THE QUIET MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 714, 20 March 1953, Page 19

THE QUIET MAN

( Republic ) 4 OHN FORD is cne of the greatest living American direc- _ tors, and his latest filmi, a long and affectionate look at Irish life set in the dreaming landscapes around Lake Corrib in Galway, is also probably the funniest picture he has yet made. Indeed, in the earthy quality of its humour, its rounded portraiture of village types and customs, even the occasional roughness of. finish on the technical side, it resembles more a good English comedy than the work of a man from Hollywood. There is an explanation for this, of course. Ford’s own family came from the district seen in the film, and he has used practically an all-Irish cast, including Abbey Theatre players and other local folk. And his cameraman, Winton Hoch, has devoted as much care to his Technicolor photographing of the countryside as to the people in the story. The film is adapted from the novel by Maurice Walsh, and yconcerns an Irishborn American prizefighter (played by John Wayne) who decides to give up the ring and go back to Erin for a quiet life. He is met at the station by Barry Fitzgerald, the local marriage-broker, who soon introduces him to his cronies at Pat Cohan’s bar, as well as crossing his path with that of Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara) and her terribletempered brother (Victor McLaglen). Danaher is tricked into giving consent to his sister’s marriage to the Yank, but after the couple are successfully united refuses to pay up her dowry. Since the red-headed bride is as proud and tempestuous as her brother, she refuses to consummate the marriage until the money is paid over, and this leads to a gargantuan fist-fight that goes on all afternoon over hill and dale, through woods and streams, and ends |. with a smashing blow which sends Dana-