Review of The Quiet Man (1952) by Robbie K — 11 Aug 2017
Almost everyone agrees on one thing about the 1952 Oscars: That Cecil B. DeMille's punishingly long blockbuster three-ring soap opera The Greatest Show On Earth did not deserve to win Best Picture.
The Quiet Man I personally feel should have got the nod Best Picture for 1952 . It stars John Wayne as Sean Thornton, a former heavyweight boxer who returns to fictional Innisfree, Ireland to reclaim the family farm.
There's a sensitive, complicated romance-with independent-minded Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara), sister of local bully Red Danaher (Victor McLaglen, one of Ford's best company players)-but the real attraction here is Ford's masterful maneuvering of tones and his fluid handling of a large cast of colorful characters, qualities which also defined his iconic (and then-underrated) Westerns.
Shot partly on location in Ireland and designed in the lushest greens ever squeezed out of Technicolor, The Quiet Man is a movie that isn't about a whole lot, but yet seems to contain so much-from Wayne's easygoing charisma to the notoriously protracted climactic fight to the febrile, film-noir-like flashback to Sean's boxing days.
The Quiet Man is on of Wayne best films and his made possible by beautiful spitfire Maureen O'Hara .
This review of The Quiet Man (1952) was written by Robbie K on 11 Aug 2017.
The Quiet Man has generally received very positive reviews.
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