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I just rewatched "The Quiet Man" for the first time in years. It is visual poetry, and takes you back in time to an Ireland that well, may never have been--but you wish you could have visited anyway.

One thing bothered me. There was obviously a lot of 2nd unit shooting in Ireland (and maybe elsewhere) with stand ins for John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Okay. But the blending of these scenes with too obvious rear-projection shots, especially around the horse racing scenes (indoor for outdoor), really cut the mood. The lighting match ups didn't seem very effective either; I guess that was hard to do in the Technicolor of 1952.

Why did John Ford do this? To patch in post-production continuity shots for the film? A need for financial economy? Did they run out of money? (This was a Republic film, not exactly MGM's back lot.)

The great strength of this film is its lyrical imagery--not the story. The film shows John Ford's deep roots in the silent era. Therefore, it's puzzling.The stagy indoor work cuts the film down a notch.

John Ford was sick for that sequence and John Wayne directed.

Bob

I think he did it because that's what you did back then. Hitchcock did lots of it too, and even later in the shooting-on-location era. You just took it for granted, as you took for granted that people burst into song in the middle of a conversation in another kind of movie.