Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Claude Jarman, Ben Johnson

Director: John Ford

Summary: Includes the John Ford films THE QUIET MAN and RIO GRANDE.

Includes the John Ford films THE QUIET MAN and RIO GRANDE. In THE QUIET MAN, Sean Thornton is a retired American boxing champion trying to put tragedy behind him by returning to Innisfree, the bucolic Irish village of his birth. He purchases his birthplace from its current owner, enraging the wealthy and bellicose Red Will Danaher, who had designs on the property. On arriving at his cottage, Thornton finds it being swept out by Mary Kate Danaher, a redheaded vision from whom he steals a not completely unwelcome kiss. After engaging in a subterfuge involving a horse race, some of the locals manage to get the disgruntled Red Will to allow his sister to be courted by the American. But the courtship ritual of the village is only the first of many local practices that the bewildered Thornton must endure if he is to have Mary Kate. In RIO GRANDE, Kirby York is a colonel at an army outpost along the U.S. Mexico border where the Apache are always a problem. When his son, Jeff--whom he hasn't seen in more than a decade--arrives at the fort after flunking out of West Point, Yorke treats him coldly, warning the young man not to expect preferential treatment, which Jeff assures him he doesn't want. Yorke's ex-wife Kathleen appears, intending to persuade Jeff to leave the army. Yorke refuses to do the necessary paperwork to release his son, a decision seconded by Jeff, who has begun to adapt to army life--and before Kathleen can regroup for another attempt, the fort is attacked by the Apache.

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The Quiet Man

Blarney and bliss, mixed in equal proportions. John Wayne plays an American boxer who returns to the Emerald Isle, his native land. What he finds there is a fiery prospective spouse (Maureen O'Hara) and a country greener than any Ireland seen before or since--it's no surprise The Quiet Man won an Oscar for cinematography. It also won an Oscar for John Ford's direction, his fourth such award. The film was a deeply personal project for Ford (whose birth name was Sean Aloysius O'Fearna), and he lavished all of his affection for the Irish landscape and Irish people on this film. He also stages perhaps the greatest donnybrook in the history of movies, an epic fistfight between Wayne and the truculent Victor McLaglen--that's Ford's brother, Francis, as the elderly man on his deathbed who miraculously revives when he hears word of the dustup. Barry Fitzgerald, the original Irish elf, gets the movie's biggest laugh when he walks into the newlyweds' bedroom the morning after their wedding, and spots a broken bed. The look on his face says everything. The Quiet Man isn't the real Ireland, but as a delicious never-never land of Ford's imagination, it will do very nicely. --Robert Horton

Rio Grande

The last and least memorable of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy (following Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), Rio Grande nonetheless has an interesting continuity about the gentlemanly rules of military conduct. Here the focus is on the family. While creating a heated controversy over his handling of the Apache war, John Wayne must also contend with disgruntled wife Maureen O'Hara and estranged son Claude Jarman Jr., a new recruit trying to earn his father's love and respect. Ford seems to suggest that there are two conflicting codes of honor in every cavalry officer's life, the personal as well as the professional, and that it takes an act of heroism to maintain both. It's fascinating to observe Wayne's progression throughout the trilogy, as his personal stakes intensify. Also, this is the first of five onscreen appearances between the Duke and O'Hara, each filled with a competitive spirit and stormy sexuality. --Bill Desowitz

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Release Date:	December 26, 2006
Runtime:	234 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8241864
Keywords:	Man, Quiet, Western, Films, Two, Rio, Grande, Romantic, Drama, Discs
Genre:	Drama