“‘It's a nice soft night,' says Barry Fitzgerald, town marriage broker, bet-maker and busybody, ‘so I think I'll join my comrades and talk a little treason.' Between that line and what may be the greatest (and must be the funniest) fistfight ever committed to film lies The Quiet Man, John Ford's deeply felt, lyrical portrait of his beloved Ireland. Frank S. Nugent wrote the script, which revolves around an American ex-prize fighter (John Wayne) who returns to the land of his birth to buy back the family cottage and marry a tempestuous Irishwoman (Maureen O'Hara). The tension between Wayne's America and O'Hara's Ireland provides the film with its cutting edge, but its heart is in the characters: Victor McLaglen as O'Hara's pugnacious brother, Mildred Natwick as the widow he loves, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond, Arthur Shields, Francis Ford, and the rest of the Fordian company, plus supporting performances by Dublin's Abbey Theater players. The Quiet Man is one of Ford's loveliest films, not the least for the breathtaking Technicolor photography of the Irish countryside. (Our print is a new Eastmancolor print made from the Technicolor). Rich in folklore and offhand sociology, laced with bawdy comedy and even a bit of sex, it's Ford's sweetest love story.” Michael Goodwin