Rent The Quiet Man (1952)

A John Ford masterpiece - The Quiet Man review by NP

It's not been helpful for John Ford's legacy that many of his major films - like The Quiet Man - conceal their profound and ambivalent ruminations on tradition and culture and tolerance beneath such seemingly whimsical surfaces: it means that many inattentive modern viewers will come to his films unprepared for their manifold complexities and likely to dismiss them out of hand as little more than quaint and antiquated trifles.

Just one thing that leapt out at me on a first viewing is that the romance between Wayne and O'Hara must be one of the richest and strangest ever put onscreen: they're equal parts lovers, dupes, fighters and tormentors - both strong-willed and myopic yet sympathetic fools who goad and misunderstand and love each other, and can't see past their own cherished ideas to conceive of their partner's full subjectivity, until, blissfully, they finally do, in the movie's magnificent extended climax.

Masterpiece. A Joy of A Film - The Quiet Man review by GI

The Quiet Man is a Taming of The Shrew story, a romantic comedy that has a picture postcard vision of Ireland and it's a sheer joy to watch. Director John Ford had held the rights to the short story on which the film is based for 20 years and he had to beg and bribe the studio to make the film. It went onto win him the Best Director Oscar. John Wayne is one of his most powerfully romantic roles plays Sean Thornton, an American, who arrives in the sleepy backwater of Innisfree hoping to buy the cottage where he was born. He soon becomes embroiled in a feud with the local rich farmer Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) who has long held ambition to buy the same cottage. When Sean falls for Will's sister, Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara) Will makes it his mission to stop them marrying, with hilarious results. If you've ever doubted that Wayne was an accomplished actor then this film will prove otherwise. It's one of his best performances and it's in the little scenes where this is most apparent. In a film with some major scenes, such as the turbulent thunderstorm, the horse race or the big climactic fistfight, it's easy to lose sight of Wayne's gift in the close ups and gentle scenes. He wasn't the No.1 box office star for 40 years for nothing. The Quiet Man remains a lovely film and it holds up because of the romance and humour in a story about passion, love, redemption and a search for peace. A masterpiece by a master director and one of the greatest films you could ever wish to see.

Not aged well - The Quiet Man review by MM

Only the Americans could make a film so dripping in sentiment for an Ireland their ancestors left because of famine and grinding poverty. In John Ford’s Ireland, the country is a bucolic idyll, the characters representing Catholicism, IRA and the landed gentry are harmless eccentrics. The men spend most of their time getting drunk down the pub and settling the differences with fist fights. The treatment of women in the film is shocking, even for a 1950’s film. Sean (John Wayne) dragging his wife, Mary Kate by the scruff of her neck over 5 miles of rough ground is particularly unpleasant. Hard to believe that even in the 50s this was viewed as acceptable. The humour has not aged at all well either. Just 5 years later Hollywood would gives us “Some like it hot” a brilliantly funny and progressive film, that puts the quiet man in its place for the utter tosh that it is.