The movies would not be the movies without stories. Not the plots but the behind-the-camera anecdotes that told enough times becomes truth.
Here is one: Director John Ford was finishing The Quiet Man (Fri, 11.00 AM, Film4). It was shot sequentially in Ireland which meant it was not only the last scene, but also the last scene filmed.
Battling lovers John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, two of Ford’s favourite pairings, were the Benedick and Beatrice of Ireland. They scrapped and squabbled through half the production. Finally, things end beautifully. O’Hara as independent colleen Mary Kate Danaher is to look at her suitor Sean Thornton (Wayne) and then they hold hands and merrily run towards the conjugal home deep in the green Eire countryside.
But Ford was not happy. The scene didn’t work. It lacked electricity though Wayne and O’Hara were personal pals. He took the actress aside and said something akin to; “I want you to go up to The Duke, whisper something in his ear.” He told her exactly what she was to say.
“I can’t say that to any man.” she said shocked, her good Catholic upbringing rising to the fore.
Ford promised O’Hara that only she, he and Wayne would ever know what was whispered unscripted to get the scene right.
She agreed. Well, there it is in the final scene of his great romantic comedy about an American ex-boxer coming back to the Emerald Isle to stake his family claim. The two are standing on a knoll with their cottage in the background. O’Hara leans into the towering star and whispers something that she would never say to any man. The Duke, for a mere second or two, drops his role persona. He looks incredulously at O’Hara, smiles broadly, grabs her hand and they run towards their new home, their future, their happy marriage. It is a funny, warm, final scene.
What a great story. Who knows if it is true? Who cares? It’s a tale that only adds to this romantic comedy that Ford always wanted to make. Wayne is the down to earth ex-pug who wants to return home, O’Hara the girl he falls for. But in their way is O’Hara’s gruff, dominant screen father, played by Ford favourite Victor McLaglen, seen in so many Ford/Wayne westerns.
Others members of the Ford troupe flesh out the film: Ward Bond (of Wagon Train fame), Irish stage comic Barry Fitzgerald, Ford’s own brother Francis and Jack MacGowan.
The film is 100% corn-fed nonsense; enduring, easy on the eye and contains a great (Hollywood) fight scene between Wayne and McLaglen that seems to last half the film and shot over half of County Mayo. Every scene contains the colour green to celebrate Ford’s love of his heritage. Hollywood bosses hated the movie (before it made big bucks) calling it a “silly Irish story that won’t make a penny”.
And that brings us to a second tale. Those studio top dogs at Republic Films took a look at the final cut and said it was too long. Chop out twenty minutes, Ford was told.
He did and re-showed the last edit. The director, a pugnacious son of a gun, had simply cut the movie’s final 20 minutes and said: “You wanted that much cut. That’s what you got – no ending.”
The bosses relented. Ford got his cut as the distributed film. He must have been a tough old boy that John Ford, a director who dominated American movies for decades. This easy going story from 1952 won two Oscars (best director and best cinematography) and the Duke and O’Hara went on to make five movies together. The Quiet Man is an integral part of Hollywood’s back story.