"There'll be no locks or bolts between us Mary Kate,
except those in your own mercenary little heart."
Release date:May 12, 1952, 129 minutes
Director: John Ford
Cast Includes:
Synopsis:
Sean Thornton (John Wayne), an American prize-fighter returns to the village of Inisfree to settle down following his killing of a man in the ring. Peace is all he wants but with the purchase of White O'Mornin', the cottage where he was born, his troubles begin.
Burly Red Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen), the village bully who has plenty of land, covets that particular piece because it adjoins that of the rich widow Tillane (Mildren Natwick), whom he also covets.
Then Sean meets and falls in love with Danaher's pretty sister, Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara),
and the villagers gleefully wait for the fireworks. But they are sadly disappointed. Aided by
the local priest, Father Lonergan (Ward Bond), and one Michaeleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald),
who acts as the village marriage broker when he isn't making book on the horses. Sean gets
White O'Mornin' and he also gets Mary Kate without a single blow being exchanged.
The wedding is a charming affair that promises a bit of action when Danaher refuses to pay Mary Kate's rightful dowry, but again Sean avoids a fight. White O'Mornin' is the scene of a honeymoon without love and filled with taunts and recriminations over Sean's cowardice and fear to fight Red Will for what is Mary Kate's, the dowry.
Under the taunts of his bridge and the prompting of the villagers, Sean makes up his mind, but not before Mary Kate has left him and boarded the train for Dublin. Angry now and moved to action, Sean arrives on the double quick, yanks Mary Kate from the train, literally drags her across the station platform and heads afoot, straight for the Danaher farm.
When Sean hurls Mary Kate at her brother's feet, yelling, "no dowry, no marriage!" Danaher, for the first time is at a loss, and shamed before the whole village by the return of his sister, promptly pays the money to Sean. That is one thing, but when Sean tosses the money into a nearby kiln, that is quite another. White with rage Red Will throws a ham-like fist into Sean's face.
And the fight is on!! From Danaher's farm it ebbs and flows across the fields, over the meadows,
through the brooks and takes its first breather in the village itself in a bar where combatants and
onlookers alike have a bit of a refresher.
New wagers are laid and the second round begin when Sean knocks Red Will through the side wall of the pub. Over the cobbled streets of Inisfree the fight sways back and forth until both fall exhausted and unconquered, but with a new respect for each other. At last, peace and quiet comes to Inisfree and to Sean and his bridge, Mary Kate, and their love nest, White O'Morning'.
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