Forgive me if I don't come from a place of authority on tonight's midnight movie kiss. The Quiet Man was released twenty years before I was born, and I tend to watch classic movie marathons that don't feature Tractor Supply Company ads during commercials. But it is The Duke, and in some realms he's as sacred as chocolate and MacGyver is around here, so I gave this movie kiss the benefit of the doubt.
For context, John Wayne plays Sean Thornton, a man with a dark past who returns to Ireland to reclaim his homestead. While there, he begins a tumultuous relationship with a poor maiden, portrayed by Maureen O'Hara.
In the kiss-fandom arena this scene polarizes people. Some rank it with Casablanca and Gone with the Wind and herald its coveted place in romantic film history. I'd like to have those women to dinner. Over a mandarin pecan salad, we'd discuss exactly which part excites them: the category four hurricane blowing outside the thatched hut or the drunk, animalistic noise that erupts from John Wayne to set the mood. Quiet man, indeed. Aside from the Rick Astley overcoat(again with that-a prevalent costuming choice for heroes in kiss scenes), and the homage to a romance novel's clinch cover at 1:19, it will go down in my book as the worst movie kiss ever.
After I torment my cats with The Duke's beastly cry one more time.
Someone be the Tony Kornheiser to my Michael Wilbon. I just don't get it.
7 comments:
Well, that weird cry is certainly bizarre. Good kiss, though. I've never seen this movie but I've seen the kiss.
I'm sorry I think the only thing John Wayne needed to kiss was his horse as he beat down the bad guys. Same with Gene Autrey...Eastwood may have gotten away with not kissing his horse but then I doubt he is caught in to many situations where he needs to lock lips. ha ha ha haha
I would have kissed John Wayne.
You know what I like - the kisses that never happened. Like in The Searchers - you know the way his sister-in-law folds the coat of the John Wayne character - there is a kiss there somewhere...
Hmm, yeah. I don't get the allure of this one. And you could almost see the wind machine behind the door...
Charles...I think the kiss is more famous than the movie, for obvious reasons.
Walking man...I suppose for some notoriously tough guys, it would soften their characters too much to see them in a lip lock. Maybe that's why John Wayne had to show her who's boss in this one. Blech.
Miladysa...I think I might have, too, had that been my generation. I've never seen the Searchers.
Marilyn...I'm sure they had dry eyeballs for a week.
Wow--I'm loving the Seven Midnights of Kisses. Great concept!
And regardless of how...blech...this kiss is, I just can't see any scene with John Wayne as the romantic hero in it. You could put him in The Mummy and I'd retreat. (Same with Jack Nicholson, but that's another story.)
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