It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

This week’s time vampire barely qualifies.  It’s power over my time is exercised only once a year on  St. Patrick’s Day.  Being only a very small part Irish (unlike my co-blogger Kristy), I can’t claim any kind of authentic traditions for this particular holiday.  So, over the years, I’ve built my own very stereotyped, Americanized tradition consisting of two key steps:

1) Consumption of potatoes for supper (be they baked, twice baked, boiled….)

2) Viewing The Quiet Man.

It’s step two that really takes up time.  Not that I mind it.  This John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara classic is one of my favorites of all time.  The first American movie shot in Ireland.  It’s not exactly true to the Maurice Walsh short story it’s based on, but who cares?  It’s The Duke and the Technicolor Queen in a romance set against a backdrop of humor and semi-exaggerated stereotypes, with a dash of mild spousal abuse (I’d say my inner feminist is offended, but she’s conceded that honestly, Mary Kate could and would kick Sean’s ass without batting an eye, so their disfunction is, at least, balanced).  It was a pet project of John Ford (and Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne) which only took off when Ford agreed to make another O’Hara/Wayne classic, Rio Grande to justify the money Republic Pictures was about to shell out to make this little Irish story he was so set on.  As with all Ford projects, it’s full of the veritable rep company that shows up in all his films (Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen….)

Sad as it is, I no longer consider this holiday complete if I don’t get to watch this movie.  In recent years when circumstance has conspired like garlic against this vampire, I’ve been down right cranky for days after.  And it didn’t matter if I got to watch the film the day before or the day after.  It must happen on the day or it’s just not right.

So, today, I tapped my foot impatiently through a meeting that ran past 5pm.  By damnit, I had to get home, get the potatoes on and get this movie started so I could finish it (and still watch Bones) tonight.  And even though I have to work tomorrow, I will not hesitate to stay up past my bed time.  This Vampire will not be turned away from the door….and for once, I am more than happy to invite a vamp in, hand it a beer (full disclosure–this year the beer is Mexican….I honestly don’t care much for Guiness or most of the other Irish Ales and the Negro Modelo was on sale for once in a blue moon), pass over the potatoes and settle into recite the lines I know by heart.

Well, it’s a fine soft night, so I think I’ll go and join me comrades and talk a little treason.  -Michaleen  Og Flynn

I’ve spent 3 days trying to find time to sit down with my recently purchased copy of the John Ford classic Rio Grande.  Work and phone calls keep interrupting, but, as I write this it appears I might get to finish the film tonight.

If you were not subjected to a lot of westerns as a child the way  I was, you might not know this film.  What you might know is the movie that Rio Grande was made to finance: the John Wayne – Maureen O’Hara classic The Quiet Man.  At time time John Ford was pressing to make The Quiet Man, westerns were fantastic money makers.  Republic pictures was unsure of the returns they might get out of a pastoral little film set in Ireland, so they demanded Ford make them a western starring Wayne and O’Hara.

It turned out that The Quiet Man was one of the highest grossing pictures Republic ever had, and while Rio Grande was no flop, today it’s normally just a footnote in the history of The Quiet Man.

However, it’s a disservice to Rio Grande to dismiss it so lightly.  In its own right it’s a great movie.  It’s the first time Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne–an undeniably awesome screen couple–ever appeared together in a movie.  In the grand scheme of movie history, that alone means something.

The greatness did not stop with the casting.  In typical John Ford fashion, it’s a movie that’s chock fully  things to discover with each watching.  You can follow the troubled romantic recovery of Kathleen and Kirby Yorke–a married couple who’ve been estranged since they were on opposites sides in the War Against Northern Aggression.  There’s the broader troubled situation of Indian raiding.  There’s Trooper Tyree, avoiding arrest for manslaughter in what sounds like a “he needed killin’” situation.  While it contains some of the cliche of cowboys-and-Indians, it’s got far more depth than many other westerns of the time, in part from some of the darker moments, including the rather somber start of the film which depicts Army wives waiting to meet a slow train of soldiers, some wounded, returning to the encampment.

And in between all of these are the little moments, from good natured brawls, grown men being utterly berated by their young nieces, to green-horn young troopers accidentally shooting fellow soldiers in the butt while cleaning a rifle.  Even after this many viewings, I’m still finding little visual or verbal quips I’d missed or forgotten that bring a giggle again.  It’s also the source of one too many quotes that my father and I like to toss around (“Yo-oooh!”  ”Git ‘er done!” –yes, this catch phrase FAR predates Larry the Cable Guy– “UNCLE TIMMY!” “Don’t Uncle Sam know they grow beef in these parts?” )

It doesn’t hurt to have the Sons of the Pioneers doing one of my favorite versions of “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” and “Down By the Glenside” either.  And of course, the setting (though not the filming location) is Texas.  Always a winner with me (even if the part of Texas is played by Moab, Utah).

Ultimately, it’s just as lucky that The Quite Man existed so that Rio Grande now exists as vice versa.

Cammy: Tea might be a better choice of beverage, but I know Mary can accommodate that at the Spacial Anomaly, so, yes, definitely.  Of all the behind-the-camera people in film, past or present, he is one whose brain I’d most like to pick.  He has such a fantastic list of credits and they have held up over time.  There’s a style and a pace to his work such that you know without ever seeing the credits that you’re watching a John Ford film.  If it’s not those long shots of Monument Valley, Utah, or the appearance of one of the group of actors who were often known as the “John Ford Stock Company”, it’s the lighting or the use of music.  And then there are the actors.  It was Ford’s work that catapulted so many careers, not the least of which was John Wayne.  And how appropriate that such a painfully Irish-American director (though, he was apt to lie and tell you he was born in Ireland) should do the most brilliant job of highlighting Maureen O’Hara.  That consistent “Stock Company” that followed him from film to film is not only a list of impressive actors, it also tells me that there must have been something special about how Ford worked with them, that they would come back again and again.  He wasn’t above making westerns when they were among the cheapest and least artistically inclined types of films available, but he turned them into something more than merely entertaining.  He raised the bar on the whole genre (you don’t believe me?  Watch The Searchers).  And even though the last of the Cavalry trilogy (Rio Grande) was made only to ensure financing for the pet project Ford really wanted to make (The Quiet Man), he still parlayed it into a fantastic film that remains one of my favorite westerns.  I’d love to get his two-cents on the current state of films–from the use of technology, to the way the business is run, to the general styles and genres available.
And after I’ve had my fill of his wisdom on film?  Then I just want to listen to him bull-shit like a good Irishman.  And for all this I need Kristy as my co-pilot here because lord knows the man would be less likely to tell me to get lost if I had someone legitimately Irish along for the ride here.

Kristy: Um… sure.  I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about the John Ford cannon as Cammy is, but what I know I like.  And like Cammy, I’d like to hear what he thinks about film these days.  And hell, film in his day.  I’d love to hear what his “standard of excellence” is–what he thinks makes a good film.  I just hope he doesn’t get too detailed on the Irish American stuff.  I may look like a cast off from Riverdance, but my family’s been in this country a really long time and the extent of our Irish Americanness is our pasty complexions and a few strange speech patterns they have strangely preserved.  I never even had corned beef and cabbage till I was living with Cammy.

But anyway, a chance to have coffee or tea or something stronger with a legend like John Ford?  No way I could turn that down.