50 Fun Facts About The Quiet Man

What secret from his boxing days makes Sean Thornton refuse to fight his brother-in-law in The Quiet Man?

He killed an opponent in the ring, a younger married man, and swore off fighting out of guilt. His silence about it is why Mary Kate takes him for a coward.

The storm kiss from The Quiet Man plays on television in which Steven Spielberg film?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial plays the storm kiss on a TV set, complete with the older film's main theme melody. Spielberg's film arrived thirty years after John Ford's.

How much did John Ford pay in the 1930s for the film rights to the magazine story The Quiet Man?

$10 was all John Ford paid for the rights to the 1933 story. Its author got $2,500 more when a studio took the project on, and a final $3,750 once the film was actually made.

In The Quiet Man, what does Sean do with the dowry money once he gets it?

Burns it in a boiler, and Mary Kate helps him do it. The couple wanted the custom honoured, never the cash, so she walks home proud while the two men square up.

Which relatives of star John Wayne appear on screen during the horse race sequence in The Quiet Man?

His children, four of them, all turn up at the race, uncredited. Two of the four even get a moment with Maureen O'Hara's Mary Kate before the riders set off.

Which actor, who once boxed heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, played Mary Kate's bullying brother in The Quiet Man?

Victor McLaglen went six rounds with Jack Johnson in a 1909 exhibition in Vancouver, decades before his screen brawl with John Wayne. He was nearly 65 when the film's fight was shot.

Which Western did John Ford, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara have to make first so their studio would fund The Quiet Man?

Rio Grande was the studio's insurance: its boss thought the Ireland story too weak to sell and wanted a cavalry picture to cover the expected losses. The Quiet Man far out-earned it.

Which brewing dynasty once owned Ashford Castle, the lakeside base for John Ford's crew on The Quiet Man?

Guinness money gave the castle its Victorian extensions after Sir Benjamin Guinness bought the estate in 1852. The family sold it in 1939 and the new owner opened it as a hotel.

Which village on the border of counties Mayo and Galway stood in for the fictional setting of The Quiet Man?

Cong has drawn tourists ever since on the strength of the film. A pub later opened in the building that played the village bar on screen.

Which American city has retired boxer Sean Thornton left behind to return to Ireland in The Quiet Man?

Pittsburgh is the city the Ireland-born boxer leaves to buy back his old family farm. His bid beats a rich neighbour's, and that starts the feud that drives the plot.

What is the name of the fictional village where Sean Thornton was born and buys a cottage in The Quiet Man?

Inisfree is the spelling on the race-meeting posters seen in the film, though reviews often add a second n. It is not the real lake isle of similar name, a small island in a lake on the Sligo–Leitrim border.

Where does Sean Thornton spend his wedding night after quarrelling with Mary Kate over her dowry in The Quiet Man?

In a sleeping bag, alone, while Mary Kate keeps the bedroom. To her the marriage is not valid until her furniture and her money arrive from her brother's house.

To which city is Mary Kate's train bound when Sean Thornton hauls her off it in The Quiet Man?

Dublin is only a bluff: Mary Kate hopes that seeming to leave will finally spur her husband into action. It works, and he marches her five miles back to face her brother.

Which colour process, costlier than the Trucolor its studio normally used, was The Quiet Man filmed in?

Technicolor was a rare outlay for a studio known for low-budget B-movies, which saw the whole Ireland project as a risky venture.

Thoor Ballylee, a County Galway tower seen in The Quiet Man, was once the home of which poet?

W. B. Yeats bought the old tower for a nominal £35 and spent summers there through the 1920s. He dropped the word castle from its name in favour of Thoor, from the Irish for tower.

What kind of horse-drawn vehicle does matchmaker Michaeleen Flynn drive around the countryside in The Quiet Man?

A jaunting car is a light two-wheeled carriage whose passengers sit back to back, facing outwards. Michaeleen brings the hero to the village in it, then uses it to chaperone the courtship.

Besides arranging marriages, which other trade does matchmaker Michaeleen Flynn carry on in The Quiet Man?

Bookmaker is his other calling, so the man who brokers the village's weddings also takes its bets. When the big brawl breaks out, the whole crowd is soon wagering on the result.

Which film, the biggest box-office hit of 1952, beat The Quiet Man to Best Picture?

The Greatest Show on Earth, Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, took the top prize although DeMille himself expected a rival to win. Some reviewers now rank it among the weakest winners.

Which 1963 comedy Western reunited The Quiet Man stars John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara as a feuding married couple?

McLintock! borrows loosely from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and was produced by Wayne's own company, Batjac. It was the fourth of the pair's five films together.

Which institution keeps the National Film Registry, the preservation list that The Quiet Man joined in 2013?

Library of Congress selectors add up to 25 films a year that they judge culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. A film has to be at least ten years old to qualify.

Which studio, better known for cheap Westerns and serials, earned its only Best Picture nomination with The Quiet Man?

Republic Pictures had John Wayne under contract as its one A-list star, yet this risky Ireland romance was the last film he made there.

Which actor, Oscar-nominated twice for one role in Going My Way, played matchmaker Michaeleen Flynn in The Quiet Man?

Barry Fitzgerald won the supporting Oscar for Going My Way while also in the running as lead actor, a double the Academy soon outlawed. His younger brother is in the cast too, as the Protestant vicar.

Which actor, later the trail boss of TV's Wagon Train, played parish priest Father Lonergan in The Quiet Man?

Ward Bond made 25 films with John Ford, whose mother had once urged him to enter the priesthood. One Ford scholar reads the slightly irreverent Father Lonergan as the director's own stand-in.

Which Kerry-born author wrote the short story that John Ford turned into The Quiet Man?

Maurice Walsh was one of Ireland's best-selling authors of the 1930s. A later film of his novel Trouble in the Glen fared so poorly that it reportedly put him off Hollywood for good.

In which American magazine did the short story behind John Ford's film The Quiet Man first appear in 1933?

Saturday Evening Post readers met the tale in 1933, and John Ford was one of them. Its author later reworked it for his book Green Rushes, set against the Troubles of the 1920s.

Which famous boxing code do the two brawlers jokingly agree to follow during the big fight in The Quiet Man?

Marquess of Queensberry rules were the first to require gloves, and they forbid wrestling. The promise is insincere: the bare-knuckle brawl that follows sprawls for miles across the countryside.

To which villager, a former boxer himself, does Sean Thornton confide his secret in The Quiet Man?

Reverend Playfair, the Protestant minister, recognises the newcomer from his fighting days and agrees to keep the secret. Later he quietly persuades him to stand up to his brother-in-law.

Which wealthy landowner sells Sean Thornton his family's old cottage, angering a rival bidder, in The Quiet Man?

Widow Tillane takes the newcomer's bid because the other bidder's presumption annoys her. That man, Mary Kate's brother, has long admired her, a weakness the villagers later turn against him.

Which older brother of the film's director plays the dying man who leaps up to watch the fight in The Quiet Man?

Francis Ford was a silent-era director and star who mentored his younger brother in Hollywood, only to be eclipsed by him. He went on to play character parts in many of John's films.

Which Hollywood composer wove traditional airs such as The Rakes of Mallow into the score of The Quiet Man?

Victor Young was a friend of the director and earned 22 Oscar nominations without a win in his lifetime. His only Academy Award, for Around the World in 80 Days, came after his death.

Alongside its directing prize, which other Academy Award did The Quiet Man win from its seven nominations?

Best Cinematography went to Winton Hoch and Archie Stout, even though much of the location shoot took place under heavy cloud. It was Hoch's third Oscar.

Which former New York Times film critic wrote the screenplay for John Ford's The Quiet Man?

Frank S. Nugent wrote almost a thousand reviews for the paper before turning screenwriter, then wrote eleven films for John Ford. This one won him a Writers Guild award for comedy.

At which European film festival was The Quiet Man an official selection in 1952, taking its International Award?

Venice gave the film its International Award and two smaller prizes, though it missed out on the Golden Lion.

Which short-lived 1961 Broadway musical was adapted from The Quiet Man, with songs by Johnny Burke?

Donnybrook! closed after 68 performances. Its songwriter had tried, and failed, to sign Maureen O'Hara to repeat her role on stage.

Which horror director was reported to have died in 2017 while listening to the score of The Quiet Man?

George A. Romero, creator of Night of the Living Dead, was said to have died with the film's music playing. Maureen O'Hara's family said the same of her two years earlier.

The Quiet Man's main theme was written not by its composer but by Richard Farrelly, who had which day job?

A policeman for thirty-eight years, Farrelly thought up the tune on a bus ride from his home town of Kells. John Ford loved it and made it the film's theme, yet it got no mention in the credits.

Which future Gunsmoke regular, a son-in-law of John Ford, plays pub singer Dermot Fahy in The Quiet Man?

Ken Curtis, later the scruffy deputy Festus Haggen, was singing with the Sons of the Pioneers at the time. He went uncredited here but landed a far bigger part in John Ford's The Searchers.

In which US state was The Quiet Man director John Ford born to parents who had emigrated from Ireland?

Maine is where he was born John Martin Feeney, in Cape Elizabeth; his father came from Spiddal in County Galway. A statue of him in Portland carries an inscription for The Quiet Man.

How did John Ford beat his studio's demand that The Quiet Man run under two hours?

By stopping the screening early, at about the two-hour mark, he left the executives hanging just as the climactic fist fight was about to start. They let him keep all 129 minutes.

Which earlier John Ford film set in Ireland won him his first Best Director Oscar, long before The Quiet Man?

The Informer brought John Ford the first of his record four directing Oscars, and The Quiet Man the last. None of the four was for a Western, the genre he is most identified with.

Which real County Galway railway station, long closed to passengers, appears as Castletown in The Quiet Man?

Ballyglunin lost its passenger trains in 1976, but local volunteers have been restoring the station precisely because of its part in the film.

At which village pub do the two exhausted fighters break off for a drink in The Quiet Man?

Cohan's is where the two men grudgingly admit their respect for each other, then fall out over who pays. One last punch through the bar doors ends the fight.

Why do Catholic villagers cheer a visiting Protestant bishop as The Quiet Man ends?

To pad a tiny congregation: the vicar has only a handful of parishioners, so his Catholic neighbours pose as his flock to impress the bishop. Even their own priest joins in.

Which outlaw ballad do the pub regulars sing for Sean Thornton in The Quiet Man?

The Wild Colonial Boy is a folk ballad about a bushranger who dies in a gunfight with police. It is struck up once the newcomer introduces himself, and snatches of the tune recur through the film.

Which crooner had a worldwide hit in 1952 with a vocal version of the main theme from The Quiet Man?

Bing Crosby made the melody an international hit in the year of the film's release. Later versions have come from acts as different as Vera Lynn and Celtic Woman.

Which behind-the-scenes job did Maureen O'Hara, once an office worker, do for John Ford on The Quiet Man?

She typed the script, using the shorthand and typing she had learned before working for a laundry and a battery company. She had agreed to star years earlier, on a handshake.

Which John Ford film of 1957 reunited The Quiet Man's two stars, the third and last time he directed them together?

The Wings of Eagles told the true story of an old friend of the director, a naval aviator who became a Hollywood screenwriter. It ended the actress's long collaboration with John Ford.

Which co-creator of King Kong produced The Quiet Man alongside John Ford through their company Argosy?

Merian C. Cooper collected an honorary Oscar for his innovations in film at the very ceremony where The Quiet Man won its two awards. He had also been a military aviator.

On what kind of terrain, at Lettergesh in Connemara, was the horse race in The Quiet Man filmed?

A beach made a ready-made racetrack for the scene in which the villagers trick Mary Kate's brother into approving her courtship.

The American Film Institute ranked The Quiet Man number 76 on its 2002 list of the 100 best films of which kind?

Love stories was the theme, and the stormy courtship of Sean and Mary Kate earned the film its place half a century after its release.