Featuring John Wayne in the starring role, The Quiet Man includes a fist fight that lasts a whopping nine minutes. As one of the biggest stars in the Western genre, John Wayne has obviously been no stranger to fist fights. They’re a regular occurrence in classic Hollywood Westerns, and Wayne has been in more than his fair share of them. Surprisingly, though, his biggest fight wasn’t a saloon brawl or a slugfest with another cowboy in one of John Wayne’s famous Westerns. Rather, it came from The Quiet Man, which isn’t exactly a Western.
While The Quiet Man isn’t counted as a Western, it is one of several collaborations between John Wayne and John Ford, the director with whom Wayne made several of his most iconic Westerns. The Quiet Man provided a unique backdrop for Wayne by taking him out of the Wild Wild West and placing him in 1920s England. The movie saw his character, a former boxer named Sean Thornton, engage in a romance with Maureen O’Hara’s Mary Kate Danaher, a decision that set up the longest fist fight the actor ever filmed.
The Quiet Man Has A Nearly Ten-Minute Fist Fight Between John Wayne & Victor McLaglen
It’s The Best Fight Scene Of John Wayne’s Career
Sean Thornton’s romance with Mary Kate put him at odds with Victor McLaglen’s Squire “Red” Will Danaher, her older brother. However, Sean sought to avoid conflict with him over the guilt he carried for accidentally killing a boxer in the ring. At the end of the movie, though, his squabbles with Will come to a head when they finally agree to a fight in front of the village. But rather than it end right where it started, The Quiet Man takes the fight all over town, giving Ford a chance to really show off different parts of the landscape.
The Quiet Man follows Sean and Will, tracing their steps, as they relentlessly knock each other around, fighting outside a farm, in a pond, across town, and more. The movie keeps it going for almost ten minutes, aided in large part by short rest breaks and the reactions of the townsfolk, many of which being minor characters in the story. Having been excited about the possibility of a fight from early on, many of them go to great lengths to watch, with the movie using this for comedic purposes and extending the sequence in the process.
The Quiet Man Is An Underrated John Wayne Classic
Perhaps because it’s not a John Wayne war movie or Western, The Quiet Man may not be revered as one of the actor’s best movies, but is a quality, enjoyable film nonetheless. Though unique from most John Wayne films via its Irish setting, The Quiet Man still manages to take advantage of Wayne’s “tough guy” image, placing him in a role where the actor seemingly feels at home as an extremely formidable ex-boxer. Its use of comedy blends well with the story to make it a underrated gem.