Last August I mentioned in this series of threads a movie on Irish life that I think is better than this one, although this film is justifiably regarded as a classic. That movie is Durango, which all in all is a better movie.
Durango is set early in World War Two. The 1952 film The Quiet Man is filmed is set in a seemingly newly independent Ireland, but the exact year is never really revealed. It's probably, therefore, set in the 1920s, or maybe in the 1930s. An off reference to the Irish Republican Army, which at that time would have been set against the government of the Irish Free State, is included in the film, an orphaned part of a plot line that was abandoned as the film was made.
The film follows the adventures of "Trooper" Thorne, an Irish American boxer who has retired after a ring tragedy and who takes up residence in an Irish cottage near where his mother had been from. He's the "quiet" man of the movie, portrayed by John Wayne in this film directed by John Ford. Ford's film does a good job of showing the rural nature of Ireland at the time, which indeed was still the Ireland of the time in which the film was shot there. It's a charming, small story, film set in rural Ireland, and overall it does a good job of portraying it correctly, which isn't too surprising given that the Irish American Ford was enormously enamored of Ireland. The cast is excellent, and the material details are pretty good. It'll likely be shown all day today on some television channel, as it usually is on St. Patrick's Day.
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