Tag Archives: the quiet man

Feb 07

An impetuous, homeric purchase

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Our church generally has a “Souper Bowl” soup potluck on Super Bowl Sunday, to benefit our youth group, and I’d found a cheese soup recipe I wanted to bring.

But it turned out that my brother had to be at the airport by 10 a.m., so my parents and I skipped church to be there.

I decided that I still wanted to make the cheese soup, as a Super Bowl meal, and so after we got home I ran by Walmart for some of the ingredients.

I was surprised to see that our local Hollywood Video is going out of business. Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery are now owned by the same company, and from what one of the cashiers said, I guess they decided they only needed one location in Shelbyville. They’re selling off their pre-viewed movies (and have discounts on some of their new movies).

I bought a pre-viewed copy of “The Quiet Man,” one of my all-time favorites, with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. The title of this post comes from my favorite line in the film (“Impetuous! Homeric!”), spoken by Barry Fitzgerald when he sees a broken bed after Sean Thornton’s wedding night and makes an unspoken assumption about how it got broken.

The cheese soup turned out to be wonderful. I made some changes from the original Food Network recipe (for example, Fontina was waaay too expensive for just me, so I used cheddar). I’ll have to figure out exactly what I did and come back and post it here.

Mar 17

When Irish films are screening

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I will be at rehearsal tonight, so I won’t get to watch it on St. Patrick’s Day, but I am setting the DVR to record “The Quiet Man,” a movie which I really ought to purchase on DVD, and soon.

If you’ve seen it, you know it’s the perfect taste of Ireland (no doubt more Irish than the actual Ireland, but who cares?). It was a labor of love for director John Ford, who tried for years to interest a variety of Hollywood studios. Finally, cheapo lot Republic Pictures agreed to make the movie — but only if Ford and his stars John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara would also make a Western for Republic (which was considered a much safer bet). That movie, by the way, was “Rio Grande.”

I’ve blogged this before, but there’s one line in the movie which makes me belly-laugh every time I hear it. Wayne’s and O’Hara’s characters have gotten married, but they’ve had a fight, breaking their bed in the process, and therefore never consummated the marriage. The next day, several of the townspeople pay a courtesy call, including Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald), with an accent thicker than a leprechaun’s.

Fitzgerald, at one point, is alone inside the house and looks at the broken bed, making his own private assumptions about how it was was broken.

“Impetuous! Homeric!” he exclaims, and I fall out of the chair.

If you’ve never seen this movie, you need to watch it, tonight, on TCM. The climactic fight scene is a gem.

Feb 13

Impetuous! Homeric!

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I know it’s redundant to Twitter and Facebook and blog about the same thing within the matter of a few minutes, but … I can’t help myself.

As you know, I was sick over the weekend, and then plunged right into several very busy days at work. So tonight, I went to dinner at church (I was on the list, and so the church would have been out $6.25 in catering on my behalf otherwise) but did not stay for Bible study. I came on home to try to relax, after busy evenings Monday and Tuesday.

And, lo and behold, the fine folks at Turner Classic Movies had “The Quiet Man” all warmed up and waiting for me. Perfect. John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, and three-strip Technicolor cinematography that is as green as the Ireland of John Ford’s memory (and probably greener than the real Ireland). And if you look up “donnybrook” in the dictionary, there is (or should be) a little photo of John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in one of the longest and most-entertaining fistfights in Hollywood history.

Absolute bliss. And the title of this post, which is spoken by Fitzgerald during the movie, is one of the funniest reaction takes in any movie.

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