dual personalities

Happy Friday! My weekend will be quiet as daughter #1 headed off to visit daughter #2, leaving Mr. Smith with us.

The boy is taking the twins on an overnight camping trip, so they will miss Sunday with us. Sigh.

But Sunday is St. Patrick’s Day so we will be watching The Quiet Man (1952) as this is our March 17th tradition. It is a fairy tale, a make-believe wish of what Ireland is like, but I love it–mostly because John Wayne is great and at the height of his powers.

To get you in the mood to watch, here are a few fun facts to know and share about the movie.

As you recall, when daughters #1 and #2 and I were traveling in Ireland in 2011, we made a pilgrimage to Cong where the movie was filmed.

The Quiet Man Museum is around the block from Pat Cohan’s Bar.

The town of Cong, in County Mayo was just getting electricity in 1951 when the actors and crew were there. A few scenes show utility poles, but no wires are clearly visible. The town folk were excited because they thought the electricity wouldn’t cost anything. When they learned otherwise, they insisted they didn’t want or need it – get rid of it. (Later, of course, their attitude changed.)

Charles B. Fitzsimmons (Hugh Forbes, IRA man) and James O’Hara (Father Paul) were the real-life younger brothers of Maureen O’Hara.

The white-haired, frail Dan Tobin, who gets up from his death bed and runs to see the fight, was John Ford’s older brother, Francis Ford. Four of John Wayne’s children appear in the steeplechase scene, which Wayne directed while Ford was sick.

Barry Fitzgerald, who plays the character of Michaleen Oge Flynn, and Arthur Shields, who played the Protestant vicar Cyril ‘Snuffy’ Playfair, were brothers in real life. They were both Protestants born in Dublin, Ireland. Shields was the family name. The Oscar-winner Fitzgerald, who was nearly eight years older than his brother, was born William Joseph Shields.

It is Maureen O’Hara’s favorite of her own films.

John Ford won his fourth Best Director Oscar and the film was in the top ten moneymakers of the year. Winton Hoch won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

Stephen Spielberg, a great admirer of John Ford, paid tribute to The Quiet Man in E.T. (1982):

When the film was first screened in Boston, MA, Michaleen Flynn’s line on seeing the broken bed, “Impetuous! Homeric!”, was censored.

Well, watch it or don’t–that’s how I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

And here’s a bonus picture of Ida waving at the fish in the fish pond.