

And I keep the land.

But that is all

until I've got my dowry safe about

me. I know a married woman

and a servant.

I have always been

without anything.

Of my own.

That's ridiculous.

You're my wife and fortune.

What is this?

Mary Kate Tanner is a very forward,

powerful woman and she wants to get

on with her life and she wants to

progress, but she doesn't want to go

on doing that without the respect of

the traditions.

She doesn't want to go to the man

she loves unless the tradition

is observed that she's given the

respectability of a dowry

so she can say in the future years,

Fight says, I brought my own money

into this house.

Father Lonergan is enjoying a quiet

afternoons fishing

when Mary Kate barges in to confess

that she hasn't been granting her

husband his conjugal rights.

This sort of talk, even within

the confines of marriage,

was definitely out of bounds in a

Hollywood film at the time.

As a tip of the hat to the language

of his parents and a middle finger

raised in the direction of the

Census forward

as Mary Kate discussed her

frustration in Irish.

His cousin Nora was recruited

as a language consultant.

Paula. Shall we get a deal?

My big girl Gaga chick, avoid

mess.

Come out of this Cash out again.

Industry shareholder Sharon

Goodyear.

She shared kind of

getting it out here.

But he used to pretend

he could speak Gaelic and

he knew a few words.

Yes.

And he'd say something.

And it was my duty to say,

Oh, sure, sure, sure,

sure, sure.

And I'd have to see it.

And he'd say, Oh, we were chatting

in our language, and he'd

say to the crew, and they

didn't know any different, and they

believed it.

And I wouldn't have dared

say what he said was rubbish.

She assured him

on a

piece of railcar

and holler.

But my mind didn't have a

frenetic arc to call

a mollycoddle.

I just don't know how to start to

yet up on the idea.

She's just mediocre.

I was so chair for

Greiner and then.

Oh, near

near Lake Mi MacInnis,

Lebanon.

A rare Kurmi

funeral home.

Holy.

He.

Ooh, it looks

good.

Shop at the shed

bag.

Sleeping bag.

Father with.

But it's.

Ms..

NEARY Charen,

unpack.

A lot of American viewers, I think,

have trouble understanding the

concept of the dowry, because we

don't have that over here.

And I

know that sometimes the film

has had a certain negative

attitude expressed toward it by

Americans who thought that Mary Kate

was being obstinate or difficult

about, you know, why does she care

so much about her property and

she's being mercenary, etc..

They don't really understand the

traditional nature of the down rule,

how it represents the woman's

property and her individuality.

So I think people have to

understand that custom.

And it's explained in the film.

Frank Nugent, who wrote the script,

takes pains to explain the custom

because John Wayne doesn't

understand it in the film.

And so the audience

needs to respect her

wishes for her dowry, even though

it's an old fashioned custom.

That you see here.

That pretty.

Now is a good time to ask him.

Well.

Go on. Go on.

Ask him.

What about my money?

He can't say that. He hasn't got it

with him now.

Can't you get it through your head

that I didn't marry you for your

fortune?

Then there's a fella going around

there in the jumping car, and he

was telling me that the Americans

were on the. In the jumping car this

autumn. Oh, this is.

This is like the the

to the poverty and the trap

in the car. No, this is the pony and

the trap and the quiet man.

This is the same one that was used

to quite, man, you know.

And I said, Did you believe the

best? Said, How good after 50 years

that going be? The same horse horses

on the 20 years.

Put that to believe the man, you

know.

So I think they come to they

come here just to

hear all this.

You to hear the Irish people

tell them lies, everything to do.

They enjoy it.

You know, I have to close down

because I have got I have to go

somewhere else

to drop by,

you know?

He's a quiet man because he

killed somebody in the boxing ring.

He's the quiet man because he

doesn't want to fight.

He's had his fill of fighting in

the.

Had a tough childhood.

His parents had a tough job.

Tough life.

So he wants to come

back to peace,

Quaid's peace with his childhood

home and with Ireland.

How would it be if I put one of your

fists in my pocket?

Going right to left are you choose,

you're going to go.

And that's fair enough, isn't it?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha

ha! They're fighting, don't

you? Oh.

The situation that was created when

the Yank comes back and falls in

love with the Squire sister.

Chris, Consternation is free.

The priest can solve it.

Uh, the vicar has some ideas

that there has to be the new man

here. There has to be a conflict

here to solve it.

But basically, Nog knows

we're taught to refuse to fight the

first time because it drops his

head, and he's kind of lamenting

the old order. What has happened to

our men? But they won't fight.

No. What's America made of our men?

What sort of man is it that's come

back? It must be a damaged different

man from the man that left here from

his people.

It was an embarrassment to his race

for McLean that the taunted wouldn't

face.

All this talk about her big

fortune.

It's not that important.

It is to her.

It must be strange to you

from America.

What is the old custom here?

And believe me, it's a good custom.

Well, at that.

Point, there catalyzes crystallizes

two different ideas of marriage.

One is the American idea of

marriage, where two particles

floating in a

social void unite and

call that a marriage.

And the other is the Irish idea of

marriage. It's the idea that.

She is

being integrated into her own

society as a married woman, and

that he, if he only understands

the ground rules, will be integrated

into the Irishness that he's left

and still doesn't fully understand

because he still he still thinks

that he's operating out of what he

calls mercenary motives.

All he can do is see her.

For most of the film, with American

eyes. And that has to be purged.

That has to be purged.

That's what the donnybrook scene is

about.

Ford brought Shaun Thorne to

diminish free by train,

dropped him into a world of old

rules and strange traditions

and left him to find his own way

through the maze.

Just as Shaun's journey began at

the station here,

it almost ends.

To deserve his reward.

The heart of the best woman in

Innisfree.

The quiet man must fight one

more battle.

Mary Kate is leaving him.

But before the train can depart,

she's intercepted by Sian

as she hoped she would be.

And so begins the last chapter

of the film.

Finally, Sean Thornton knows

what to do.

He drags Mary Kate the length of

Innisfree and deposits

her at the feet of her brother.

It's a scene both loved and reviled,

reckoned by many to be a product of

thoughtless sexism on the part of

the film's director.

But Ford knew exactly what he was

doing.

This is Ford's version

of a very ancient ritual in

when two clans were marrying one

from each clan.

They had a mock battle in

Ancient in medieval Ireland,

and they rode up and brandished

spears at each other.

And there were fights.

And then the bridegroom rode forward

and took home the bride.

And then both clans reunited.

And it was this was actually called

Dragging Home the Bride.

That's what it was called in ancient

in early medieval Ireland.

We didn't know that.

Don't you got a drag?

I see.

I guess,

yeah.

And it gets me angry to think of

people judging it and against

it this way when you don't know

where it comes from and who they

are, you really don't know who they

are. Like, you're taking it as a

movie. It's not a movie.

I mean, it's a story.

And it's a work of art.

It's a it's a work of poetry.

And and

it's a very unique and beautiful.

Like you. I want to find out what to

me what one person

said it appeared

because it lowered the prestige

of the Irish people.

You know that

there he was by the head or the

head, like you can't put new

logo.

You know, he caught her by the hair.

He dragged her.

Well, that's what the cavemen used

to long ago.

That's what appealed to

this.

But then she was the kicker,

huh?

If it were a scene about physical

violence only there would be nothing

but dragging.

But that scene is punctuated

with sundae parlor

politics.

Morning.

Then she's being dragged along

farther and she loses her

shoe.

You lost your shoe.

How do you make.

And an awful lot of politeness and

ceremony, one would think, for the

middle of a violent scene that was

violent for the sake of violence.

Shot. Here's a good stick

to. Thank the lovely lady.

Thanks.

Here's a good stick to beat the

lovely lady with.

She's handing him a stick to

beat his wife with, which would in

itself be reprehensible.

And the phrase lovely lady, which

means I'm welcoming, welcoming her

back into the community into which

he was born.

We know what this is about.

We know in our bones that he's going

to go and fight her brother.

There will be a donnybrook.

There will be a reintegration into

the community. And they know that

Maureen O'Hara knows that because

she wouldn't be thanking people for.

Thank you kindly, sir.

The stick to beat the lovely lady

with.

That was John Ford's type of

direction.

Which the whole audience

understood.

And knew what it meant.

Maybe you didn't, but the audiences

did.

You can take your sister back.

It's your custom, not mine.

No fortune, no marriage.

We call it quits.

It's like something out of

mythology.

And Ford was a.

You know, aficionado of

mythology. He knew all about it.

And the mythic elements to the

movie are no accident.

The idea that he has to conquer.

He has to go through

tests like Hercules to

get the one he loves.

The birds agree.

There's your daddy money.

Take it.

Count it.

Just fine.

I look, if

ever I see that face of yours again,

I'll push that through it.

Charge it.

I'll be going on home now.

I'll have the supper ready for you.

Within an inexpressible jaunty

ness. She walks away down

the hill in the crowd hearts before

her. And you've got a picture of a

woman perfectly integrated

into her, reintegrated into her

society.

She knows it, the townspeople knows

it, know it.

And Sean Thornton.

Except that he's got one little bit

of business to get out of the way,

which is beating his brother in law

senseless.

Knows it as well.

All through.

After almost 20 years of fighting

for it and never compromising,

John Ford finally completed

his film.

All 129 minutes of

it.

When the picture was made

and put together and

Herb Yates saw it, he didn't believe

in long movies

and he said, it's too long.

Have to cut the picture down.

And so Ford, instead

of arguing, said, fine,

I'll do that.

And all the exhibitors

had come to the studio to

look at what product they had

for them to rent or

hire for their theaters.

And so Ford showed them

The Quiet Man and he cut

the end of the movie off so that you

didn't know what the finish was.

You didn't know whether Mary Kay

and Sean

Argent got together or not.

And they all rose up as one.

All the execs, all the

studio types got up and said, You

can't stop it there, for God's sake,

what's going on?

And so on and so forth.

Herbert Yates looked around him and

realized he had his own donnybrook

on his hands.

Well, give a man a hand and.

And so

Herb Yates ordered Ford

to show them the whole movie.

And so that's how the movie

stayed all together

in one movie.

How about a drink.

Before you kill yourself?

The drink would be on the house.

That's a good idea.

The people from Valley are coming

over by bus. Holmes is with them.

All right. That's a good idea.

God, I'm tired, mind you.

They look more like a black eyed.

And still the tourists keep coming.

Cohan's Bar, which wasn't

really a bar, is

now a bar.

Jack and Nancy have handed over the

premises to younger relatives,

and fantasy has become reality.

Of a sort.

Bartel.

What time is it?

Hyperspace, sir.

Breath

of fresh

air

at the house of Cohan.

Come on in.

He was born and bred

in.

In a place called Castle,

Maine.

The Quiet Man is that rare thing

in Ford's film.

It's a romantic

love story, and it's a comedy.

And so a comedy means a happy

ending.

Everybody's very up at

the end. That's what the story is

for. It ends with something

transcendent.

The shots of all the villagers and

Wayne and O'Hara running off

together, she whispered

something in his ear.

You don't know what she was.

She refuses to tell anybody what she

said.

So we'll never know what she said.

It has something to do with sex.

I had a feeling because

Wayne has an interesting reaction.

I know what you're going to ask.

Go ahead, ask it.

I'll. I'll.

I'll behave and listen.

But you know what your answer is

going to be?

But how do.

What happened in the from your

instruction to.

Instructed me to say

something to Duke and I

did what I was supposed to do.

And to this day, they never

told and I will

never tell.

But Ford got

the look from Duke

that he wanted.

Of course, we never know the secret

words. John Ford told Maureen

to whisper into John Wayne's ear.

It's enough to know that Sean

and Mary Kate lived out

their days happily employed

way mourn.

Cottage itself has since fallen

down.

But only in reality.

You'd be driving home

and you had just spent a day working

with him. And your feelings

as you drove home was, My

God, I'm good.

I'm magnificent.

I'm going to be the biggest star

in Hollywood because

he might have been mad at you.

He might have destroyed you

and insulted you, but he

also gave you great confidence

in yourself.

Believe me, I would rather work

with the Pardon me, the

old bastard, than not.

He was magnificent.

John Ford went on to make other

films, some of them

masterpieces.

Hollywood had changed.

It became harder and harder to make

his kind of films.

And then impossible.

But the quiet man abides.

You don't have to be Irish to

hear the far off music of Innisfree.

That dream of home.

We're all wounds are here

and all sins forgiven.

Sean Martin Feeney

died in 1973.

His phone.

Didn't.

Cut.