The
Quiet Man
As
well as one of John
Ford�s greatest box office successes, (1952), this is one of the best
beer movies ever. When American Sean Thornton (John Wayne without a
six-shooter, although there�s a decent bit of ride �em cowboy in a
steeplechase over the sands) returns to
Ireland, land of his birth, he stops at a pub. �I�ll try one of
those black beers,� he says. �Ah, a porter,� replies Pat Cohan
(Harry Tyler), the publican, and hand-pumped porter it is for the rest of
the film. Alas, you won�t find a lot of hand-pulled black stuff over
there nowadays. At the wedding of Thornton and Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen
O�Hara), Micheleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald) is given champagne and spits
it out as if poisoned; a moment later, someone hands him a proper pint, to
his enormous relief.
Put
up with some American sentimentality about Ould Oireland�it has provided
the money for Technicolor film stock that brings out the lush Galway
countryside colours in a most vivid fashion. The sound quality is a clear
clean effort and copes well with the amount of blarney thrown at it!
They
don�t make films like this nowadays and they certainly don�t make
men's headgear like you�ll see in this film.
Price-wise, look around: I got the single dvd for �4.99 in Morrisons; boxed with Rooster Cogburn it�s just �6.99 from Play.com.
�RKW