In "The Honoraries" we're looking at the careers of this year's Honorary Oscar recipients (O'Hara, Miyazaki, Carrière) and the Jean Hersholt winner (Belafonte). Here's abstew on an Irish fav...
I have often said that "The Quiet Man" is my personal favourite of all the pictures I have made. It is the one I am most proud of and I tend to be very protective of it. I loved Mary Kate Danaher.
-Maureen O'Hara 'Tis Herself
The making of John Ford's Oscar-winning film The Quiet Man was a labor of love for all involved. Despite having already won the Best Director Oscar three times, Ford found it difficult to get his passion project off the ground. As far back as 1944, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara had agreed to star in Ford's love letter to Ireland. And it eventually found a home at the most unusual of places. B-movie studio Republic only agreed to make the film (which they thought would lose them money) if Ford, Wayne, and O'Hara first made a guaranteed money-generating Western together first. After 1950's Rio Grande for the studio, they headed to shoot on location among the lush emerald fields of Ireland itself and the affection for the country and its people is apparent in every frame.
Though not often cited as one of Ford's masterpieces like The Searchers, the director, like O'Hara, has often said it was his favorite of his films. It earned 7 Academy Award nominations and won Ford a record 4th Best Director win. The film's enduring popularity has lasted for decades now and has special attachment for me as my father counts it as his favorite film as well. And one of the main reasons for its adoration (certainly for my father at least) has to be the feisty turn by Maureen O'Hara as Mary Kate Danaher.
The Quiet Man was the third film (of an eventual five) that Ford and O'Hara worked on together. And his devotion for the actress is evident from the movie star entrance she's given in the film. Playing American Sean Thornton, John Wayne, another frequent collaborator of O'Hara's, (they would also go on to make a total of five films together) arrives in the Irish village of Inisfree to purchase the cottage he was born in. Upon his arrival, he sees in the distance a beautiful young flame-haired woman as she shepherds her flock of sheep. The sunlight catches her tresses and she looks back at Thornton with a knowing look, full of mystery and longing. Thorton, and we as the audience, are immediately smitten.
Hey, is that real? She couldn't be.
But we very quickly realize that the woman, Mary Kate Danaher, a "spinster" living with her brothers, thankfully is far from some male fantasy appearing out of the mist to serve his ever need. She's a real-life woman not afraid to stand up to the demands of men, with a personality as fiery as the color of her hair. And Thornton soon learns that during a late night interaction.
Having successfully out bid Mary Kate's bullish brother (Victor McLaglen in an Oscar-nominated turn) for the deed to his birthplace, he enters the cottage during a blustery stormy night to find that someone else has been there - and cleaned the place for him. Mary Kate, trying quickly to escape before he can see her, gets swept away (metaphorically and literally) as the storm flings open the door and Thornton violently whips Mary Kate in his arms to give her a kiss. It's a scene straight out of a harlequin romance novel, in which our heroine's emotions and unbridled lust are as tempestuous as the weather. But Mary Kate is not so easily won and she greets the kiss with a smack right across his face.
O'Hara and the Duke have great chemistry together, perhaps because she is able to match his masculine bravado with her own strong feminine power. Holding her own and matching him blow for blow, she's every bit his equal. Later when the two marry and Mary Kate refuses to bed him until she secures her dowry back from her brother, she steadfastly holds by her decision despite his protestations. Knowing that she as a woman is afforded very few allowances in her world and to have the largest one taken from her is beyond reproach. It's not the money and furniture that matter, but what it symbolizes. O'Hara avoids the trap of turning Mary Kate into a hen-pecking nag by always allowing us to see the actual affection between Mary Kate and Thornton. Her chastisement is only utilized to defend her honor and let the patriarchal community know that she will not be held down by their oppression.
Which is why it is perhaps hard for modern audiences to cheer during the famous scene where Thornton lugs Mary Kate back home across miles of fields. It's degrading to see her independence rewarded by literally dragging her across the mud and worse still is how the film makes it seem like it was just what she needed and wanted all along. The abuse has apparently allowed Mary Kate to respect her husband as a man again, but part of my love for the character dies as she is then reduced to what she has avoided for the previous portion of the film, turning her into the subservient wife. Luckily the film's last moments allow some of her old spirit back as she takes control, whispers something naughty into her husband's ear and the two eagerly rush back home. It's not the feminist freedom I had hoped for, but sexual liberation in a repressed Catholic country is still something. And despite her eventual fate, O'Hara's passion as Mary Kate Danaher is still palpably felt long after we've left the quiet Irish village.
Previously in The Honoraries: Maureen O'Hara, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Hayao Miyazaki.