I'd been looking forward to seeing this classic film as it's known to be heart-warming and funny. But it really turned me off to see the lovely Maureen O'Hara's character (literally) dragged and pushed around by John Wayne's Thornton character. I know one has to make allowances for "unevolved attitudes" in films made long ago, but the coarseness of her treatment was really objectionable. It spoiled the film for me.
An gabh thu tuilleadh?
It's interesting that McClintock! -- a generally plotless/pointless film -- ends with Wayne giving O'Hara a public spanking, for no other reason that that he's annoyed with her.
shareYou didn't pay attention to the movie at all, did you?
She was coming back into town after an extended, AND unannounced absence, to seek a divorce for imagined infidelity, and proceeds to make EVERYONE'S life (not just Duke's character) a living hell...
She was impossible to live with, and NEEDED to be knocked down several pegs, as was demonstrated THROUGHOUT the movie, which, BTW, was based on the Shakespearean play "The Taming of the Shrew," set in this case, as a western.
The plot was plain to see, as was the POINT of the entire endeavor.
This is why your comments about the film being "plotless/pointless" makes absolutely NO sense.
I don't act...I react. John Wayne
Standing up to one's wife shouldn't involve breaking into her room, chasing her around town in her underwear, and giving her a public spanking. Only a brainless, uncivilized brute would behave that way and that's essentially what McLintock and his potential son in law, Devlin Warren (played by Wayne's real life son oddly enough) were.
Even the daughter, Becky, got spanked and roughed around by the man who is supposed to be her love interest! On top of that, Devlin hands McLintock the brush to hit his wife with. Great way to treat your mother in law. Horrible movie with horrible men!
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The movie has not yet been made that displays women in a better light than Maureen O'Hara does in this movie. She lights up every scene she's in and radiates an energy, strength and joy I have never seen anywhere else. The shots of her running and vaulting over green hills are energising and invigorating, and make one thank God for the talents of movie makers and actors.
Maureen brings this energy and sheer MOXIE to the dragging scene, although she seems to be the "victim". At no point does she seem distressed - she fights and resists all the way (rather than burst into tears) and, when they get to their destination she is not cowed but still up for the fight. Her character does not see herself as a victim, why should we? She sees herself as temporarily overpowered by Sean's sheer brute strength, but she is never beaten. I bet that after the cameras stopped rolling, Mary Kate continued to give as good as she got in that alternate universe they existed in.
Well put.
Maureen O'Hara is a true man's idea of what a true woman should look and act like. Her spirit is indomitable.
But she is feminine to the core. And Wayne, for all his "John Wayneness" is a man's man.
Too bad our 21st century sensibilities not only want to obfuscate rather than glorify the differences of the sexes, they want to pound into submission anyone who would dare suggest there are such differences to be reveled in.
Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H.L. Mencken
Too bad our 21st century sensibilities not only want to obfuscate rather than glorify the differences of the sexes, they want to pound into submission anyone who would dare suggest there are such differences to be reveled in.
Brennan-8, I agree. I found those scenes objectionable, too. Sean was upset about the opponent he had killed in anger (he mentioned that he couldn't box an opponent without being mad), but had no qualms about manhandling a woman. And that is not the only film Wayne manhandled O'Hara in, either. There is the spanking scene in 'McClintock' which, if I remember correctly, ends with him dumping her in a water trough.
O'Hara's public persona was that of a strong woman, but according to her autobiography, she did allow herself to be dominated in her private life.
I could be a morning person if morning happened at noon.
John Ford failed to anticipate the whingeing of 21st century snowflakes when he made "The Quiet Man".
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