Maureen O'Hara Recommendation #2

The Quiet Man (1952; in color)- 2 hrs 9 mins

In technicolor glory, she appears as a kind, spectre-like creature across the misty and verdant Irish hills and valleys. Maureen O’Hara’s Mary Kate Danaher is the last thing that Sean Thornton (John Wayne) expects to find when ex-fighter Sean Thornton (John Wayne) returns from America to his ancestral home. Film critic James Berardinelli remarked of the duo’s five iconic screen pairings that O'Hara was "the perfect match for Wayne" in that "she never allows him to steal a scene without a fight, and occasionally snatches one away from him on her own." Of all of her films, O’Hara would regard The Quiet Man as her personal favorite. “It is the one I am most proud of, and I tend to be very protective of it. I loved Mary Kate Danaher. I loved the hell and fire in her."

Mary Kate may be frequently fought over, but she never lets the men surrounding her have the last word. She’s not just the referee. She is right there, in the ring, fighting her own fights. Sean Thornton may just have to put his boxing gloves back on because she’s a “woman worth fighting with and fighting for.”*