For years I avoided watching The Quiet Man. WPIX played it every St Paddy's Day and by the time Sean Thornton showed up in Innisfree, I was usually heading for the kitchen to clean the oven or do something equally entertaining. I hated John Wayne back then. I hated his movies. I thought he was a lumbering, strange-looking, no-talent actor and that The Quiet Man perfectly showcased all of those qualities.
And then on St. Patrick's Day 1980 I fell in love. I don't know if I'd opened my mind to the movie or to the man, but suddenly The Quiet Man became one of my all-time favorites. I loved the theme, the scenery, the wonderful faces of those character actors in the supporting cast, but mostly I loved John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. I loved seeing strength pitted against strength. I loved the way she gave as good as she got in every situation and hung onto the things she believed defined her as a woman and as a wife. I loved (and still love) the scene in the doorway of the rose-covered cottage with the storm outside and within, the wind tangling both her hair and her emotions. She pulls away from John Wayne but he doesn't let go of her wrist. I see them, caught almost in a dance move of exquisite tension and possibilities, There is between them love and respect and desire that went deeper than reason. It's a lusty, bawdy, funny and touching movie and I almost missed it.
What was it about The Quiet Man that revealed itself to me that day that had eluded me all the times that had come before? You see, I have a theory about how certain movies turn into beloved gotta-buy-the-DVD favorites and it has to do with timing. It's a lot like love at first sight. On another day you might very well have turned away from the love of your life and wandered aimlessly and alone across the romantic horizon for the rest of your life. Same way with movies. (And with books, for that matter.) You need a serendipitous blend of mood and atmosphere and magic to turn an okay movie into one of your personal never-fail favorites.
Don't laugh, but that's how Animal House ended up near the top of my Can't Miss List of Favorites. I was in a rotten PMS mood the night The Husband and I went off to see Animal House during the summer of 1978. And to make it worse, I was retaining water. You could've used me as a buoy in the Great South Bay. After supper (which I skipped in favor of mass quantities of chocolate brownies) The Husband suggested we take in a movie. Animal House was playing at the theatre next to the bowling alley. I said I'd rather be strapped to my seat and forced to watch a Clint Eastwood Festival than go see Animal House but it was a miserably hot and humid night and the thought of air conditioning finally lured me out the door.
So there I was thirty minutes later, slumped down in my seat, determined to hate the movie with every fiber of my being. But to my surprise I didn't hate it. I loved it. I laughed until I cried. I loved Flounder and Bluto and Otter and Boone and Katie and every other idiotic character. I fell out of my seat when they trashed the new applicants to Delta. "Toga! Toga! Toga!" became my mantra. If Belushi had arched his brow in my direction that night I might have run away with him.
I've often thought that the manuscript buying process in publishing is a whole lot like Delta's screening process for pledges. Flash a manuscript page on a screen and watch overworked, underpaid editors throw crushed beer cans in its general direction. First editor to score a direct hit with a crushed can of Coors gets to make the live-or-die pass-or-buy decision.
You have no idea how much I love that image.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
--Dean Wormer, Animal House
