Victor Young conducts his score for "The Quiet Man"

Name a John Wayne film that isn't a Western and you will surely come up with "The Quiet Man," a film from 1952 and directed by John Ford. The film stars John Wayne as an American boxer with a violent past who comes to his mother's native land, the country known as Ireland. The rest of the cast is filled out with Maureen O'Hara, as Irish a woman as one can get, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. The entire film has John Wayne as the fish totally out of his element with customs vs. privately held beliefs. Throughout this film is a gentle whimsy which is part and parcel of the Irish psychological make-up which is a very real identity. Victor Young looked on his score for this movie as his best, saying that it was amazing that a Jewish boy could write such idiomactically correct Irish music. The end theme of this picture holds this up with its evocative use of bagpipes leading into the final coda. However, there are other quotations coming from Victor Young's inventive pen as well. All in all, the music by Young makes this an more enjoyable film with beautiful color photography bringing the Emerald Isle right into our hearts.